This post was published 9 years, 3 months ago. Due to the rapidly evolving world of technology, some material it contains may no longer be applicable.
Today is a sad day. I have owned a number of Android devices over the years and hold a particular affinity for the Nexus line of devices. However after just under 15 months of service my 32GB WiFi Nexus 7 (2013) has had a complete internal memory failure.
Yesterday it ran like the best 7 inch tablet in the world. Today it is a paper weight. The screen, buttons, speakers etc are all fine but the eMMC is gone.
I tried to turn it on this morning and it got stuck on the Google logo. Surprised, I initially thought it was weird but assumed it would be non-serious and a reset would fix it. However, I was wrong.
It couldn’t be booted into Android or recovery and while I could still access the bootloader, it could not be wiped or flashed with anything through fastboot as any attempt to do so gave a write error. It was then I realised the extent of the issue. My initial reaction is probably best summed up in below image.
The internal storage has completely given up – something which to repair will call for a full logicboard replacement, setting me back almost the price of a new device even if I fit it myself.
This is a serious and unprovoked hardware failure. Anyone who knows me will know I take impeccable care of my devices. This Nexus 7 has been babied. It has never had a drop or been exposed to high temperatures or water or even a particularly humid environment. It looks exactly as it did when it came out of the box and so I would expect it to work like it too! I have had no issues with even my oldest devices such as the original HTC Dream/G1 (2008) or my Nexus One (2010) over the years and so I certainly would not expect them from this much newer device with the same (if not better) treatment.
It is a real shame because the Nexus 7 has long since been one of our favourite devices here at Little Green Dude and we know many of you guys are owners of one too. Everyone of us in the team here bar one owns at least one Nexus 7 and this is the first real failure with had with them so I might be able to somewhat forgive this issue if Asus are willing to replace the device. However, if they expect me to shell out my money for repair or replacement after such a poor premature failure then that could really impact how easily I could continue to recommended the Nexus 7 to others (and by extension, other Asus devices).
When it works, the Nexus 7 (2013) is a fantastic device. But no device should fail like this after such a short time. I don’t have a lot of money as a student and I use this device daily both for entertainment and for work at uni so this is a real blow for me.
I have contacted Asus regarding the matter so we’ll have to see what they come back with. The device is now obviously just outside its 12 month warranty window but this is still far from acceptable and so I hope they will be willing to offer some kind of resolution to this situation. I’ll update this post when I hear back from them either way.
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