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Five out of nine iPhone 5s have non-working power/standby button

C

celo48

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 9, 2010
669
206
I bought nine phones for the whole family. Five of them have bad power buttons.

I was at my brother's b-day party last week. Thirteen people had iPhones. Eight iPhone 5s, five iPhone 4s. Four iPhone 5s had non-working power/stand-by buttons. Two iPhone 4s had non-working home buttons.

My brother bought the new HTC One, he loves it. Others are talking about getting different phones. I am still thinking to buy the next iPhone but if I have the same problem again with the new iPhone 5s/6, then I am sure I will not buy iPhone again.

All were purchased brand spanking new from an Apple Store/Apple.com

What's up with this? Why cannot they make quality phones anymore? I think iPhone 3s were the best ones as far as quality goes.
 
I find this extremely hard to believe.... you must have a defective batch. Why not return them for new devices. shouldn't be an issue at all for them to exchange them for new ones.
 
rockitdog said:
I find this extremely hard to believe.... you must have a defective batch. Why not return them for new devices. shouldn't be an issue at all for them to exchange them for new ones.
Click to expand...

Believe it. I thought about the bad batch but what about the other people at the party. I did not buy their phones. I only bought nine and I know five of them including mine has bad power button.
 
One out of three in our family had a bad power button, but mine, the one that went, was easily replaced by Apple. Not really a huge problem.
 
Perhaps your familly are carriers of the "lead-finger" gene. ;)

... jk ... seriously, why not just get them replaced? Apple will mail you a replacement for free, with a free prepaid return box, as long as you're still under warantee. What's the big deal?
 
I bought 120 iPhone 5 devices for a contracted job for a client. None of them had any "defective" buttons. One had a dud battery but it took 5 mins to swap it out at the Apple Store since it was inside the 30 day return policy.

I must have really good luck or the OP must have really bad luck and so do his friends.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
 
Just get them replaced, what's the big deal? :confused:You wouldn't want to know the hardware problems HTC One owners are facing (and if you rather would-check the forums at xda-dev), but their support is really levels below what Apple is offering. You can't just walk in an HTC store (are there any?) and get a new phone, there is paperwork, waiting times (weeks), questions about rooting etc.

Technology, especially when it's produced in tens of millions of units tends to fail, that's why there is that warranty.

For example I had the Galaxy S3 some time ago, and one fine morning after an year of usage it just died. Well, after doing some research it turned out, that all GS3 were shipped with faulty chipsets which started to die after about an year of moderate usage. Forums are filled with people complaining about it, some are even refused service under the pretense, that their device was rooted.And Samsung never said a word about the problem.:mad:
 
celo48 said:
I bought nine phones for the whole family. Five of them have bad power buttons.

I was at my brother's b-day party last week. Thirteen people had iPhones. Eight iPhone 5s, five iPhone 4s. Four iPhone 5s had non-working power/stand-by buttons. Two iPhone 4s had non-working home buttons . . . .
Click to expand...

That's really bad.

My 4S power button is on the way out too. Just before I was about to sell it for the 5S (providing they've addressed the cheap anodisation).

As for the lack of quality, it's all in pursuit of the profit $$$$$$
 
My wife's power button stopped working, took it to the apple store and they gave her a new phone, no questions asked. Took all of five minutes.
 
davdchai said:
My wife's power button stopped working, took it to the apple store and they gave her a new phone, no questions asked. Took all of five minutes.
Click to expand...

That's fine if you're still under warranty (or Apple Care) but if you're slightly out like me, you have to pay for a repair.

That wouldn't be an issue if it were a relatively isolated incident, but if you search the web you'll find there are many complaints about this, including a California lawsuit in progress.
 
Eh. When I had my 3G, the power button went within a week. My 4s button broke within 3 months but haven't had a problem since the exchange. I have the 5 now and I've had to replace it twice for the power button. It's been 4 months now but still going strong. I've had bad luck with my sleep button but I know people who has never had a problem with theirs. I've also had an htc hd2, and I've lost count how many times I had to exchange it because one thing broke after another. The difference is that I could exchange iPhones on the spot at one of their stores as compared to htc, I had to mail it in each time.

You gotta realize that they pump out thousands of phones per hour and it's hard to quality control every unit. But that's why there are warranties to protect us as consumers. Apple will happily exchange it for you, so why don't you exchange it for a working phone unless you are truly unhappy with it.
 
celo48 said:
I bought nine phones for the whole family. Five of them have bad power buttons.

I was at my brother's b-day party last week. Thirteen people had iPhones. Eight iPhone 5s, five iPhone 4s. Four iPhone 5s had non-working power/stand-by buttons. Two iPhone 4s had non-working home buttons.

My brother bought the new HTC One, he loves it. Others are talking about getting different phones. I am still thinking to buy the next iPhone but if I have the same problem again with the new iPhone 5s/6, then I am sure I will not buy iPhone again.

All were purchased brand spanking new from an Apple Store/Apple.com

What's up with this? Why cannot they make quality phones anymore? I think iPhone 3s were the best ones as far as quality goes.
Click to expand...

If you clearly have a hardware problem I'm confused why you wouldn't replace it.
 
They are talking about switching platforms due to hardware problems when they can just go exchange one for a free one? Really? As far as quality control goes, iphone is prob the best to go with especially with how easy it is to get it fixed or changed under warranty. I would never switch over to a different company due to quality control issues if I'm coming from Apple.
 
4 out of 4 iPhones in my family have working power/stand-by buttons. (2 iPhone 5, 1 iPhone 4 and 1 iPhone 4S)
 
7 Verizon iPhones since they came out - 3 iPhone 4's - 2 iPhone 4S's - 2 iPhone 5's - nary a worm in any of them - the worst thing that ever happened was when one of the OS updates destroyed my battery life - the next update fixed it. I will say that none of them were ever dropped - we do take good care of our $700 products (that's what I tell my son about his 5 - that he is holding a $700 item and he better be careful with it, because it won't get replaced any time soon if he does something dumb with it)
 
They seem to have gotten the home button right, hopefully power button will be problem-free soon as well
 
Well, the problem is I took them overseas (I will get mine replaced soon) and Apple cannot do anything about them since there are other distributors bringing the iPhone.

I still do think this is a big BS on Apple's side regardless they replace your phone or not. Think about it; you buy your phone and leave the US for a job for 6 months. You are out of luck (using the phone without the power button is very annoying) because they don't replace/repair under the warranty in the country you are in. "Go have it replaced" seems like not a good option if you are not in the US at the time.
 
In other news, studies show 97.3% of statistics are made up.


I feel like you got a bad batch OP. Quality control may be declining but not that much.
 
Like I said before, maybe I got a bad batch which I think I got half at a different day. I got mine from Apple.com one month later than the other eight phones purchase, TOTALLY from a different batch. Let's say I got a bad batches but what about others, they did too? A rare coincidence if you ask me.

I will still buy an iPhone next but if I have a problem again within 5 months, then no more for me.
 
Last edited:
celo48 said:
. . .

I will still buy an iPhone next but if I have a problem again within 5 months, then no more for me.
Click to expand...

I think there are a growing number of people who feel that way.

Apple has never been as criticised in the media since the launch of the iPhone as they have been over the past few months. The stock market position reflects both the lack of recent innovations and the drop in quality.

Apple needs to right the balance of quality and profit and do it quickly.
 
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