Handsets

Every HTC One M9 owner to get one free replacement for water damage, cracked screen, or switching carriers

65

Here’s everything you need to know about the HTC One M9 | Talk about it at AndroidForums.

HTC One M9 DSC08389

HTC’s big HTC One M9 news today wasn’t about a release date or price as we’d all thought and hoped, but it is pretty big. As we’d heard yesterday, the company has officially announced “Uh-Oh Protection,” a new guarantee that nets you a free overnight HTC One M9 replacement in the event of a cracked screen, water damage or the unfortunate hassle of switching carriers.

HTC UH OH Protection provides consumers who damage their new HTC One M9 with an untimely fall onto the pavement or into a toilet with a free phone replacement within 12 months of purchase. Consumers who don’t take advantage of UH OH Protection within the first 12 months will receive $100 towards the purchase of a future HTC One.

Screen Shot 2015-03-18 at 1.23.56 PM

There aren’t many strings attached, though there are a couple of things to note:

  • To get your replacement overnight, you’ll need to offer up a credit card number for HTC to put a $300 hold on. You know, just in case you’re trying to pull a fast one on them.
  • You can also opt for a more traditional replacement approach where they send your new smartphone out the moment they receive your damaged one.
  • The offer is US-only for now, unfortunately.

All it takes is a quick call to 866-449-8358 or a chat with HTC’s customer service reps online in order to get you on your way. This is a huge offer that most other companies ask you to fork over $100 or more for (and that’s not even including a costly deductible that might drive that cost up even further).

Is HTC trying to become the “Un-manufacturer?” Between this and everything else that comes as part of the HTC Advantage it certainly seems that way. Other OEMs should do well to take note. HTC is holding an event and live Q&A with customers in regards to the announcement in Seattle later today, and you can watch along right here starting at 9am Pacific:

Quentyn Kennemer
The "Google Phone" sounded too awesome to pass up, so I bought a G1. The rest is history. And yes, I know my name isn't Wilson.

The Verizon logo comes off the Nexus 6 so easily, there’s no reason to b*tch about it

Previous article

Google Play might soon disclose whether an app shares your data with third-parties

Next article

You may also like

65 Comments

  1. Clearly I should have waited for the m9 instead of the Z3

    1. Sony offers the same thing when you buy the phone from Sony Store.I think its $80 bucks though for 2 years..protects against drops,breaks, malfunctions.. Just as this an offer when you buy from HTC themselves..

      1. HTC specifically stated is doesn’t matter where you buy the phone.

  2. It’s good they offer an incentive for those who don’t claim during the 12 month period otherwise they’d be receiving a lot of “accidental damage” just shy of people’s 12 month period.

    1. That depends if people are looking to buy another phone after 12 months. $100 of a $600 or $700 dollar phone still leaves a hefty chunk to pay after shelling out that much only a year before.

      1. But it doesn’t say when they have to purchase their next HTC One. It could be 2 years after. Depends on the small print

      2. They address that on the video… the $100 is good from 12-24 months after purchase, so if you bought on a 2 year contract, you can use the $100 credit at the end of the contract for your upgrade.

  3. I hope they expand this offer to other countries. This could prove quite a popular scheme I think.

  4. I know it’s not as common, but the carrier switch seems like a pretty generous offer on their part.

    1. Except that some of the carrier promotion plans require you to buy or lease the phone from them.

  5. I think this is a great way to gain buyers and create a good of building a relationship with future buyers by actually working with them AFTER they purchase a phone instead of getting someone to buy it, then disappearing from existence.

  6. that is a great idea to get people to buy your products, the only negative i see is dealing with one of the worst customer service around that is HTC CUSTOMER SERVICE.

    1. is it that bad?? I’ve actually never had to call a manufacturer…

      1. YES THEY ARE BAD!

    2. They are better than Samsung…

      1. I do not agree with you at all, i have many Samsung products at my house and when ever i had any issue they have been able to take care of it on a timely manner, and with HTC i can’t say the same.

        1. My experience with Samsung is different than yours. For years I have purchased Samsung electronics whenever it was an option, they have no concern for loyal customers. As I stated though, that is my experience.

        2. everything is perception. if you are already biased against someone or something, you will always see anything that they do in a negative light, no matter how good they are. its simple human nature.

    3. I RMA’d my M8 through HTC soon after I got it due to a blown speaker. They cross shipped me a brand new M8 overnight and I shipped them my old one back when I got it. No issues whatsoever.

  7. Love the damage replacement, but don’t most carrier’s give huge discounts or free phones anyway when you switch??? Would probably be better off selling the phone and just take the carrier incentive for switching. I think it would be smart for HTC to offer an extension of this plan for a fee as well, Motocare, Sony care type plan.

    1. Discount or free, after all HTC is actually a dam good company

  8. This is absolutely awesome on htcs part. Might swing me back to them instead of the s6

  9. Wondering how this would affect me on my TMobile Legacy Jump Plan. I will most likely have a new phone in 6 months, but can I still get the $100 credit when I jump again a year from now?

    (Knocking on wood that I didn’t just give myself the Kiss of Death that I will drop/break/destroy it)

  10. Okay, but what about the bad camera, worse screen than the M8, and bad battery life?

    1. LOL, “worse screen than the M8” ??? Um, okay…

      1. http://tweakers.net/reviews/3921/7/htc-one-m9-waar-zijn-de-verbeteringen-scherm-full-hd-op-5-inch.html

        Look at the picture of the 2 phones with pictures of the Eiffel Tower.

        I’ll let you have a guess at which one is the M9.

        1. Man your still not getting it through your head, that was not a final product

          1. So why was htc “okay” with letting reviewers post their review with that non-final product?

            Unless, of course, the non-final product accurately reflected the final product.

          2. This is pretty much the final product. The phone will likely get beaten by the S6 in nearly every aspect, HTC knows it now, and is scrambling to grab market share with these types of offers before it’s too late. Not a Samsung fanboy. I’m a HTC M7 owner with a heat damaged camera sensor (purple haze), who has been with HTC since the Dinc.

          3. Man you think OEMs have control over what reviewers and testers post, dude you better learn something

          4. um you think HTC controls that? I just called HTC to come and remove all these negative comments about overheating. This will be handled shortly.

          5. They are not.

    2. I thought it was the same screen. >.>

  11. Well, I guess if anyone has to drop the phone suddenly to avoid melting their hand, this will come in handy. lol

  12. No over heating damage?

  13. I am thinking that even in case of Carrier Switch HTC will ask you to return your current device and will replace with new one for the new carrier. They cannot afford to act as Santa Claus and keep sending everyone switching carrier a new phone. I wish they would :-P

    1. Yes, they want the old device back. It’s in the video.

  14. i really wish morons would stop talking about the overheating issue – it is not an issue – all phones overheat when running a certain type of benchmark on a pre-release OS/kernel … all of them. get over yourselves

    1. I agree..my Z3 overheats a lot when playing games at Full graphics, GTA, Modern Combat, DT2, etc..plus I’m holding it in my hand….it reaches high temps 133-145°F…..but still keeps on working….

      1. Agreed, even my Nexus 6 reaches extreme temps while playing resource heavy games and apps. its normal. its only not normal because of the excessive hate for HTC and haters looking for anything bad to say about them.

        1. My M8 doesn’t get that hot. My M7 got hotter, though. I believe the thermal “controller” is better on the M8. It being metal as well. It averages around 100-105 degrees F when playing large games, while my M7 would go up to 120-125.

    2. Morons? Really?

      So look… the heat signature tests shown by Tweaker are 5 phones that ran the same test no? Same test. No matter what test, the same test. So apples to apples. And which looks radically different? Remember Sesame Street? One of these things is not like the other? No matter what the test, if you like said test or not, none of that matters if they all ran the same test and if so, I see one MOFO hot phone that stands out like a sore thumb.

      ps – is it any more moronic to believe the claim that that phone is on “prerelease” software…. just because HTC said so??? Please.

      1. could not have said it better

      2. Expect for the fact that when gaming it was 42 C. It is per release software, technobuffelo had a hand on, with an update notification for new software.

      3. It’s not apples to apples until you have the final, release firmware. Prerelease means it’s still being worked on, it probably still has issues.

      4. Which of those others were the S6 or the Flex 2?

        The M9 has far more transistors than the others so one of these things is not like the others indeed.

        In other news, my 2010 Evo regularly hit 124° tethering and a lot of SGS2 phones did actually burn people.

        Any phone can be driven to high temperature. Any phone.

        The real question is, will any of the new phones featuring this many transistors overheat under normal use?

        Maybe. But Chris noted in his comments that he couldn’t get it to do that with 3D gaming.

    3. you sound like you are in fact overheating

  15. This is awesome…so basically your getting FREE peace of mind AND a deep discount for those who want the next new device!!!

    HTC already delivers the Goods and now will up the game in the service department.. Apple will not do this ever..they thrive on profit margins…so taking $100 of a device will cut them deep in their business model…Way to go HTC!!!

    With that said..I’m pretty good with my phones…have yet to ever need a replacement..since my days with the sidekick and BBs..I have always kept my devices in great shape to later sell them..so if I were to take advantage of this.. It would be for the $100 off the M10…

  16. Will they offer free replacement for overheat damages?

    1. God Damn troll.

      1. And how about those batteries that GI bad and cannot be replaced.

        1. After 1000 cycle the battery will lose capacity. That is two years of normal charge. After the first year HTC will give you 100 dollar toward a new HTC one. So what is the issues? Do you have a phone that is more then two year old?

          1. actually batteries begin losing capacity from the very beginning and deteriorate much faster than that but perhaps I should word it in a different way I see that I was not being clear. many of us use our phones all day long unwilling to do the silly little battery saving things like go into power saving mode if I wanted to go into power saving mode I would have bought half a phone instead of a note4 …every phone I’ve ever had I change out my battery halfway through the day so that I don’t have to sit around anf worry about being tethered to the wall or a computer just to be able to use it.

          2. At what percentage do you lose capacity? Many of us have a job where we don’t have time to play on our phone all day. Many battery lose less then 5% capacity after 500 cycle.

          3. Don’t really know the percentage at which things show loss…but the number of hours usble are always rapidly reduced. And thee are many of us who have jobs that requires us to play on our phones all day

          4. Purdue has a table and chart showing that 400-600 cycle a lithium polymer battery can hold 100 capacity. 1 cycle is from zero to 100. That is close two years of use.

  17. To get the $100 off…do I have to trade in my device though? If not, here is what I’m thinking:

    Sell HTC M9 for $350 (it will only be a year old and in mint condition)
    Get $100 dollar discount
    MSRP for HTC M10 ≈$650
    =$200 out of pocket for new device…

    1. No, pretty sure you don’t have to give them your old phone. So yeah, that sounds like a feasible plan. I doubt you’ll get $350 even for a mint M9 though after a year. Looking at M8s right now on Swappa, they’re going for $300-$330 in mint condition.

      1. It’s not gonna be mint, it’s gonna brand new…he’ll drop it and shattered the screen and get a new one =-O…can’t imagine how much this system will be abused

    2. why people insist on actually buying a phone outright is confusing. Paying the monthly device payment then trading it in for the new one is the best. i dont have to worry about some idiot on ebay is going to buy my phone, and dont have to worry about paying $650 for a phone, ever.

      1. A few reasons I buy carrier unlocked. 1.) No carrier Bloatware. 2.) I can take my phone to whichever carrier I’d like. (Nexus 6) 3.) I can resell the phone if I choose to. 4.) It’s not stopping me from taking advantage of any upgrade program with my carrier (Jump T-Mobile) 5.) I actually abhor paying for phones that I no longer have (Still paying device payments on T-Mobile HTC One M8 that I’d already traded in.) 6.) It’s my money. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

        1. Well said, I’ll add one more:
          7) Carrier upgrade programs wind up costing you more than buying upfront and reselling. With Verizon Edge and ATT Next, you essentially pay for each phone twice. T-Mobile’s Jump isn’t as bad, you’re essentially paying for the phone once, but not getting the resell value. You can still do Jump if you buy outright, but there isn’t really an advantage to doing so.

  18. I’ve had htc fix my m8 screen several times their customer service is why I will never buy anything else. HTC is the best!

  19. Needs to be purchased by August 31 to be eligible.

  20. Bah, so sure you get a replacement once… but it also has planned obsolence in the form of an epoxied battery, fragile USB connector, and no wireless charging. So sure you have a decent chance of keeping it for two years, even if you break it. But then you’ll likely have to replace it because the battery or usb port dies. Silly to have to replace a $700 phone to fix a $15 battery.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in Handsets