(b) nothing he could do about it anyway until he got it back to Germany and could contact support about the problem.

Well, I wouldn't go back to Germany. I will move to the U.S. in summer to stay there, to live there, to work there. It's called immigration (or emigration, depending on your point of view) ;-). So, for a warranty claim I would have to ship the player over the big pond to the UK.

Say, do they do all servicing in the UK only, even a hard drive upgrade?

Georg