I few months back, I bought a Nokia 5100 from GSM Phone Source. The phone he sold me came from Europe (complete with a continental European power adapter, but an English-language manual). Well, the phone's been misbehaving a lot lately. You'll try to make a call and it will reboot itself right there in your hands. Other times, you'll just get a short sine-wave tone for a few seconds or until you hit the hang-up button. Then it will reboot. Once it gets into one of these "moods", nothing will fix it, not power cycling, etc. However, later on, sometimes at a different physical location, it will work great.

This could be a software problem or a hardware problem. Unfortunately, Nokia USA will not honor the warranty of the phone since it's not sold in the U.S. There's a local "official" Nokia repair shop that is apparently authorized to do software upgrades and to repair the microphone/speaker parts of the phone. What I think it might need is an upgraded RF section, which is, of course, beyond what they can do locally.

Now, I'm going to be in Belgium briefly on business this week (giving talks at the Belgium Java User's Group and K.U. Leuven). Would a European phone shop be able to do better than their American peers? I obviously don't have time for them to ship the phone off for repairs and wait for it to come back. Is there any chance my European warranty might be useful for me? Could I get a shop to upgrade the software without charging me?

Would I need to be in the country where the phone was originally purchased? The sticker says it was made in Germany, but that's not terribly helpful. And, the GSM Phone Source dude has been singularly unhelpful.

Would a European phone shop be able to do better than their American peers? I obviously don't have time for them to ship the phone off for repairs and wait for it to come back.

The local shop here (Amsterdam) does overnights, but only in special cases - and they do it by sending you directly to the repair shop.

Is there any chance my European warranty might be useful for me?

There is a chance, yes.

Could I get a shop to upgrade the software without charging me?

Possibly. Worked for me.

Would I need to be in the country where the phone was originally purchased?

Only if it is a country-specific model.

The local shop here (Amsterdam) does overnights, but only in special cases

Presumably, I could find a similar shop in Brussels. I'm concerned that I'll be unable to demonstrate the problem to them and they'll just say "worked for us". For all I know, the problem only occurs when using the U.S. GSM frequency. Still, it's worth a shot, I suppose.

Hmm....

For all I know, the problem only occurs when using the U.S. GSM frequency

Ouch! That's a tricky one!

This is a list of official Nokia Service points in Belgium.

All the addresses under the header "Brabant" are either in Brussels or in close proximity of Brussels. Maybe you can phone (one of) those shops and explain your problem to them and they'll most likely be able to help you.

If you want to know beforehand if they'll be able to help you, you could try and email them. The email addresses of the shops are also on the list I provided.

Good luck!

That's very helpful. I'm taking the list with me and I'll see which of these places I can manage to visit while I'm there.

The fun never ends. We stopped at a local Brussels Nokia service point. They tried upgrading my software but ran into some weird problems ("we couldn't load one of the files" -- huh?). So, they've still got my phone and will hopefully get it all sorted out. There may or may not additionally be some kind of hardware fault.

If the conclusion is that they need to send the phone to Nokia, there's a ten-day turn-around time on that, meaning I would have to ask one of my friends here to pick up the phone and ship it back to me in the U.S.

*sigh*