Yes, installing an unsupported OS will void your warranty. However, you can restore the original OS before making your warranty claim. Where you can get into trouble is if you have a warranty-covered problem that disables your ability to restore the original OS. Say your USB connector fell out. That's a warranty-covered problem, but you can't restore the OS without it. Now you're stuck.
JeffH is this true? I have not had an issue returning a device with a non-carrier supported OS in it. Also other users here in the forums have returned their devices with upgraded OS versions on them with no problems. Is there somewhere in the phone agreements that says it voids the warranty that I am not aware of? Does it depend on your carrier as to whether or not the warranty gets void? Since the OS comes from RIM and it is a RIM device, I'm really not sure I understand why the warranty would get void.
You make good points. Since I have not returned one, I don't have any personal experience. What I wrote is based on reading user reports in the forums. There's certainly room for interpretation. Carrier customer service people don't provide support to unsupported OS's by definition. And a beta OS is not officially released by RIM, either. So RIM would certainly be within their rights to refuse to accept under warranty a unit with a stolen OS on it. I use the world "stolen" deliberately, not because I disagree with people leaking beta OS's (I'm not the Beta police), but because that's a legitimate interpretation of a leaked beta from RIM's perspective.
Yes I definitely agree with you on the Beta OS versions. Those are always "use at your own risk" only, as with anything Beta.
I don't think there is a problem with Officially released OS versions, regardless of the carrier that offers it. You just will not get support from your carrier, as you mentioned, since their techs are only trained on the OS versions they have already approved. I think if someone is paranoid or doesn't want to deal with any questions by a CS rep they can be sure to revert back to the OS the phone came with before returning it and/or sending it in for service.
I believe beta OS(s) do void your warranty. But not an official release from the company. Even if you return a phone, I don't think they purposely look for what OS you have.
IMO Beta OSs are in the wild because RIM has completed the first round of test and want to expand to a larger test and then monitor these types of sites.
I don't think they would void the warranty over the OS
Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
