Dust inside the camera lens, that too in a smartphone of a company like Motorola. Slow claps! What else can one say.
Right after the Moto G5s Plus launched (August 2017), buyers started highlighting (1,2,3) an all together weird hardware manufacturing glitch. After being used for few days, dust/dirt accumulates on the inner side of the rear camera lens (as can be seen in the following user shared screenshots), which ends up ruining the picture quality.
A quick go through the following user comments will give you an idea about how frustrated those affected are:
4 days with this phone and dust particles have been put into the camera lens, how is this possible in a “phone resistant to dust and water”?
my lens has the same amount of dust, only on the right lens, this problem is unacceptable, I will not buy another motorola device again, definitely
HELLO MOTO , YOU CERTAINLY HAVE DESIGN FLAW RELATED TO YOUR CAMERA ……. IST QUALITY…2ND HOW DUST GETS ACCUMULATED WITHIN 12 DAYS OF PURCHASING YOUR PRODUCT INTO CAMERA…3RD WHY YOU DONT PROVIDE ANTI SCRATH LENS FOR CAMERA WHEN ITS BACK IS RAISED …. THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE BY EVEN IN CHEAP CHINA PRODUCT
I own a Moto g5s plus and I got Dust in the camera lens and the camera picture quality is really poor so I wanted to know if I can return my phone in warranty.
Take a look at some of the recent reports from micro-blogging site Twitter:
https://twitter.com/shantmittal/status/983445165636554752
https://twitter.com/Vivek30Anchal/status/979973230025953281
https://twitter.com/BhuyanSaurabh/status/967151216970031104
https://twitter.com/vetri5343/status/966997870967537664
https://twitter.com/NasserRaihana/status/965876309313245185
https://twitter.com/BharatBharech/status/958273666671767552
It’s worth mentioning that G5s Plus doesn’t have an official dust-proof rating, but that certainly doesn’t justify a problem of this magnitude.
User diagnosis
Those affected speculate that it’s the cavity above the camera from where dust enters the rear lens area (as can be seen in the following image).
That said, now lets take a look at what the company has been telling the complainants.
What Motorola says
Couple of MotoAgents have been actively involved on the forum thread where the matter is being discussed till date, and here’s what they have been telling complainants from time to time:
October (2017)
We are looking into it
If you have dust in the camera lens, please submit your phone for repair — this is fully covered under warranty.
I know this situation with the dust buildup in the camera can be really frustrating. We are aware of this concern and we recommend that you process a service/repair request at your local Motorola center.
March (2018)
We recommend submitting your phone for repair. The repair centers are equipped to correct this problem. If you encounter a repair center that does not know how to fix this issue OR if the issue continues even after repair, please send an email to [email protected] with your contact details, name and location of the service center, job sheet information (if any) and a brief description of what happened with the service. We will properly escalate it to the concerned team.
If the issue continues even after repair, please send an email to [email protected] with your contact details, name and location of the service center, job sheet information (if any) and a brief description of what happened with the service. We will properly escalate it to the concerned team.
We recommend submitting your phone for repair. The repair centers are equipped to correct this problem. If you encounter a repair center that does not know how to fix this issue, please post the location and name of that center and we will reach out to them. Here’s the link to locate the one nearest you: http://motorola-mobility-en-in.custhelp.com/app/mcp/trackrepair2
Repair no permanent fix
Sadly, turns out getting the device repaired isn’t a permanent fix, as users say the same problem creeps in again after some time.
Same problem here after 7 days of purchase in October dust accumulated .Went to service center cleaned sone how .Again dust penetrated inside it how many times in a year I have to visit your service center for you fault
I purchased the Moto g5s plus in January 2018 , since then I’ve got it repaired 5 times and replaced the phone’s camera (all within 2.5 months) for the same problem – accumulation of dust from inside the camera glass
Meanwhile, the only solution that worked for at least one user was replace the metal back of their unit.
Conclusion
It’s surprising the way Motorola has been dealing with hundreds of Moto G5s Plus buyers complaining about dust in the camera lens. They should at least come up with an effective solution to fix the problem from root rather than bothering users every now and then. We hope the company takes up the matter seriously, and does the needful to fix things up.
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