A post is making the rounds on the /r/Android page of Reddit in which a self-proclaimed employee of AT&T has come out and questioned the ability of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active to actually perform underwater as advertised. As you may already know, the S4 Active has been classified with an IP67 rating which clears it to be submerged for up to 30 minutes, and as many of the advertisements will show, is designed for people to be able to use underwater and take pictures while submerged.
As the story goes, the unnamed employee bought themselves a S4 Active and on several occasions prepared the phone for operation as suggested in their training, then proceeded to try and record a video in a fish tank. Not only did the video fail to record, but the internals of the S4 Active were flooded due to a breach in the USB rubber stopper.
The kicker in this story? Apparently the warranty on the S4 Active (whether offered by AT&T or Samsung is unclear) does not cover water damage. If this story is to believed, this is a huge oversight by the warranty issuer, most likely to be Samsung, which clearly ignores the situation most likely to cause damage from the uses they themselves advertised. On the flip side, allowing this to be included in the warranty could open the doors for every Tom, Dick and Harry to pull out their rubber stopper and dunk their phone in the fish tank.
It’s also got me thinking which of the other waterproof phones on the market aren’t actually covered by their warranty for water damage. Anybody have any experiences with this? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Source: Reddit
