I ordered my Nexus7 within minutes of them being available in the UK and was quite publicly counting the days til it showed up. I love a gadget and I’ve held off replacing my iPad v1 as I was keen to rely less on Apple for my toys and I liked the look of the size of the Nexus7. My Kindle turned out to be the perfect form factor for me out and about (I spend *alot* of time on public transport) so I was very excited about the Nexus7.

It was delivered on Wednesday afternoon – one of the earliest 16gb versions to get shipped from what I can tell. the first problem was it was delivered to a neighbor without even a card being left so I had no idea who had it. Luckily they had spotted me frantically ringing the bell of my upstairs flatmate so popped across the road with it (I’d have never guess it would have been with them!).

I then excitedly opened it up and was immediately impressed. It looked solid and attractive and the weight and dimensions were all that they promised. Then it wouldn’t switch on. I was disappointed but didn’t panic. I grabbed the charger from the box and plugged it in. Still nothing. I was a little worried now but decided to leave it charging for a while. An hour later and it was still dead as a Dodo. Now I was pissed off. I asked a few questions on Twitter but everyone else seemed to be doing fine and did a Google search but with such a new product there wasn’t much help.

So then at 7pm on Wednesday I emailed Google Play Devices support *AND* Google Wallet complaints. It is now 11am Saturday morning and I haven’t even had a human acknowledge either email.

I also found the Google Play customer service telephone number (which as I use a mobile costs me 14p in minute!). Since Thursday morning I have called NINE times for a minimum of 10 minutes each times without ever getting beyond the hold music.

To say the whole experience so far has been disappointing would be an understatement. I understand that a ‘dead on arrival’ piece of hardware is just bad luck but the simple fact is if this had been Amazon, Apple or even f**king Argos I’d have had better service.

I’m going out to play in this rare bit of sunshine now. I’m not going to try Google again til Monday as just thinking about it will spoil my mood!

***Update 23/7/2012 09.22****

Finally got through to someone at Google – was actually only about 10 or 15 minute wait this morning. However all the chap could do was pass my information on to another team who deal with returns/replacements and that is email only and likely to take another 24 hours. Still one step closer.