If you’re planning to pick up a smartphone this fall or holiday season from the folks at AT&T you might want to make sure you know what you want, and choose the right device for you. As of yesterday AT&T has cut their device return policy from 30 days down to just 2 weeks. Yup, you’ll have 14 days to decide if that HTC One X+ is right for you — or if you’d rather enjoy that Galaxy Note II instead.

Essentially they’ve cut the return window for new purchases completely in half here. This also works into their ETF (early termination fee) that I’m sure many are familiar with in this handcuff world of smartphone contracts. The 30 day return window was for those that had something come up and they had to cancel, didn’t like the device or their plan, or just opted to go with another carrier.

Previously users could opt out and return their device within 30 days, including their 2-year contract, and not pay any fee’s for early termination. Now that’s just 14 days instead. Now this may be bad news, but Verizon only offers 14 days, and it has been that way for a while with most other carriers too. AT&T is just joining them with providing less time to their customers.

Back in February AT&T doubled their upgrade fee to $36 for customers, and now their cutting our “grace period” in half. So essentially you’ll be paying a bit more to upgrade, and having less time to decide if that was the right decision for you. It’s also worth noting that AT&T business users will not see this increase — they’ll be staying at 30 days. Overall this isn’t that big of a deal because most people know good and well what device they want (read: Galaxy S III) and won’t be effected by this new policy. Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

[via PhoneScoop]