13 Epic's in 8 months!

[gme109]

That is how many replacement Epic's I've had since I signed up with Sprint, and bought my first Epic. That comes out to more than 1.5 phones per month. Today I demanded a BRAND NEW phone, which has been over nighted to me. Hopefully that will take care of the hardware issues I've been having with their refurbs...bad mics, speakers, keyboards...etc. Now if Samsung can iron out the remaining bugs in Froyo, maybe I'll have a working phone that will last more than a month. Here's hoping.

 

[la sal]

Just bought my Epic last night. My wife has had hers for over seven months and hasn't had any problems...other than having to get it replaced by Best Buy Insurance after she dropped it in water.

 

[TheEngineer]

Bizarre.

 

[batgeek]

your luck is truely bad...

3 Epics here since launch. one was replaced when the pup ate it. no problems with any of them.

 

[Gavisann]

I never had major problem. Either I am luck or you are unlucky.

 

[fareal]

How are you getting them replaced? Do you have insurance thru Sprint? Do you pay any deductible when they replace? Or do you not have Sprint insurance and you pay $35 repair fee and they end up replacing it?

 

[pflol]

How are you getting them replaced? Do you have insurance thru Sprint? Do you pay any deductible when they replace? Or do you not have Sprint insurance and you pay $35 repair fee and they end up replacing it?

Same one since launch (september). Perfect.

 

[gme109]

How are you getting them replaced? Do you have insurance thru Sprint? Do you pay any deductible when they replace? Or do you not have Sprint insurance and you pay $35 repair fee and they end up replacing it?

They're covered under the one year manufactures warranty. After that, insurance will either fix or replace with a refurb.

 

[gme109]

I would say at least three of my replacements were because of 2.2.1 causing severe battery drain. Since Sprint tech support had no answers, they would just replace the phone. At least three others were hardware problems, bad mics, speakers, keyboards. One of the phones got so hot, I thought it was going to explode. The others had weird glitches, like unresponsive dock buttons, or apps opening on their own, none of which were corrected after hard resets. Reading through all the threads here, I know I'm not the only other one who's had NUMEROUS problems with their Epic.

 

[IAmSixNine]

No hardware issues on my EPIC, going on 3 months and loving it. No problems with mine.

 

[fareal]

They're covered under the one year manufactures warranty. After that, insurance will either fix or replace with a refurb.

Yes they have a one year warranty but without insurance my local store won't straight out replace my phone. They want $35 to possibly repair it. If they can't repair it then they say they will order a replacement. Do you have Sprint insurance? I assume you do and you don't pay any deductible when they've replaced it for the reasons you mention.

 

[_Epic]

You have a one year warranty with Samsung, but you have to send off the phone and such. If you have TEP, or ESRP, Sprint will replace it for free. If you don't then its a $35 fee to get a new one. So have you gotten those 13 Epics through replacements through Sprint using the TEP? I've had customers who have gotten 5 replacement phones within 6 months and they've denied it and canceled there insurance, which is weird.

 

[gme109]

Yes they have a one year warranty but without insurance my local store won't straight out replace my phone. They want $35 to possibly repair it. If they can't repair it then they say they will order a replacement. Do you have Sprint insurance? I assume you do and you don't pay any deductible when they've replaced it for the reasons you mention.

Yes I have insurance. But none of these phones were covered under insurance. And no, I didn't pay any deductibles. Are you dealing with corporate Sprint stores, or as I call them, fake Sprint stores, the non-corporate ones? You shouldn't be getting charged if your phone is under a year old.

 

[_Epic]

Yes I have insurance. But none of these phones were covered under insurance. And no, I didn't pay any deductibles. Are you dealing with corporate Sprint stores, or as I call them, fake Sprint stores, the non-corporate ones? You shouldn't be getting charged if your phone is under a year old.

Fake Sprint stores? Is that what we are reffered to? I enjoy working in a fake Sprint store dealing with fake Sprint customers and dealing with fake Sprint people. The fake Sprint store that i work in is a Preffered Retailer which is as close to a Sprint corporate store as you can get. We follow the exact same rules as a corporate store.

 

[gme109]

Fake Sprint stores? Is that what we are reffered to? I enjoy working in a fake Sprint store dealing with fake Sprint customers and dealing with fake Sprint people. The fake Sprint store that i work in is a Preffered Retailer which is as close to a Sprint corporate store as you can get. We follow the exact same rules as a corporate store.

I unknowingly purchased some accessories at a fake Sprint store, only to find out later, they didn't have the same warranty as the real Sprint stores. Real corporate Sprint stores offer a year replacement on defective accessories. The fake Sprint store I purchased my accessories at, only offers a 15 day replacement warranty. Thankfully Sprint credited my account for the defective car charger, after I told them I unknowingly purchased it at a unmarked fake Sprint store.

 

[AndroidSPCS]

Still on my first Epic since August, flawless. I suspect the OP has some app issues or some other bizarre issues.

 

[gme109]

Still on my first Epic since August, flawless. I suspect the OP has some app issues or some other bizarre issues.

Could explain a small fraction of the problems I've been having. But like I spelled out, 3 of the Epics had hardware problems, and 3 other ones are messed up because of 2.2.1. And since Sprint tech support doesn't have any answers to the battery draining problem, the keyboard input problem, the flaky WiFi problem, all caused by 2.2.1, they just keep replacing my phone, in the hopes that that will fix it.

 

[_Epic]

I unknowingly purchased some accessories at a fake Sprint store, only to find out later, they didn't have the same warranty as the real Sprint stores. Real corporate Sprint stores offer a year replacement on defective accessories. The fake Sprint store I purchased my accessories at, only offers a 15 day replacement warranty. Thankfully Sprint credited my account for the defective car charger, after I told them I unknowingly purchased it at a unmarked fake Sprint store.

Well us a Preffered Retailer fake Sprint store offer the corporate 1 year warranty. So you must have went to an indirect retailer or something along those lines..

 

[Dvin211]

I'm on Epic #5. 1st one was replaced due to radio issues.
2nd one kept flashing the usb connected icon in the upper left corner.
3rd one lasted 2 hrs and then the screen locked up in a rainbow of colors (Bad refurb).
4th one wouldn't update the prl/profile or firmware. I brought it in to the Sprint store and the tech spent over and hour trying to fix it. By the time he was done the phone would only partially activate, I could make voice calls but not text or use the internet.
They ordered me replacement #5 and I've been using that for about a week now.

 

[gme109]

And low and behold, everything seems to be working perfectly! Knock on wood. No more WiFi glitches, no more keyboard issues, no more hardware problems, voice to text is more accurate, and working a higher percentage of the time, and GPS is almost instantaneous, and accurate to within 1 meter, indoors! Don't know why everything is running so smoothly, perhaps because its a brand new phone, or it came with 2.2.1 already on it, or maybe it has a more recent update, although it doesn't appear so. I'll have to see over the next few days, if battery life is half way decent or not.

 

[IAmSixNine]

I'm on Epic #5. 1st one was replaced due to radio issues.
2nd one kept flashing the usb connected icon in the upper left corner.
3rd one lasted 2 hrs and then the screen locked up in a rainbow of colors (Bad refurb).
4th one wouldn't update the prl/profile or firmware. I brought it in to the Sprint store and the tech spent over and hour trying to fix it. By the time he was done the phone would only partially activate, I could make voice calls but not text or use the internet.
They ordered me replacement #5 and I've been using that for about a week now.

Interesting, your 4th one did the same thing as mine last week but it was a Sprint System issue not an EPIC issue.
Over last weekend i went back to my EVO while i was plyaing around with Cyanogenmod 7 and when i went back to the EPIC it would only do voice and text, NO Data. Wouldnt update the profile at all. So i was patient and went back to the EVO for a few days swapped back to the EPIC with no problem.
I have been reading a lot of people are having problems updating profiles or PRL.
I also notice more problems with slower data speeds on EPICS then with EVOS. I also see the EPIC being left behind while Sprint and HTC push out new devices and updates. Which makes me wonder if Sprint is just not wanting to work with Samsung devices or somehow are "inadvertintely" sabotaging the system for EPIC users. yeah i know i am crying conspiracty theory here but it fits.
Me personally, if the EVO had the S-AMOLED screen and the Hummingbird processor it would be such a better device.
I am running ACS Frozen 1.1.0 on my EPIC and wow it blows past the EVO hands down. Shoot, even Stock EPIC blows the EVO away. But i think a lot has to do with HTC Sense being a processor hog.
Oh well, i am sure down the road the HTC devices will catch up. Untill then at least Sprint is doing a lot better with its devices.

Now if only they could figure out how to get WiMax to work, that or decide to go the LTE route.. LOL

 

[gme109]

And low and behold, everything seems to be working perfectly! Knock on wood. No more WiFi glitches, no more keyboard issues, no more hardware problems, voice to text is more accurate, and working a higher percentage of the time, and GPS is almost instantaneous, and accurate to within 1 meter, indoors! Don't know why everything is running so smoothly, perhaps because its a brand new phone, or it came with 2.2.1 already on it, or maybe it has a more recent update, although it doesn't appear so. I'll have to see over the next few days, if battery life is half way decent or not.

Well my brand new Epic has developed the same problem as my last one, the ear piece speaker is rattling like crazy. Can't decide if I should go for #14, or move on to a different phone. Samsung sucks!

 

[fareal]

rattling as if its blown? or something else.

Nevermind. I was thinking it was your loud speaker on the back, but you said earpiece speaker. My loud speaker had to be replaced on my Epic.

 

[dksnet]

Wow. Thought I had issues until I read this thread. Mine wont do the update thing but that does not stop it from working. Also my battery life got better after doing a reset as described in other posts.
3 button grip then clear cache and then reinstall froyo.

 

[boo radley]

I cannot conceive of having to deal with the headache of that many replacements.

I did, in fact, need to get my phone 'replaced' and it involved 3 round-trips to the Sprint store, 20-40 minutes waiting each time, and ultimately a $35 fee, which I never entirely understood but was too exhausted to argue about.