I know no one here can actually do anything, but I really needed a place to rant for a minute...
I've probably 5 or 6 different Motorola Android phones over the years, dating back to my original Motorola Droid. In addition, I've gotten most of my less-technical family to stick with Motorola phones over most of that same period, and we haven't run into any real issues other than battery degradation in that whole time. Not the case with my Turbo 2...
I got mine shortly after they were first released. For the first 6 months or so, it worked great! Around that time, the accent trim in the earpiece basically broke free yet it wouldn't come out, so it just flapped loosely inside the speaker hole- annoying, but trivial. Around the same time, I noticed my volume buttons starting to stick just a bit. Fast forward to this spring and my volume buttons are now completely unusable, as pressing either one causes the volume to immediately shoot to the maximum or minimum possible setting with no way to stop on something inbetween. I had planned on holding on to my Design Refresh for as long as possible so that I could get a "new" phone (and more importantly, battery) at the end of 2 years, but I decided that I needed to go ahead and use it early to get one with working volume buttons instead. Disappointing, sure, but not the end of the world.
So I head to the site and enter the information for my phone, only to be told that my phone is not eligible for a Design Refresh even though my original receipt said otherwise! I send a note to their support address explaining the situation, and within a day or two I get a bunch of emails, one of which contains a valid Design Refresh code. Problem solved! I head back to MotoMaker, design my new phone, and Motorola charges me the $530 deposit to send the replacement out. But my credit card wants to verify the charge before putting it through. In the 3 minutes that it took for Discover to text me and me to respond, Motorola cancels my order entirely. Annoying, but understandable. I go back into the MotoMaker, but now it says that my code has already been redeemed and is no longer valid! I jump on Support Chat, where they waste 20 minutes of my life before telling me that they can't do anything and I need to call their support number instead. Fine. I call, wait on hold and finally get through. I explain the situation, and the rep tells me that this happens regularly, but the only way to fix it is to send a note to their IT department (who has already cleared out for the weekend), so they can reactivate my code.
Flash forward to the following week, when I get a notice that my code is once again active and ready to use. I design my replacement phone again, and Motorola attempts to charge the $530 deposit again. This time it goes through, and a few days later, my replacement phone arrives. I send the old one back, they acknowledge that they received it and that it was in good shape, but almost 2 weeks later, I still don't have a refund on my deposit. After 2-3 separate Support Chats and as many phone calls (because each chat ended in "We can't do anything, you need to call the support number"), they finally acknowledge that something went wrong and escalate the issue to Finance so I can get my money. Of course, after all this time, my credit card had come due, so I also had to pay a month's interest on that $530 because it took so long to process my refund!). So at this point, everything is resolved, right? Nope.
When I first got my replacement phone, I noticed that the back plate didn't seem to be pressed in as firmly as my previous one, and that there was some play in it as well as a small gap between the back and the frame. A relatively minor issue, but over the first 3 weeks I have the phone, I noticed that gap enlarging slightly and after talking to some people in forums, determined that the adhesive holding the back on is likely failing. I drop another note to the support address, but 4 days go by and I get no response. So I get back in Support Chat, waste another 20 minutes before they tell me that I have to call in again (Seriously! Do the reps in the chat have the ability to do anything, or do they just redirect everyone to the phone lines?!?) So I call in, wait on hold, and end up talking to someone presumably in India whom I can not get to understand that the cover, which is not supposed to come off, is starting to come off. I'm just about to hang up in frustration when she finally seems understand the issue. She asks for a photograph of the "damage", which is difficult because the gap is very slight (and I only complained about it in the first place because I was afraid it would get worse if nothing was done now). So I send in a couple of photos, and apparently they're good enough, because today I got another MotoMaker code so that I can go design yet another new Turbo 2. It finally feels like we're on the right track. But when I go into the MotoMaker today, the Black & Dark Gray option (the only one I don't find absolutely hideous) is marked Out of Stock. Damn it!
So now I find myself torn between keeping my current phone in a color that I like but with a defective back cover, or switching to one that (might) be assembled correctly but in a color that I hate. And on top of that, I'm worried that I'll have to start this whole process over again with a credit card payment confirmation resulting in my order getting cancelled again, having to call in to get my code reactivated again, and then having to call a few more times to actually get my deposit returned again.
There was no single issue that made this a horrible experience for me, but just the endless littany of little things going wrong at every possibly opportunity has made this process unbearable! I like Motorola's phones. I really like their implementation of Android on them, but the problems I've had with both Turbo 2 handsets and the Design Refresh and Exchange processes have been an absolute nightmare!
TL-DR: a handful of relatively minor problems with Moto hardware have snowballed into one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had.
This seemed like a great idea at the beginning, but now I'm kind of wishing I didn't let the prospect of a "refreshed" phone sway me and went with something else from the start...
I've probably 5 or 6 different Motorola Android phones over the years, dating back to my original Motorola Droid. In addition, I've gotten most of my less-technical family to stick with Motorola phones over most of that same period, and we haven't run into any real issues other than battery degradation in that whole time. Not the case with my Turbo 2...
I got mine shortly after they were first released. For the first 6 months or so, it worked great! Around that time, the accent trim in the earpiece basically broke free yet it wouldn't come out, so it just flapped loosely inside the speaker hole- annoying, but trivial. Around the same time, I noticed my volume buttons starting to stick just a bit. Fast forward to this spring and my volume buttons are now completely unusable, as pressing either one causes the volume to immediately shoot to the maximum or minimum possible setting with no way to stop on something inbetween. I had planned on holding on to my Design Refresh for as long as possible so that I could get a "new" phone (and more importantly, battery) at the end of 2 years, but I decided that I needed to go ahead and use it early to get one with working volume buttons instead. Disappointing, sure, but not the end of the world.
So I head to the site and enter the information for my phone, only to be told that my phone is not eligible for a Design Refresh even though my original receipt said otherwise! I send a note to their support address explaining the situation, and within a day or two I get a bunch of emails, one of which contains a valid Design Refresh code. Problem solved! I head back to MotoMaker, design my new phone, and Motorola charges me the $530 deposit to send the replacement out. But my credit card wants to verify the charge before putting it through. In the 3 minutes that it took for Discover to text me and me to respond, Motorola cancels my order entirely. Annoying, but understandable. I go back into the MotoMaker, but now it says that my code has already been redeemed and is no longer valid! I jump on Support Chat, where they waste 20 minutes of my life before telling me that they can't do anything and I need to call their support number instead. Fine. I call, wait on hold and finally get through. I explain the situation, and the rep tells me that this happens regularly, but the only way to fix it is to send a note to their IT department (who has already cleared out for the weekend), so they can reactivate my code.
Flash forward to the following week, when I get a notice that my code is once again active and ready to use. I design my replacement phone again, and Motorola attempts to charge the $530 deposit again. This time it goes through, and a few days later, my replacement phone arrives. I send the old one back, they acknowledge that they received it and that it was in good shape, but almost 2 weeks later, I still don't have a refund on my deposit. After 2-3 separate Support Chats and as many phone calls (because each chat ended in "We can't do anything, you need to call the support number"), they finally acknowledge that something went wrong and escalate the issue to Finance so I can get my money. Of course, after all this time, my credit card had come due, so I also had to pay a month's interest on that $530 because it took so long to process my refund!). So at this point, everything is resolved, right? Nope.
When I first got my replacement phone, I noticed that the back plate didn't seem to be pressed in as firmly as my previous one, and that there was some play in it as well as a small gap between the back and the frame. A relatively minor issue, but over the first 3 weeks I have the phone, I noticed that gap enlarging slightly and after talking to some people in forums, determined that the adhesive holding the back on is likely failing. I drop another note to the support address, but 4 days go by and I get no response. So I get back in Support Chat, waste another 20 minutes before they tell me that I have to call in again (Seriously! Do the reps in the chat have the ability to do anything, or do they just redirect everyone to the phone lines?!?) So I call in, wait on hold, and end up talking to someone presumably in India whom I can not get to understand that the cover, which is not supposed to come off, is starting to come off. I'm just about to hang up in frustration when she finally seems understand the issue. She asks for a photograph of the "damage", which is difficult because the gap is very slight (and I only complained about it in the first place because I was afraid it would get worse if nothing was done now). So I send in a couple of photos, and apparently they're good enough, because today I got another MotoMaker code so that I can go design yet another new Turbo 2. It finally feels like we're on the right track. But when I go into the MotoMaker today, the Black & Dark Gray option (the only one I don't find absolutely hideous) is marked Out of Stock. Damn it!
So now I find myself torn between keeping my current phone in a color that I like but with a defective back cover, or switching to one that (might) be assembled correctly but in a color that I hate. And on top of that, I'm worried that I'll have to start this whole process over again with a credit card payment confirmation resulting in my order getting cancelled again, having to call in to get my code reactivated again, and then having to call a few more times to actually get my deposit returned again.
There was no single issue that made this a horrible experience for me, but just the endless littany of little things going wrong at every possibly opportunity has made this process unbearable! I like Motorola's phones. I really like their implementation of Android on them, but the problems I've had with both Turbo 2 handsets and the Design Refresh and Exchange processes have been an absolute nightmare!
TL-DR: a handful of relatively minor problems with Moto hardware have snowballed into one of the most frustrating experiences I've ever had.
This seemed like a great idea at the beginning, but now I'm kind of wishing I didn't let the prospect of a "refreshed" phone sway me and went with something else from the start...
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