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Multiple issues...

bravozero

Newbie
Dec 31, 2009
13
0
VA
So... here's the deal. I love the Droid, hands down the neatest phone I've owned. However, this phone has many problems. I have been through FIVE phones now, and about to move onto my sixth soon. This is getting ridiculous. Here are all the issues I've had:

1. Couldn't even connect to activate service. Fail.
2. Random shutdowns and I had a couple minor mishaps including the dog biting it. Fail.
3. Bottom of phone was deformed out of the box, couldn't even put a case on it. Fail.
4. Kept dropping out of 3G and was slow. Calls sucked. Fail.
5. Current phone, now having signal issues. In downtown Reston, Sterling, and Leesburg (all have towers) and phone drops out of 3G into 1x and signal strength goes haywire. Watched the strength go from 60 dBm to 100 dBm even at a stop light. Goes from two bars to three, to one, to zero, to four. I even stopped by the Verizon store in Reston and one of the display models had the same problem, other two there had full signal. About to... Fail.

I will admit, I don't miss my Blackberry, but the two things I could take from it are the push email and signal strength. My Storm had all five bars of signal almost everywhere I went.

I hate going into the store and saying "Here I am again, back for another," even though my thirty day warranty ends early February. But as of right now there's no other good phone that keeps up with the Droid. I was going to get the Omnia II but that was a disappointment.

What should I do? Should I keep going back within my thirty days until I get a working model, if I do? Or should I go back to my Storm for now and wait for the Nexus One? I'm lost...:(
 
Wow, this sounds rough. It sounds as if even though you have towers all around you, the Verizon network just really sucks where you are. Have you had this same problem with all Verizon phones or just the Droid? If it is just the phone you have now, I would say take it back and exchange for a new one. There is always the case where something is just "not right" with a device and just needs to be simply replaced. If this is something that you have experienced to some to degree with all Verizon phones, as much as I hate to say it, you might want to go to a different mobile phone service provider if available.

Sorry that you are having these problems. Hope they work out for you.

Ben
 
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Wow, this sounds rough. It sounds as if even though you have towers all around you, the Verizon network just really sucks where you are. Have you had this same problem with all Verizon phones or just the Droid? If it is just the phone you have now, I would say take it back and exchange for a new one. There is always the case where something is just "not right" with a device and just needs to be simply replaced. If this is something that you have experienced to some to degree with all Verizon phones, as much as I hate to say it, you might want to go to a different mobile phone service provider if available.

Sorry that you are having these problems. Hope they work out for you.

Ben

I've only had problems with the Droid on the network. Every other phone works just fine. Even a couple other Droids before worked fine as well. I think the ones I have been getting have radio issues. Could it be software or hardware issues?

Square, what were you trying to say?
 
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Seems the radio on the Droid is hit or miss. I go from 60 to 100 all the time but overall the connection is pretty decent. As for connecting to exchange my Droid worked flawlessly in this regard and I believe the Droid is the only android device with built in exchange calendar sync. If your Droid is bent or damaged out of the box or having all sorts of strange problems you should take it to vzw and get it looked at or replaced. The problems you are having don't sound all that normal.
 
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I love people who reply ....go back to your old phone. The guy has had issues, give him a break.

I went through two Eris' that were laggy as hell. Other people had no issues, but no matter what I did, the phone just got laggier and laggier. Sometimes it happens.

To the OP...I live close to you and used to work closer (Sterling). No issues with coverage. Where are you getting your phones from? Have you gone to the Verizon Experience store at the Fair Oaks Mall? Go there and ask for Shawn. He works in the demo / tech department but is very knowledgeable and not your typical phone store idiot.

Good luck. Stick with the phone. Ignore the BS.
 
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I think you're having radio issues. I've never seen a signal higher than -80db on a Verizon Blackberry, while my Droid is consistently getting -60db in the same areas (I had a Tour previous to the Droid).

Don't get me wrong, the Tour's signal was fine, but the Motorola's is better.

Exactly what I am saying. Everything else on the current phone is great EXCEPT for reception and signal strength. Thus, it is indeed a radio issue. If it's software then I'm sure I could do a total phone reset or upload a fresh copy of 2.0.1, but if it's hardware thats different. And yes, Motos are supposed to be the best in radio reception. Definitely not the case here.

Seems the radio on the Droid is hit or miss. I go from 60 to 100 all the time but overall the connection is pretty decent. As for connecting to exchange my Droid worked flawlessly in this regard and I believe the Droid is the only android device with built in exchange calendar sync. If your Droid is bent or damaged out of the box or having all sorts of strange problems you should take it to vzw and get it looked at or replaced. The problems you are having don't sound all that normal.

Exactly. I don't remember having issues with the first couple as far as signal, just other annoying things.

I love people who reply ....go back to your old phone. The guy has had issues, give him a break.

I went through two Eris' that were laggy as hell. Other people had no issues, but no matter what I did, the phone just got laggier and laggier. Sometimes it happens.

To the OP...I live close to you and used to work closer (Sterling). No issues with coverage. Where are you getting your phones from? Have you gone to the Verizon Experience store at the Fair Oaks Mall? Go there and ask for Shawn. He works in the demo / tech department but is very knowledgeable and not your typical phone store idiot.

Good luck. Stick with the phone. Ignore the BS.

Glad to see a somewhat local member on here. I used in live in western Loudoun county but now I live in the town of Warrenton. I have been to the store at Dulles, Fair Oaks, Reston and Warrenton. The one I got from Fair Oaks dropped signal and was so SLOW.

did you miss the part where he suggested it as an option?

if he is having this many problems with the droid that he didn't have with his storm, it seems logical to return to the old phone. or suffer with the droid...either way...

True. If I get another replacement and it fails too... back to the old Blackberry until another Android phone comes out.
 
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Thus, it is indeed a radio issue. If it's software then I'm sure I could do a total phone reset or upload a fresh copy of 2.0.1, but if it's hardware thats different.
So based on this comment, makes me wonder - are you rooted? And if so, what hacks have you applied? You're describing so many issues that no one else has noted. I'm not saying they haven't had them, but usually a stream of folks would chime in on a thread like this, and noone has. Makes me wonder why you're having such bad luck that doesn't appear to be affecting others.

Oh, and gotta ask: a dog ate your first one? WTF?
 
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So based on this comment, makes me wonder - are you rooted? And if so, what hacks have you applied? You're describing so many issues that no one else has noted. I'm not saying they haven't had them, but usually a stream of folks would chime in on a thread like this, and noone has. Makes me wonder why you're having such bad luck that doesn't appear to be affecting others.

Oh, and gotta ask: a dog ate your first one? WTF?

No, I have not rooted any of my phones. It's just my luck I keep having issues, goes back to when I first got my Xbox360 and had to return it twice due to RRoD and disc reading errors.

And the dog didn't eat it, he is a Beagle and I had it laying on my bed while I was on my laptop, and he will steal things and run off with them throughout the house. His teeth damaged the back of the phone and dented the camera lens. The screen was fine though.
 
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Definitely having some bad luck my friend. I can say that my Droid has been 110% since I got it with no problems hardware or software wise (except ones I created). If you really like the phone I would keep trying, maybe have VZW mail you one in case the store your going to has some bad supply of them. I know the Nexus One is coming to VZW soon if you don't mind not having a physical keyboard then that is a good Android phone to exchange for. You can flash the original 2.0.1 OTA update without having root, I know it is around here somewhere but if you can't find it PM me and I will link it in my 4shared account.

I don't know if that would actually fix it but it is worth a try I suppose.
 
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I know I had a problem with my original Storm having signal issues much like the one I'm having with the Droid, and come to find out it was a software issue. I guess the radio file was screwed up but I reloaded 4.7 and it was fixed. It is indeed possible that the Droid is having software issues instead of hardware. I think I will give it a shot before I do anything else.
 
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Wow, here's another from the Northern Va area. I live in Centreville and work in Manassas. The only place I have issues is at home. The funny thing is, I have a perfect signal if I go about a quarter mile down the street, but at home it's usually 3 or bars or close to nothing. Although with my old phone (black Moto Q) the signal I had was always much worse in both locations. At home I almost never had a signal unless I was in the corner, standing on one foot, while patting my head. Now I usually have a signal at home. Otherwise my signal is excellent. I also second trying to flash it or doing a factory reset. If that doesn't do the trick, it might be time to get yet another replacement. The only problems I've had with my Droid are ones I've introduced or other odd incompatibilities that have been hashed out in the forums. As for backing up your data, if you go to settings>privacy and check off Back up settings, the phone will basically back up everything (including installed programs...sort of) to Google except for SMS messages. As for the programs, they'll reinstall after the flash/reset but you will lose the settings for the programs unless they're stored on the SDCard. The best backup technically is to root the phone and install the nandroid recovery rom into the recovery partition of the phone. It's fantastic. There are other backup programs in the market though but I haven't tried any.
 
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Dumb guy question... If I were to root the phone to do a perfect backup and then reflash the phone or whatever, would it still be rooted or will it go back to 100% stock?

You'd still be rooted... There are some files that need to be removed to "unroot". But it's easy to do. Do a search on "unrooting" and you'll be able to find detailed directions.
 
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Wow, here's another from the Northern Va area. I live in Centreville and work in Manassas. The only place I have issues is at home. The funny thing is, I have a perfect signal if I go about a quarter mile down the street, but at home it's usually 3 or bars or close to nothing. Although with my old phone (black Moto Q) the signal I had was always much worse in both locations. At home I almost never had a signal unless I was in the corner, standing on one foot, while patting my head. Now I usually have a signal at home. Otherwise my signal is excellent. I also second trying to flash it or doing a factory reset. If that doesn't do the trick, it might be time to get yet another replacement. The only problems I've had with my Droid are ones I've introduced or other odd incompatibilities that have been hashed out in the forums. As for backing up your data, if you go to settings>privacy and check off Back up settings, the phone will basically back up everything (including installed programs...sort of) to Google except for SMS messages. As for the programs, they'll reinstall after the flash/reset but you will lose the settings for the programs unless they're stored on the SDCard. The best backup technically is to root the phone and install the nandroid recovery rom into the recovery partition of the phone. It's fantastic. There are other backup programs in the market though but I haven't tried any.

I hear you about home vs. 1/4 mile down the street. I think my house is good at blocking cell signals...my wife's curve and my droid are usually between -85 and -90 db in the house. As soon as we get outside, we're up in the 60's.

Makes for crappy speed but that's what Wifi is for. ;)
 
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Well I did a hard reset of the phone, no luck. I think I'm done fiddling around with the Droid, I'm going back to the BB for now until another phone comes out. The Droid is great and everything, but I honestly believe that, not because I keep having problems, but there will be other phones from Verizon that will own the Droid. Sorry guys, I am holding off for another Android phone. Nothing that interesting is coming out from Blackberry and WinMo is garbage. I honestly don't think Verizon will get the iPhone right now, so that leaves Android. Nothing wrong with that right?
 
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Your coming from a storm and are having signal issues, not sure which storm you had, but if it was the cdma/gsm model you could possible be pulling gsm signal giving you strong signal in a poor cdma area unless of course you turned that feature off to use cdma only. Its just a thought. Keep in mind all cell phone manufacturers signal bars arent the same. my droid can be at -80 and show 2 bars only. Hell ive even been inside a store and have no bars at all and still get calls with no issues.
 
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