Help MyTouch 4G is the biggest piece of junk I have ever owned

[matt1up]

I have a lot of other things I could be doing right now besides taking the time to sign up for an online forum but I will at least feel a little bit better hopefully if I can share some of my feelings regarding the worst phone I have ever owned.

I guess I will just keep this simple and go with a list style post that describes all of the problems (that I can even think of/remember right now) that I experience on an almost daily basis with my MyTouch 4G

Feel free to add on to this list or confirm some of the many problems I have listed. Also...FYI - I cracked the screen on my first MyTouch 4G and got a new one through my insurance plan. My second phone has the exact same problems as my first if not more.

here we go......

Sends random texts a day or two later (some of them I was actually trying to send and other ones I did not want sent)...getting texts sent out two days after you did not want them sent in the first place makes for some interesting explanations

Deletes all of my text messages whenever it feels like it

Horrible battery life....will not even last one day with minimal usage

Pauses or gets 'hung up' when loading web pages The guy at the tmobile store suggested that I download a free android app that closes all currently running applications. Apparently I was not the first with this issue.

Constantly drops calls during initial dial/connection phase or else pauses, never rings and then disconnects the call This can happen repeatedly before a call is finally connected.

When trying to send/forward any type of text message where the contact is being looked up by you entering the first few letters of their name it will delete it all of a sudden and make you start over.....this will happen over and over again making you feel like it's some sort of game to see how quick you can look up the name and tap on it EXAMPLE: As soon as I type in J-O-H and then hit the right 'John' it will pop up for one sec and then clear it making me start over again.

Constantly restarts text messaging application due to errors

Sometimes will not access text messages at all until I restart the phone Either I click on my text icon to load messages and they never load or I click on a specific text dialog and it will never load

Goes in and out of service completely (Randomly has zero service and display screen/bars indicate this as well)

Constantly stutters and can't keep up with the text you are entering either via swype or just regular tap entering.....shows letters being entered that you typen in a whole word ago. Sometimes this gets so bad that the whole phone freezes and tries to figure out what the hell is going on. It also happens in little spurts that cause the phone to not recognize swype text and it will enter the wrong words.

When taking a picture it takes up to 10 seconds for the camera app to restart before you can take another one

Freezes up sometimes and will not allow you to answer an incoming call. Does not let you slide down to talk

Not common....but every once in a while the phone will not allow me to disconnect from a dialed call. The little green phone icon just stays there and it will not disconnect the fu$*%!^ call! (this has caused me to have to pull out my battery before.....right up there in seriousness with deleting texts and sending random texts a day or two later.

This phone can very easily ruin your life.......and I am not even exagerating. How many times have I relied on a text message for important information only to have all of my texts deleted?

How many times have I had some random text that I never even wanted sent in the first place randomly send itself a day later?

I could go on and on.

I don't recommend buying this phone.

 

[famished]

Sounds like you have the reject of the lot. Never had any of those issues. How did you crack the screen?

 

[Basscasey]

Yeesh...that sucks. Both my wife and I love the hell out of our phone...she's had weird texting issues kind of like that, but it was when she first got the phone (December) and hasn't had any other issues since then. I've never really had any issues.

 

[Phandroidian]

Wow that really sounds bad. My wife and I both have this phone and love it. The battery life isn't great, but thats to be expected with a 'pocket computer'. At one point I did have the problem where it would clear the To: field in SMS after typing a couple of letters of the contact's name. That's fixed since updating to Gingerbread at the T-Mobile store.

Maybe you installed a bad app? Try doing a factory rest and don't add any apps for a couple of days, see if that cures your issues. Or take it to a T-Mobile store and update to Gingerbread (call first, not all stores have the SD card to do the update).

 

[jlmejia316]

Matt I feel your pain brother. I have had 90 % of the issues you had. May I add some others...

First phone I bought crashed and would not start up after 2 months of owning it. T-mobile charged me $20 to replace it... That really pissed me off

Second phone I recieved liked to randomly turn the camera on and take pics. Very annoying when your trying to do ANYTHING on the phone. Sent that one back...

Third phone I recieved (one I am currently using) has a replacement screen that washes all the colors out when it is tilted. not to mention it was EXTREMELY SLOW!!

After dealing with T-mobile for the past several months, I will not be coming back. FU*K T-MOBILE

 

[dasudevil]

UNREAL... I have had two of them. First one i got exchanged because the screen was washed out. (theres a thread about it). Either way the only issues i have had were the ones i caused by temp rooting (sometimes its perfect sometimes its not) and or causing it myself.

I do have issues once in a while but nothing described above. Personally I LOVE This phone. The only thing that i would consider other then this is the sensation (current phones only) but i dont have another 500+ to spend on a phone that and my wife would kill me.

Sorry you two had bad experiences with the phone. Just bad luck i guess.

 

[1BlinkGone]

My MT4G has never been rooted whatsoever, and I've experienced about 90% of the problems the OP has.

Dropped calls, locked screen/can't answer; dropped data & cell connection, text messages don't always send when you press 'send' (this CAN be very troublesome and create BIG problems with people) those messages may delay a day or two or not send at all, also happens if you are texting and the phone rings; and other various unpleasantries. I always figured it was a symptom of a bad/bum Android OS install- not hardware related. Horrid battery life/power management, too.

My wife has the same phone and has had a few of the same issues as mine, but not all of them.

Again, I've never rooted, or attempted to root my phone. I've never loaded betas or apps outside of Android Market. The apps I do have are very simple and fairly well-vetted.

Amazingly, most of my phone's problems have seemed to been taken care of by Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread. Thank God.

I still want an iPhone 5.

 

[amdviper]

Wow. Some serious issues going on there. Sorry to read you guys have had or are having problems. I haven't had any issues with mine. However I have only had it for less than a week. There was one thing. When the screen flipped to widescreen, sometimes it wouldn't flip back. Usually only while surfing or messaging. But now it's working perfectly and seems to not be doing it anymore. Coming from a BB Pearl Flip, I love mine.

 

[gimme5]

My wife's MyTouch 4G has never had any of those issues. The phone is working amazingly well, maybe you need a replacement?

 

[aysiu]

Never had any of those issues. Sorry you have. Maybe you can bring it in for an exchange?

I'd also highly recommend rooting your phone (even if you didn't have those issues) and using Google Voice for voicemail and text messages.

 

[TallTravel]

I've been using my phone every day for 11 months, and I have had none of the issues mentioned above. Never been rooted.

Interesting post, though....

 

[zerofantasy]

I have a lot of the same problems you are describing but my biggest problem is text messages. Mine too deletes them all randomly. And I figured out that it sends old texts from your "undelivered" box. Whenever a message fails to be delivered it gets saved there, then when you restart your phone, it sends them all. Now before I restart I always make sure I don't have any undelivered messages. Otherwise it is just asking for trouble from people lol.

I also have a problem with phone being super slow to keep up with typing and seeming to freeze after every letter you type. Swype seems useless when it happens.

it's not the best phone, but I wouldn't say it's worst. Worst android might be motorola cliq.

 

[HJAcevedo]

I guess my family is extremely lucky. I bought my mom and myself a MT4G around January and none of us EVER has ANY of these problems. I'm rooted, she's not.

Maybe you guys downloaded some crap somewhere? Maybe you aren't taking care of your phone correctly? Who knows. Task managers? Porn? Downloading off random 3rd party sites? Either way, I honestly don't know how to explain it other than user error.

 

[1BlinkGone]

We bought ours February 2011. No porn, no root, no 3-rd party apps outside of market, no abuse. I was having these problems before and after I used any kind of task manager (downloaded from Market).

Many of the issues went away after upgrading to Gingerbread... but I did gain a problem with Gingerbread with the text messages randomly skipping to the top of a text thread while typing a text message. That never happened to me before with Froyo, but I had random text sending issues with Froyo that were just bizarre. I can guarantee you our problems had nothing to do with user error.

 

[Droidtothemax]

We bought ours February 2011. No porn, no root, no 3-rd party apps outside of market, no abuse. I was having these problems before and after I used any kind of task manager (downloaded from Market).

Many of the issues went away after upgrading to Gingerbread... but I did gain a problem with Gingerbread with the text messages randomly skipping to the top of a text thread while typing a text message. That never happened to me before with Froyo, but I had random text sending issues with Froyo that were just bizarre. I can guarantee you our problems had nothing to do with user error.

That skipping is something related to GB as I also get it and I never had it on 2.2. So not sure if that will be addressed or not, but hope so.

On to the other topics, I havent had one instance in the 2 months I have had my mytouch4G and hope I never do. Seems like it is hit or miss with some of you guys and I know the screen washout is huge with this phone, but those other issues I havent heard much of till now.

I am on my 2nd one as well and didnt have any issues with the 1st one, which was my 2.2 froyo mytouch4g. If not for hardware issue with the back button, I would probably still be rocking it, but I am anal about ish like that now, lol!

The new one came pre-installed with GB and works awesome minus the texting issue skipping to top line, which is quite annoying. Also the battery life from froyo to GB is like whoa! I used to get 8-10 hours of life before recharging and now I am getting 15-18.....drastic difference! Very happy now. I was a hair away from selling it due to the craptastic battery life, so glad I had hardware issues and got the 2.3 mytouch. I know I could have went to a store and got a memory card with 2.3 on it, but was a headache.

Sorry you guys that have had bad luck with your mytouch's.

 

[sampenguin]

I've also had most of the same problems the OP did recently. Phone works great in many situations, but simply not working as a phone when I need it or losing my text history is infuriating. Didn't know about the available OS upgrade (still on 2.2.1), going to give that a try. And why is it so difficult to broadcast the update to all devices over the air within the course of say, 1 week, instead of forcing the bulk of your customers into the store? Telecoms are all so horrible at customer experience.

 

[QueenPendragon]

I haven't had major issues...at least with this phone. The first one did have to be sent back as it wouldn't turn on. And my aunt's had to go back due to a speaker issue, IIRC. My current one has problems sometimes with freezing or going to sleep when I don't want it to, but I haven't noticed a huge number of problems.

 

[sampenguin]

I took my phone to the nearest T-mobile retail shop to have them install the upgrade but they didn't have it. The guy suggested just doing a warranty replacement next-day since the new unit should come with the OS update, so I did (cost me 5 bucks for shipping, i have the insurance plan for replacing lost/damaged phone). New unit arrived, swapped my battery, SIM card, and flash card into it. It's working WAY better.

The most important improvement: Battery now lasts about 3x longer (same physical battery as before). I can actually make it through an entire day and even overnight without having to plug in. They obviously cleaned up some power hogs in the OS cycles.

Generally seems more stable and responsive after about a week of use, happy with the phone again. Although, something that seems to be missing is I can no longer seem to find where to direct the primary storage (for apps, photos, etc.) to be the flash card instead of the phone memory, like I did before.

Of course, some of those other problems didn't show up until weeks/months later so I'll post again if any oddness happens. But in the meantime, I definitely recommend upgrading to the latest OS if you have this device.

 

[amdviper]

I took my phone to the nearest T-mobile retail shop to have them install the upgrade but they didn't have it. The guy suggested just doing a warranty replacement next-day since the new unit should come with the OS update, so I did (cost me 5 bucks for shipping, i have the insurance plan for replacing lost/damaged phone). New unit arrived, swapped my battery, SIM card, and flash card into it. It's working WAY better.

The most important improvement: Battery now lasts about 3x longer (same physical battery as before). I can actually make it through an entire day and even overnight without having to plug in. They obviously cleaned up some power hogs in the OS cycles.

Generally seems more stable and responsive after about a week of use, happy with the phone again. Although, something that seems to be missing is I can no longer seem to find where to direct the primary storage (for apps, photos, etc.) to be the flash card instead of the phone memory, like I did before.

Of course, some of those other problems didn't show up until weeks/months later so I'll post again if any oddness happens. But in the meantime, I definitely recommend upgrading to the latest OS if you have this device.

Did you get the new LG made MyTouch or the HTC MyTouch? The web site still says coming soon for the LG MyTouch.

 

[Droidtothemax]

Well if LG is making them now, then I am down with the Mytouch series......Hated every LG product I have had and that goes beyond a phone.....

 

[amdviper]

Yeah man LG is now making the myTouch 4G. T-Mobile just went and killed one of their flagship phones. Glad I got in on the HTC myTouch 4G when they were offering it free w/2yr contract. Although I admit, I really would like to get the Amaze. But for now I'm perfectly happy with the myTouch.

 

[DawnT1276]

I'm with you Matt. I got MT4G's for my son and I for Christmas. He's still got his original, but I'm on my 5th. The first one I had for four months before it froze and got stuck in the boot loop. The second one did the same thing a few months later. The third one downloaded a bad software upgrade and that killed it (I raised heck with T-Mobile about THAT $20 warranaty fee!), the fourth one had issues with the touch sensor (I'm illiterate when it comes to phones so I if I use the wrong terminology forgive me) after a WEEK, and this fifth one just died last night. I was deleting my text inbox and it froze for half an hour. I took the battery out and now it's stuck in the boot loop again!

Moving on to a Samsung I think. That's what I had for 10 years before I went to the MyTouch in the 3G days and I never had a problem.

 

[Droidtothemax]

Yeah man LG is now making the myTouch 4G. T-Mobile just went and killed one of their flagship phones. Glad I got in on the HTC myTouch 4G when they were offering it free w/2yr contract. Although I admit, I really would like to get the Amaze. But for now I'm perfectly happy with the myTouch.

That royally sucks about the mytouch series! I am done with those phones then. I have an LG craptastic Optimus T as well as does the wife. My stepdaughter uses mine and man does it suck....strike that, they both suck! Hardly any memory, constantly lagging/freezing up and always losing a wifi signal. I have tried to send them back, but Tmobile just basically makes you do a bunch of stuff to the point it is okay for a few days, then bam, right back to being craptastic! Cant wait to get my wife a better phone. The stepdaughter can deal with it! lol!

The Amaze looks nice, almost reminds me of a better spec'd mytouch phone though. I personally want the Galaxy Nexus, which is Vanilla Andriod, which is my favorite! Cant wait for that one.

I'm with you Matt. I got MT4G's for my son and I for Christmas. He's still got his original, but I'm on my 5th. The first one I had for four months before it froze and got stuck in the boot loop. The second one did the same thing a few months later. The third one downloaded a bad software upgrade and that killed it (I raised heck with T-Mobile about THAT $20 warranaty fee!), the fourth one had issues with the touch sensor (I'm illiterate when it comes to phones so I if I use the wrong terminology forgive me) after a WEEK, and this fifth one just died last night. I was deleting my text inbox and it froze for half an hour. I took the battery out and now it's stuck in the boot loop again!

Moving on to a Samsung I think. That's what I had for 10 years before I went to the MyTouch in the 3G days and I never had a problem.

Man, so glad I have yet to run into any of these issues. *Knocks on wood right quick!* No offense either as I know what it is like to deal with a crap phone.....insert phone I was talking about with AMD.

 

[amdviper]

The Amaze looks nice, almost reminds me of a better spec'd mytouch phone though. I personally want the Galaxy Nexus, which is Vanilla Andriod, which is my favorite! Cant wait for that one.

Man, so glad I have yet to run into any of these issues. *Knocks on wood right quick!* No offense either as I know what it is like to deal with a crap phone.....insert phone I was talking about with AMD.

The new Galaxy Nexus with ICS looks really sweet. Guess I should say that I would love one of those as well. But don't know if T-Mobile is going to offer it. And, I'm only about 2 months into a 2yr contract so I'm pretty much locked into this phone until I qualify for an upgrade. Other than selling it outright and making up the difference myself. That would still be quite a bit of cash I would need to come up with for either of those phones.

So far I have had zero problems with my phone. Like I said above, I've only had it for around 2 months. So we'll see. Course if something did go bad with my phone, it might make me want to save up for the Amaze or the Galaxy Nexus if T-Mobile offers it. I read someplace that they were signed up for it.

 

[mldesk]

i've had all the same problems...
any suggestions on resolutions.
how do you force upgrade to gingerbread?