So, this is a story of the Motorola DROID, Android, the phantom 2.1 update, Best Buy, Black Tie Protection, betrayal and intrigue...
So here I am in Best Buy, sitting in a chair in the mobile section waiting to be seen by the next available representative. It's December of 2009 and I hold in my hand the latest and greatest in the Crackberry family, the Blackberry Tour. All in all, it was a great phone. That is, except for that pesky recurring trackball issue related to the OS... I wonder if RIM ever fixed that...
At any rate, it's my third return and I find myself at the edge of my patience. That's when I hear these magical words, "Would you consider the possibility of changing to a new phone?" I'm shocked! Is this an open offer to ditch my chronically plagued Tour for any new phone I want?! Yep, all I have to do is pay any difference in retail. Imagine my elation when I notice that the Tour retail is $699 and the brand spanking new Motorola DROID retail is a paltry $599. It was Christmas come early.
After a good half an hour of forms and plan changes and whatever other song and dance, the Motorola DROID is now mine and a beautiful marriage has taken place. I fell immediately in love with the vibrant display, functionality and huge marketplace. Over the following weeks, I would come to love the phone even more. I stumble upon Phandroid and androidforums.com and learn so much more about my phone. I never rooted, but I've always been the paranoid type. Plus, I was happy with what I had.
Then, one rainy day in February, I get to leave work early. Excited to have a surprise lunch date with my lovely girlfriend, I pulled my DROID out to send a text message. Mid-message, the screen goes black. Hmm. The power button won't turn it back on. I reach my car and do a battery pull. Relief. The phone starts to... no wait, what's this? A boot menu? Familiar to rooters, a terrifying place for me. My girlfriend can't do lunch, so I drive straight to Best Buy for help. The guy there is confused. He has a rooted DROID, so he tries to get it out of this boot loop. No dice. Go through all the reset processes, nothing. All the water damage indicators are coming up clean. An hour later, broken and defeated, I resign to the reality that my phone must be sent off for repairs. I get an ancient iteration of the Blackberry Curve and accept the 5-7 business day estimate.
Fast forward 3 weeks, I get a call from the Geek Squad telling me that my phone has finally returned to the store. YES! I am so excited and doubly so because I am actually off work. I race to my Best Buy location and anxiously wait in the Geek Squad line. I reach the representative and proudly proclaim that I am there to retrieve my long lost companion, the Motorola DROID. He goes off and brings it back. I look at it, but something seems funny. Not that I would normally spot my DROID in a crowd of DROIDs, but it was just strange. I ask if the phone is a refurb/recert, the somewhat confused geek looks at the paper, asks for a manager who comes over, looks at the paper and points out to us that it is not a refurb/recert, but the same phone. Wicked, guess I just hadn't seen it in forever.
So I sign all the papers and wander back over to mobile to turn in the loaner and get all reactivated and such. While I'm waiting, I'm sitting there looking at the exposed back of the phone. Man, they didn't take very good care of this thing. The numbers are all smudged and dirty. Speaking of the numbers, something strikes me. I don't know my serial number by heart or anything, but it seems different. Being OCD, I happen to have a receipt for Black Tie Protection in my wallet that has the phone's serial number on it. Eh, might as well look. And... the serial is different. This really IS a refurb/recert.
I tell myself, "Don't worry about it. Everyone on androidforums.com is always talking about how you're lucky to get a refurb/recert because they've been more thoroughly inspected by a human being than a brand new unit." I don't even make a big deal about it. In fact, I don't mention it at all. Why would I? It should be a good thing, right? And anyway I'm just so excited to have ANY DROID in my hands that I can make do.
I race home, re-downloading apps the whole way home. I'm setting ringtones and text tones, having a great time. Then I hear something. It's fleeting, but I wasn't really paying attention. Did the software glitch? Weird. Can't replicate. Glitch.
Fast forward 48 hours. The speaker in the phone has completely died. I get audio problem messages with... well, everything. That was short lived.
Back to Best Buy. An hour passes. Despite my impassioned pleas and stern (but polite) insistence that I be issued a new phone, I am left with a single option... send the phone for repairs.
Fast forward three weeks. Well, nearly four. Still no DROID. Still no estimate of when I'll have my new DROID. The mobile GM and the store GM have both submitted escalations to the repair center, but they don't seem very interested or in much of a hurry to authorize BBM to issue a new phone.
The moral of the story?
1. Don't buy Black Tie Protection. It's worth it to have a $100 deductible if it means you aren't going two months without your phone.
2. The DROID does a lot, but it still has a lot of problems. Where is the update? Why does Motorola always break my heart?
3. If the Incredible is released within 30 days of whenever I get my DROID back, I'm switching phones.
4. This story really is pointless, but I feel much better now. Stupid Blackberries.
So here I am in Best Buy, sitting in a chair in the mobile section waiting to be seen by the next available representative. It's December of 2009 and I hold in my hand the latest and greatest in the Crackberry family, the Blackberry Tour. All in all, it was a great phone. That is, except for that pesky recurring trackball issue related to the OS... I wonder if RIM ever fixed that...
At any rate, it's my third return and I find myself at the edge of my patience. That's when I hear these magical words, "Would you consider the possibility of changing to a new phone?" I'm shocked! Is this an open offer to ditch my chronically plagued Tour for any new phone I want?! Yep, all I have to do is pay any difference in retail. Imagine my elation when I notice that the Tour retail is $699 and the brand spanking new Motorola DROID retail is a paltry $599. It was Christmas come early.
After a good half an hour of forms and plan changes and whatever other song and dance, the Motorola DROID is now mine and a beautiful marriage has taken place. I fell immediately in love with the vibrant display, functionality and huge marketplace. Over the following weeks, I would come to love the phone even more. I stumble upon Phandroid and androidforums.com and learn so much more about my phone. I never rooted, but I've always been the paranoid type. Plus, I was happy with what I had.
Then, one rainy day in February, I get to leave work early. Excited to have a surprise lunch date with my lovely girlfriend, I pulled my DROID out to send a text message. Mid-message, the screen goes black. Hmm. The power button won't turn it back on. I reach my car and do a battery pull. Relief. The phone starts to... no wait, what's this? A boot menu? Familiar to rooters, a terrifying place for me. My girlfriend can't do lunch, so I drive straight to Best Buy for help. The guy there is confused. He has a rooted DROID, so he tries to get it out of this boot loop. No dice. Go through all the reset processes, nothing. All the water damage indicators are coming up clean. An hour later, broken and defeated, I resign to the reality that my phone must be sent off for repairs. I get an ancient iteration of the Blackberry Curve and accept the 5-7 business day estimate.
Fast forward 3 weeks, I get a call from the Geek Squad telling me that my phone has finally returned to the store. YES! I am so excited and doubly so because I am actually off work. I race to my Best Buy location and anxiously wait in the Geek Squad line. I reach the representative and proudly proclaim that I am there to retrieve my long lost companion, the Motorola DROID. He goes off and brings it back. I look at it, but something seems funny. Not that I would normally spot my DROID in a crowd of DROIDs, but it was just strange. I ask if the phone is a refurb/recert, the somewhat confused geek looks at the paper, asks for a manager who comes over, looks at the paper and points out to us that it is not a refurb/recert, but the same phone. Wicked, guess I just hadn't seen it in forever.
So I sign all the papers and wander back over to mobile to turn in the loaner and get all reactivated and such. While I'm waiting, I'm sitting there looking at the exposed back of the phone. Man, they didn't take very good care of this thing. The numbers are all smudged and dirty. Speaking of the numbers, something strikes me. I don't know my serial number by heart or anything, but it seems different. Being OCD, I happen to have a receipt for Black Tie Protection in my wallet that has the phone's serial number on it. Eh, might as well look. And... the serial is different. This really IS a refurb/recert.
I tell myself, "Don't worry about it. Everyone on androidforums.com is always talking about how you're lucky to get a refurb/recert because they've been more thoroughly inspected by a human being than a brand new unit." I don't even make a big deal about it. In fact, I don't mention it at all. Why would I? It should be a good thing, right? And anyway I'm just so excited to have ANY DROID in my hands that I can make do.
I race home, re-downloading apps the whole way home. I'm setting ringtones and text tones, having a great time. Then I hear something. It's fleeting, but I wasn't really paying attention. Did the software glitch? Weird. Can't replicate. Glitch.
Fast forward 48 hours. The speaker in the phone has completely died. I get audio problem messages with... well, everything. That was short lived.
Back to Best Buy. An hour passes. Despite my impassioned pleas and stern (but polite) insistence that I be issued a new phone, I am left with a single option... send the phone for repairs.
Fast forward three weeks. Well, nearly four. Still no DROID. Still no estimate of when I'll have my new DROID. The mobile GM and the store GM have both submitted escalations to the repair center, but they don't seem very interested or in much of a hurry to authorize BBM to issue a new phone.
The moral of the story?
1. Don't buy Black Tie Protection. It's worth it to have a $100 deductible if it means you aren't going two months without your phone.
2. The DROID does a lot, but it still has a lot of problems. Where is the update? Why does Motorola always break my heart?
3. If the Incredible is released within 30 days of whenever I get my DROID back, I'm switching phones.
4. This story really is pointless, but I feel much better now. Stupid Blackberries.
