The OFFICIAL taking back the Captivate thread

Recounting my experience yesterday related to this topic:

Still within the 30 day window, I went back to a corporate store in Redmond, Washington yesterday morning to switch my captivate for a new one in the hopes a new one might have better gps and battery life. (The new device is not an improvement, btw.)

I was a bit surprised when the sales rep didn't want to make the switch and called over the store manager, who also did not want to give me a new device. Finally he did after I told him my "other option" was to take back my upgrade, go back to using my Bold, then cancel my contract. He said all the captivates have the same gps problem, and he would "hate to give me a another one that would just have the same problem." He had a point but I still wanted to try a new one to see. He also stated that Samsung was coming out with a fix in a week, declaring he heard it from "corporate." I really don't believe this, however. If I'm proven wrong --then great, we can all do the happy gps fix dance. And I'll lead!

I'm wondering if the at&t sales force is disclosing this corporate-known gps flaw to customers when selling these devices. hmmmmm.

Pema108 said:

He also stated that Samsung was coming out with a fix in a week, declaring he heard it from "corporate."

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I hardly believe this manager has heard anything. If there really was a "fix" then Samsung or At&t or both would be making a statement that they have a fix, not trying to hide it from their own employees.

I don't understand why it is so &%$#ing hard to just tell us what the hell is going on. As simple as.. "yes it's messed up. We have narrowed it down to firmware/software problems. it will be updated and we are working to have it released in the froyo ota's later this year."

or "we really don't know at this time". Just come out and say something relevant.

I had a Vibrant that I returned as well, it was mostly due to T-Mobile's crappy 3G coverage but also over concerns of whether or not the bugs like GPS, lag, and broken playlist support would ever be fixed. I am now on Verizon with the Droid X and while I miss the amazing screen, video codec support and more manageable size the Droid X really is superior in almost every other way. Maybe when Verizon releases the Fascinate in late September it will have all of these issues fixed.

thindery said:

I hardly believe this manager has heard anything. If there really was a "fix" then Samsung or At&t or both would be making a statement that they have a fix, not trying to hide it from their own employees.

I don't understand why it is so &%$#ing hard to just tell us what the hell is going on. As simple as.. "yes it's messed up. We have narrowed it down to firmware/software problems. it will be updated and we are working to have it released in the froyo ota's later this year."

or "we really don't know at this time". Just come out and say something relevant.

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It's kinda funny that a lot of Captivate users throw up at the mention of Apple and how Antennagate was handled...but when it comes to Samsung it's "COME ON GUYS! JUST HAVE A LITTLE FAITH!"

Ok... I took it back. I'm disapointed, and I will miss it, but I could not continue to justify the time and frustration that I have invested in this phone.

The last straw was today, when my wife texted me from where she was (several hours away, helping a friend move into a new home) inquiring about how things were going while she was away. For the life of me, I COULD NOT get a text back to her. (Please enter a valid 10-digit number) Try as I may, the phone refused to accept the 10-digit number I repeatedly entered, even after deleting the thread from from wife, thinking that maybe it was remembering it... Changing her contact (which was correct anyway)... whatever... useless. Frustrating. Time consuming. Fruitless...

Regardless of how simple it may be, or may have been, to 'get around' this 'software disconnect' that was happening... the fact is it happened, and I could not simply send a text when I wanted to!

Yesterday I was walking my dogs in a preserve near here and wound up in an unfamilier area. It took FAR to long to turn on the gps and get my phone to show where I actually was so I could get going in the right direction. I don't think it ever really showed where I was, but I was able to determine the right direction to go.

Time and again, I go to take a quick picture, and wind up fumbling with the phone just to get out of the camera. There's something odd about the camera where sometimes some of the home buttons just stop working. I had to turn off the phone last week when I was at a wedding because I couldn't get out of the camera. Anyway, I find the picture quality sub-par for a 5 mp device. The camera has nice features, but the pictures just don't cut it. Close-ups are great... probably the best range for this camera. An by the way... the gallery app is weird when you go to enlarge a picture that you're looking at, the resolution doesn't scale with the enlarged image... it's like it stays at the original (thumbnail?) resolution.

The battery life... I don't know what else to say.... just unacceptable. I keep the GPS off all the time (except when I'm lost in the woods!). I don't have much auto-refreshing. I ALMOST NEVER use the phone itself (literally 10 minutes/month). Very light texting. Screen at the lowest brightness. I kill apps that I'm not using. Still... can't make it through a day. Unacceptable.

I have a really hard time seeing the screen in sunlight. I don't remember having such a hard time with my iPhone 3G. Other than that, the screen is beautiful.

The thing gets hot... way too hot. This has to be why the battery life is so poor.

I listen to podcasts... much more that I do music. And even with podcasts, the audio stuttering is annoying. Definetly a show-stopper for music listening.

I miss being able to pause and un-pause the audio without unlocking the phone.

I miss double tapping the screen in the browser and having the column that I tap fill the width of the screen, instead of zooming past the width of the column.

I miss having a good native mail client that refreshes reliably.

And having to grip the phone to wake it never sat well with me.

OK, guys... have at me! I know that I will regret giving up the phone, but it was just too finicky and needy. I was also nervous that Samsung, with about 100 phones to support, will not worry too much about this particular one... they'll sell what their target was, no doubt, and move on the the next rev or next phone. I can't beleive the number of new phones they release on a regular basis. I even considered keeping this phone on a new line, but besides the cost of the phone, it would run about $35 more per month minimum.. probably closer to $40.... too much just to keep because I like playing with it. I *was* regularly amazed with what I *could* do with the phone.

Regards, and best of luck.... John

Intervenient said:

It's kinda funny that a lot of Captivate users throw up at the mention of Apple and how Antennagate was handled...but when it comes to Samsung it's "COME ON GUYS! JUST HAVE A LITTLE FAITH!"

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Samsung isn't making excuses or blaming the consumer for the fault in their product.


Choi Gee-sung is no Steve Jobs.

Calling a vote to have the moderators merge all "I brought my phone back" threads into one.

Less clutter. Makes it easier to find the threads that we want to read.

The battery issues are either major operator error (really bad settings and whatnot), you use your phone why more than you think, or there is a major battery flaw going around affecting like 1 in 5 batteries.

I send / receive about 200 text msgs a day. 5-10 of those being picture / video msgs. I listen to pandora an hour a day on the way to and from work. I take easily 5 pics a day. I talk on the phone around 20 minutes a day. I use the internet on 3g around 15 minutes a day. I have Wifi set to never sleep and leave it on when its available. I have 3 apps that are in the background which refresh about once an hour. Haptic vibe on 2 settings from lowest, brightness on auto adjust.

My battery lasts on the regular 60 hours. After about 50 hours of being off the charger, i have between 25 and 35% battery left.


Things I do agree with though is I really miss LED flash. There's no LED notification light (though available with root i think.) The lock button being on the side is a pain; can't easily unlock with one hand without regripping.

Edit: Oh and in 7-10 hours of standby time (me sleeping) the battery discharges 0-2%.

I don't think there is anything wrong with him or his battery - it sounds like a hardware/software issue issue. If his phone is constantly hot, then I would suspect the CPU is not throttling down like it should be. Could be a firmware issue where it's not sending the signal to down clock the core, or it's possible that there is some rogue application or service that is eating CPU cycles when it shouldn't be.

Battery on this phone in general seems to be really spotty. I listen to music and podcasts for 5-6 hours everyday while at work, do light texting, web surfing on breaks, occasional phone call, etc. I unplug my phone at 7:00AM and when I get off work at 4:00PM, I have 60% of my battery life. This is not great, but it's acceptable. By the time I go to bed, I often find my battery at or below 40% even though I rarely use my phone at home. Even if I put it into airplane mode I get unreasonably high battery usage when idle. I use the task killer a few times a day just to clear out the processes, and turn off all the radios I do not use - GPS, Bluetooth, Wifi, etc.

TDQuiksilver said:

Calling a vote to have the moderators merge all "I brought my phone back" threads into one.

Less clutter. Makes it easier to find the threads that we want to read.

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x2!!!!

If this is your second or third captivate after exchanges then I understand ditching it, but if you haven't tried atleast one new unit then I can't say you're honestly giving this phone much of a chance.

My first Captivate was glitched and I returned it and grabbed a new one with no hassle, this one has worked flawlessly and I'm very happy with it.

Also if your use is only 10 minutes per month, why do you have a smartphone?

A regular flip phone would suffice for that small amount of usage.

TDQuiksilver said:

Samsung isn't making excuses or blaming the consumer for the fault in their product.

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That is exactly the way I look at. At the apple press conference it was more "look at these phones they do it too" lol. Instead of saying they have an issue and will work on fixing it in later phone designs, they claim the antenna design is not a issue and put the blame on the user and then say the signal display algorithm is wrong all of the sudden. And still point that there test show this phone gets the best signal they have seen on any of there phones. Either way I have had an iPhone4 and took it back for my Captivate. I think the signal issue is one of the phone least issue, I had a huge problem with the "No Sim Card" issue and the proximity sensor.

Um i upgraded from a iphone 3g and 2 things make me think you're either an apple fanboy or never owned an iphone 3g. My 3g used to get extremely hot much hotter than my captivate and 2 the iphone 3g screens absolutely sucks in the sun while i can actually see my captivate quite clearly

.

user. error.

I'm hoping enough people return it so that samsung will take notice and try to stop the bleeding by delivering some fixes. Just fixing the gps would be good enough for me
BTW I also have the camera issue but it doesn't happen often and it resolves itself without a restart. The home and back buttons simply refuse to exit the camera app.

Yes, they may have said that other phones have this problem (and some of them do, to an extent), but this does not deny the fact that Apple admit there was a problem. Samsung has yet to do this, and the original Galaxy S has been out for a while now.

As others have mentioned, these kinds of posts are cluttering a large number of threads on the main page. This will be the catch all for all who wish to take their Captivate back.

Jesus people, we don't want to hear that you are taking it back. This forum is used to discuss problems (and how to fix them), the phone itself, apps, games and themes. We do not care if you returned it or why you returned it. FFS.

AndroidForMe said:

Jesus people, we don't want to hear that you are taking it back. This forum is used to discuss problems (and how to fix them), the phone itself, apps, games and themes. We do not care if you returned it or why you returned it. FFS.

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This is what this thread is designed to do: take all that talk into one thread. Thanks for the support.

jasonsmith said:

Curious if any of you who returned your devices actually contacted Samsung and complained about the issue and demanded a fix?

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Yes, I did.

What, exactly, makes this thread official? I am looking for the correct place to post my "I'm going to return my captivate" woes and I'd hate to end up in a thread that's only posing as the official thread. It would really ruin my day to have to post again when the genuine official thread is released.

Respen said:

What, exactly, makes this thread official? I am looking for the correct place to post my "I'm going to return my captivate" woes and I'd hate to end up in a thread that's only posing as the official thread. It would really ruin my day to have to post again when the genuine official thread is released.

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I don't know if you're joking around or not, but I created this thread to curb the onslaught of threads on this manner.

Intervenient said:

Hey Simba, I see you went with the Bold. No waiting out for the Torch?

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Yeah...I thought about it, but I'm not particularly fond of slider phones. And I got a chance to play with it and I wasn't very impressed. I think it'll appeal to a lot of people though. With Blackberry OS 6 confirmed to come to the Bold 9700, I think I went the right route.