Extremely disappointed in Samsung

elohel · Dec 28, 2010

I've had this phone for about two months now, and the whole experience has just been a little sour. I notice so many little bugs on this phone, major lags from time to time, various calls where I can hear my voice in the speaker and it sounds extremely grainy/broken up.. and of course, the GPS.

This phone has been out for months, and no hint of a 2.2.. hell, I just want a FIX for what should work and what shouldn't be happening on this phone currently. Apparently that's too much to ask for. A few times a class action lawsuit for advertising a GPS that doesn't work correctly has even crossed my mind.

Why am I disappointed now? I went on Samsungs website and left a review for this phone - A review, I might add, that was overly positive, and my only cons were the lack of updates and the somewhat cheap construction of this phone. What does Samsung do? Not publish my review.

Any company that censors reviews, IMO, is a company I don't want to do business with. I think that's the biggest bullshit move, and should honestly be an illegal practice for a company to do. Talk about misleading potential customers. Does anyone else think that is outrageous? I still can't get over it.

The only saving grace of this phone is that it draws a lot of attention - 1 day on craigslist and I already have 4 emails.

Dr. Polo · Dec 29, 2010

I just purchased one and I must say I wish I had gone with the Droid X, this may just be buyers remorse but the build quality and all the buginess is just getting to me! Coming from an iphone the lack of a smooth experience is jolting at best

djb28 · Dec 29, 2010

I was happy at the store when i tested it. I was happy with it out of the box when it came today.I soon saw the bugs most people talked about. I rooted it and it is freaking awesome now! It took me over an hour to do it and get comfortable with what i was doing having only jail broken an Ipod.. So the hell with the updates. Im golden now. Try it, You might like it!

NOsquid · Dec 29, 2010

Dr. Polo said:
Coming from an iphone the lack of a smooth experience is jolting at best

How is not dropping calls

nitsuj17 · Dec 29, 2010

Dr. Polo said:
I just purchased one and I must say I wish I had gone with the Droid X, this may just be buyers remorse but the build quality and all the buginess is just getting to me! Coming from an iphone the lack of a smooth experience is jolting at best

In terms of ease of use and polished out of the box experience....there is no android phone that can take the iphone head on...the customizability of.android is.what sets it apart though...,having said that the fascinate has its issues...,more than some other vzw android phones...,lack of oem/carrier support is if course numero uno

djb28 said:
I was happy at the store when i tested it. I was happy with it out of the box when it came today.I soon saw the bugs most people talked about. I rooted it and it is freaking awesome now! It took me over an hour to do it and get comfortable with what i was doing having only jail broken an Ipod.. So the hell with the updates. Im golden now. Try it, You might like it!

Yeah rooting this phone really unlocks the great potential of this hardware...,however im in complete agreement with those who think the phone should be great out of the box and sbouldnt have to.be modded to make its performance acceptable

Sanding clearly has a D- android software team that does inexplicable things that have no justification....like 2 frameworks....android 1.5 ril...,touchwiz controlling far more if your system than any other oem skin....the list goes on and on

But am i mostly happy with my rooted fascinate? Yes.

chrisexv6 · Dec 29, 2010

nitsuj17 said:
.....Sanding clearly has a D- android software team .....

Sanding?

Swype FTL

djb28 · Dec 29, 2010

nitsuj17 said:
In terms of ease of use and polished out of the box experience....there is no android phone that can take the iphone head on...the customizability of.android is.what sets it apart though...,having said that the fascinate has its issues...,more than some other vzw android phones...,lack of oem/carrier support is if course numero uno

Yeah rooting this phone really unlocks the great potential of this hardware...,however im in complete agreement with those who think the phone should be great out of the box and sbouldnt have to.be modded to make its performance acceptable

Sanding clearly has a D- android software team that does inexplicable things that have no justification....like 2 frameworks....android 1.5 ril...,touchwiz controlling far more if your system than any other oem skin....the list goes on and on

But am i mostly happy with my rooted fascinate? Yes.

I agree 100 percent. It should work out of the box. But the bugs were minimal and the bloatware probably doesnt bother most. I am just anal about that stuff. Even though i am not program savy, I can learn and dont mind the risk when some may take a step back. But i would take the chance because this phone is really that good. My son has the Incredible. My girl has the X.

Now that i have rooted this thing and place them all in comparison, I would take the Fascinate and root it over and over again.
The only thing i can not get up is the benchmark. I do not know what the highest number should be and i keep getting the same reading no matter what i do. Can it get better or is it what it is?

And. The girlfriend keeps asking to use my phone. She will convert.

nitsuj17 · Dec 29, 2010

chrisexv6 said:
Sanding?

Swype FTL

haha actually multi touch kb ftl on that one :eek:

ecpolo521 · Dec 29, 2010

NOsquid said:
How is not dropping calls

Unfortunately, my wife and I get more dropped calls with SF then we did with the iPhone.

GabrielRayven · Dec 29, 2010

Not to be the odd man out, but for me, Samsung and Verizon were both very up front with me on the 2.2 issue. It was Best Buy that was not. I got my Fascinate from BB on 12/4/2010, and was told that all I had to do was download 2.2 from the Samsung website. Cool with me. I bought the phone. Got into my contract. Got home... and the first thing I did was check the forums. No 2.2. So, back to Best Buy. Where I tried to exchange for a Droid 2, or Droid Pro... Lovely Verizon canceled the contract with BB on those phones because they were selling them cheaper than VW. So... Yeah. I like my Fascinate just fine, and both Samsung and VW have been very up front with me in the sense that neither seem to have a clue what is going on, let alone when 2.2 is coming out. So, picking on them is similar to picking on a kid with down syndrome. I just feel guilty about it, and now, I am just content to sit and enjoy my phone. If an update comes, great. If not, then I know where not to buy my next (non samsung) phone.

Redbird1 · Jan 5, 2011

Samsung really disappointed me too. The GPS, lag, delayed Froyo, and major flaw with the with bluetooth were just some of the issues. Not to mention, the SAMOLED is highly overrated.

Wish I would have kept my X.

esn · Jan 5, 2011

The Fascinate has been a great phone for me and the 2.2 thing who cares! The phone is a phone first the extras are a bonus to me and 2.2 is not that much of a difference besides flash player. I just think some people will never be happy with what they have and thats coming from someone that has had almost every Android device Verizon Has. Look and follow any forum on smart phones and the fascinate has much fewer issues than any other smart phone.

rbcole123 · Jan 5, 2011

I happen to really like the Fascinate, although I've never had any other smartphone. That said, it is very surprising that some of the key phone features don't work correctly out of the box, such as GPS and Bing voice search (since fixed in a bing update).

elohel · Jan 5, 2011

esn said:
The Fascinate has been a great phone for me and the 2.2 thing who cares! The phone is a phone first the extras are a bonus to me and 2.2 is not that much of a difference besides flash player. I just think some people will never be happy with what they have and thats coming from someone that has had almost every Android device Verizon Has. Look and follow any forum on smart phones and the fascinate has much fewer issues than any other smart phone.

Let me describe my probs w/ the Fascinate in order of annoyingness, and I think any rational person will agree that a phone that sells for $599 (or was it 699?) shouldn't have these. Keep in mind this is my second fascinate with these problems:

1) Call quality is great at times, HORRIFIC at others - Randomly, I will make/get a call that just sounds awful. No issues with the service in that particular area. When this happens, I can distinctly hear my voice through my own speaker, and it sounds extremely distorted/broken up, and the other person always verifies this. Not acceptable for a PHONE to not make/receive calls correctly IMO.

2) GPS issues.. there are times when GPS locks on in 1-2 minuets (ok), sometimes it takes over 15 minutes to lock on. When I'm being sold something that promotes GPS navigatino as a selling point, I expect it to work.

3) Lag. lag lag lag. Often it's very minor and just a small annoyance, but there have been several times where its lagged so bad that I had to turn off the phone and restart it. I don't understand why a phone of similar hardware to a DX is so much slower.. actually, I do - shoddy programming!

4) Various bugs in the software. Often times I'll get a text notification in the top bar that says my mom or something texted me, then I'll open it up and it's a text from someone else. Or I'll hit the back button, and instead of going back to the last screen, it'll flick through 20 sms threads. Then I'll click back a different time when I'm in a text to go to the text "home" screen, and it'll kick me back to a random screen. Inconsistencies that annoy me

There are many others, but those are the real kickers for me at the moment. My biggest issue is that they could all be fixed if Samsung and Verizon would just push an update. Seriously, they just announced over 10 million units have been sold.. you'd think with a phone of this success, an update could be made for it.

rehpyc · Jan 6, 2011

esn said:
Look and follow any forum on smart phones and the fascinate has much fewer issues than any other smart phone.

Still touting this bs? Many users have experienced call quality, gps, and lag issues with this phone. With multiple other Android phones on the different carriers, you'll find that a user's specific phone will have an issue that's not widely popular, sure, but this one has key ones that MANY have raised their voices over. The worse part is that many STILL complain of these things because Samsung/VZW have been particularly slow with rolling out updates/2.2.

And, yes, I followed these forums, the DX forums, and other phones' with this site and others before deciding on purchasing the DX (along with testing friends' phones).

elohel, and others who have issues, your best bet is to try and get the phone replaced by VZW/Best Buy, and rooting will really show you the potential of the phone.

chmodx · Jan 6, 2011

I came from a Droid 2, 4 of them actually. I got the Samsung as a replacement because apparently the whole "certified refurbished" obviously has no quality control.

Because of the Droid 2, I was able to and use all kinds of programs from the market. Many of which are blocked to the Samsung Fascinate due to it's outdated firmware. The GPS issue isn't too bad for me, it takes about 3-4 minutes to find a signal, but once it does, it operates the same as the Droid 2 did.

The one thing that I've found to be unacceptable for it as a smart phone--is the email issue. It is rediculous to fail to auto check email.

I think if they brought their engineers together and really buckled down, these bugs could be hammered out. I want the peace of mind knowing that my phone works in all aspects it was designed for. I like this phone, I'm giving it a chance, but if I keep feeling the burn from all this, I'll drop it in a hear beat and get something reliable.

I'm not going to root my phone. I've researched it, but why should I have to do that kind of operation in order to get the functionality that I should've had from the get go. Once they release 2.2 I will review my decision. If the bugs are fixed, I will keep it.

Leonard1818 · Jan 6, 2011

chmodx said:
The one thing that I've found to be unacceptable for it as a smart phone--is the email issue. It is rediculous to fail to auto check email.

can you explain what you mean by this?

chmodx · Jan 6, 2011

My email fails to check as scheduled for new email. Some people say that if you open the email client, and then hit the home button instead of using the back button, it will still operate and check in the background.

Unless I go log into my email on a computer, I won't see it. I'll hit refresh inside of my email client after verfiying there's new email online and still nothing. This is on Gmail and yahoo accounts. I've reverted the the gmail app for my gmail, which does work, but anything else is a no go. My droid 2 had a whole slew of different services/account types that were built-in. Yahoo, google, msn, photobucket, picassa, facebook, twit, myspace, you name it, functioned flawlessly.

nunyazz · Jan 6, 2011

I have 5 email accounts, they all are working great.

griswolds53 · Jan 6, 2011

nunyazz said:
I have 5 email accounts, they all are working great.

I have the same issue as the poster above you. I have 2 accounts, and i have to hit refresh 5 times before anything loads, if it loads at all. I hate everything about this phone. I pray that the iphone comes this spring.

to each his own i guess.

nunyazz · Jan 6, 2011

Have you tried a different email client like K-9 mail or Jorte?

Leonard1818 · Jan 6, 2011

I only have my one gmail acct tied to "gmail" and my university acct tied to "email". It works fine for me though.

kalexan9 · Jan 6, 2011

The one thing that I've found to be unacceptable for it as a smart phone--is the email issue. It is rediculous to fail to auto check email.

Same issue here. My comcast email downloads messages when it wants after a couple of weeks and innundates me with email in the process. As far as gps goes, I, too, would get mad when the gps would take 4-5 minutes to find a lock, but as of a little over a month ago, it will not lock on at all. I mean it.....my gps doesn't lock on at all!

p3maczik · Jan 6, 2011

I agree with everything you are saying, I have only had my 2 samsung fascinates for about 4 months but after the first couple of weeks i started noticing them starting to act up. It has progressively gotten worse from then. The phone freezes up all the time, I can't answer phone calls a lot of times because my notification menu is stuck partially dropped down. I have to drop it all the way down and pull it back up to answer my call. When I get texts or missed calls on my notification menu I go to the actual menus and they're not from the people that were listed on my notification menu. My phone most of the time wont turn on after being shut off I have to hook up the charger and only then it will turn on. My USB icon is constantly showing on the top tool bar when nothing is even plugged in. Most of the time when I'm on the internet none of the search engines work, or they will freeze up in the middle of a search. My GPS takes forever to lock on and even longer if i am moving and it is never accurate. This phone is horrible, doesn't anybody test these things. I originally wanted the new Droid X phone I think it was but got talked into buying this, I want a different phone THIS IS BS People shouldn't have to put up with this SHxT when they are paying for a product that should work right out of the box especially when they are locked into a 2yr. contract and can't switch phones for 6 months. I'm going down to verizon tomorrow and if they and/or samsung don't fix this problem count me in on a class action lawsuit.

celtlion · Jan 8, 2011

Reading this I'm glad I swapped mine out for a Droid X during the 30 day window. I can't believe they haven't released a major update yet.

Extremely disappointed in Samsung

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