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Worst Android Phone

UPDATE:
Thank you to everyone who posted comments regarding my original post.

I exchanged my Note for another about three weeks ago. I wanted to use it awhile to make sure the goodness wasn't going to be fleeting. I am happy to report that most of the problems that I had originally posted are no longer issues.

My new Note has Gingerbread on it and I won't be upgrading to ICS. When I purchased my original Note, it came with Gingerbread. Then less than two weeks of owning that Note, I updated to ICS. I can't say for sure if ICS created a lot of the issues because I didn't have it long enough on Gingerbread to know any better. It might have been the hardware itself that was the problem.

A co-worker had also updated his Note to ICS. He had owned his Note for several months. He complains that ICS isn't as good as Gingerbread. He misses some of the features that he had with Gingerbread. He thinks that ICS is actually a downgrade from Gingerbread. He says that his Note has always been freezing since the update. My ICS Note was freezing, too. The freezing issue was the reason that I finally exchanged it.

The only thing that I can complain about now is the lack of AT&T's LTE network in many areas (compared to Verizon's). But, as stated in one of my post, I knew about that before I bought my Note, but thought I could put up with the slowness because I wanted the Note's large screen.

Now, I'm happy with my Note, but still disappointed with AT&T's LTE coverage.

I appreciated everyone's comments and for providing me with ideas on how to resolve the issues. Thank you, again!

END of UPDATE
***************************************************

I'm sorry to post this, but people who are thinking about buying this phone need to be aware that this phone can't do some basic things correctly.

I bought the Note because I mostly use my phone for browsing the web and for navigation. I was attracted to the large screen - thinking that it would make both more enjoyable. However, the Note's large screen doesn't outweigh the disadvantages that I've listed below. For the past month, I have really tried hard to enjoy this phone, but the Note is the worst Android phone I have owned. I have owned a HTC G1 (on T-Mobile) and just recently replaced a HTC Thunderbolt (on Verizon) for the Note. Even the G1, the original Android phone, was better than the Note.

Here are some reasons I hate the Note:
  1. AT&T's 4G LTE nework is smaller than Verizon's. When in 4G (not LTE) mode, the Note is so slow that it is practically useless for using the web. It's pathetic!
  2. The GPS, for the map and navigation apps, is not trustworthy. As a test, I turned on the map app on my way to work today. It was about a quarter-mile off my actual location for my whole 15 mile trip to work!!!
  3. The Note's screen freezes sometimes.

I regret that I gave up my one year old Thunderbolt for the Note. It was faster and more accurate than the Note in many locations that I visit. At home, I get a LTE signal. Five miles away from home, I only get 4G. Don't be fooled on what AT&T calls 4G. As many other people have posted on this site, if it's not 4G LTE, AT&T's 4G is just enhanced 3G.

Currently, the Note is a bad phone on a slow network (compared to the other phones I've owned).

The two things that I hope for are, 1) AT&T expands its LTE coverage faster, and 2) The GPS is more accurate. Otherwise, I don't think I can live with the Note/AT&T for the whole two year contract.
 
Sorry to hear of these problems.

My experience doesn't match yours in most respects.

Issue number one sounds like a carrier problem rather than a phone problem. LTE words great on mine, and HSPA+ was fine as well (I was too lazy to go in and get an LTE Sim card for quite a while).

Issue number two...I don't know what to make of it. GPS has been very fast to lock on my position and has been accurate in tracking for me. My only complaint is that the navigation chooses strange routes sometimes.

Issue three I agree with, but chalk it up to me having nine home screens (running Apex Launcher), most of which are covered with widgets or photos of my family.

I don't have the car dock. I use a Bluetooth speakerphone that has an FM transmitter built in, and it routes *all* phone audio to my car stereo (if I enable that feature...plays all audio through built-in speaker, otherwise).

It sounds like you have some fairly specific problems, and I wonder if some of the issue might be a hardware issue.

Do you know anyone else who has a Note or a car dock?
 
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Most of the Google apps including Maps are pretty FUBAR right now and ICS has many bugs that are also reported in Jellybean. So the issues are not exactly with the device itself. If you run GPS Test or Mapquest app you will find that GPS is working and mine even shows accuracy within approximately 30 feet. I was able to fix the GPS lock issue (for now) by uninstalling Maps then installing it again from Play.

The freezing is likely due to a memory management issue/conflict that may or may not be resolved with a factory reset. No matter what device you own these problems are present across many devices by many different manufacturers. I have yet to reset mine but will probably try it sometime this week as many have reported improved performance on various devices after a proper reset.
 
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Most of the Google apps including Maps are pretty FUBAR right now and ICS has many bugs that are also reported in Jellybean. So the issues are not exactly with the device itself. If you run GPS Test or Mapquest app you will find that GPS is working and mine even shows accuracy within approximately 30 feet. I was able to fix the GPS lock issue (for now) by uninstalling Maps then installing it again from Play.

The freezing is likely due to a memory management issue/conflict that may or may not be resolved with a factory reset. No matter what device you own these problems are present across many devices by many different manufacturers. I have yet to reset mine but will probably try it sometime this week as many have reported improved performance on various devices after a proper reset.

You are right I have both the note and the s3 on AT&T and they both have the GPS problem sometimes as well as my skyrocket and atrix
 
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My phone never freeze before the ics update... I hear you asked for it in my ears.. It's supposed improve not go backwards.. I like the jelly bean specs but I'm cool. I'll stay with what I have. Are we being played by the companies hype? To many promises and no results? Correct me if I'm wrong but we have invested a lot of money into technology and it's terrible that the companies dump bull$#@? On us to make those impressive millions...
 
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So 3 little problems, that you could probably fix, and you think it's worthy of being called worst android phone ever??
And the 4g network has nothing to with the phone, so that's hardly a reason to knock the phone

Yes, it is the worst Android out of the three that I've owned. Three little problems that shouldn't be an issue in the first place.

When I got my G1, I expected issues because it was the first Android. And I have a somewhat high tolerance for computer issues because I have been using Linux for over 10 years and back then Linux had to be tolerated. For as long as these basic Android apps have been around, the Note shouldn't have these little issues - at least I didn't expect them. Yes, this phone has not lived up to my basic expectations.

As for AT&T'slow network, I only have myself to kick for making the mistake of switching from Verizon. But I really wanted this phone and I didn't imagine that AT&T's network would be so bad.

If you know how to fix the issues, please share. I have searched this forum for fixes, but I haven't seen anything definitive.

I'm really trying to like this phone.
 
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Rebooted my Note today and there was some type of Android update. I don't know when it was pushed out but it must have arrived OTA. I have been unable to find anything mentioned about this anywhere online. I rebooted my phone two days ago so it had to be in the past 48 hours. Only other thing that may have triggered was removing Maps and installing it again which does appear to have fixed my GPS lock issue.

Anyone else get an update after rebooting and possibly removing/installing Maps by chance?
 
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Rebooted my Note today and there was some type of Android update. I don't know when it was pushed out but it must have arrived OTA. I have been unable to find anything mentioned about this anywhere online. I rebooted my phone two days ago so it had to be in the past 48 hours. Only other thing that may have triggered was removing Maps and installing it again which does appear to have fixed my GPS lock issue.

Anyone else get an update after rebooting and possibly removing/installing Maps by chance?

Are you talking about the ICS update or an update to google maps?

Also my Note works perfectly. The only thing that bothered me about it is the fact they sold me an LTE phone and didn't bother to tell me that LTE is only available 200 miles away from where I live.
 
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I forgot to mention that Samsung's car dock doesn't work properly, either. Music and the voice for navigation gets piped through my car speaker correctly, but phone calls don't go through the car speakers. The caller's voice goes through the speaker on the phone.

My car has bluetooth installed so phone calls get piped thru to the car speakers, but the Google GPS lady voice stays on the phone.

I don't see the slowdown in AT&T's "4G" (HSPA+) in my area. The phone is guite fast in 4g. In many cases I have to turn off WiFi if I am in a hotspot because it is slower than 4G. My Note is now on ICS.
 
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Rebooted my Note today and there was some type of Android update. I don't know when it was pushed out but it must have arrived OTA. I have been unable to find anything mentioned about this anywhere online. I rebooted my phone two days ago so it had to be in the past 48 hours. Only other thing that may have triggered was removing Maps and installing it again which does appear to have fixed my GPS lock issue.

Anyone else get an update after rebooting and possibly removing/installing Maps by chance?

Well this is not the ICS update as that comes through Kies, not OTA. I have not seen or heard of any other OTA update lately.
 
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I rebooted the device and during boot the screen just said Android is updating. My GPS works with Maps/Nav and my device is no longer lagging. I have no idea what actually happened though it very well may have been triggered by reinstalling Google Maps.

If you go into Settings > About Phone, what is the Android version and what is the Kernel version?
 
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To the OP:

I didn't see any problem you listed, besides the 4G coverage, that couldn't be fixed. There is a GPS fix over on the xda forum that will turn your Note to an instant locker. And if your screen freezes up I would suggest installing an over clock kernel. Right now I'm running hotwire's oc kernel at 1.86g with the pegasus governor, and I'm getting a full day out of my battery.

You may be frustrated but it seems like instead of searching for answers you just wanted to vent.
 
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Any news on this? I have been having problems with Maps and Navigation but I haven't gotten any Android Updating screens.

Navigation is actually dependant on Maps so no need to touch that.

My guess is that Maps is an integrated application that other parts of the Android OS depend on. Also apps that use Geo based advertisements or make use of your location likely use an API from Maps to gather location info. So it would sort of make sense if the build of Maps has issues that it could impact performance elsewhere. I know that Pinball Arcade added advertisements that ran in the background for example it made the app lag more and more over time.
 
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