Help 3G and Voice - Radio is a huge battery drain

[EarlyMon]

Yep! I had a hosed GPS, no 3G to speak of and it never stayed on one tower for long. My replacement has been perfect, hope yours is too!

 

[falconey]

LOL!

I called the "retention department" and kindly told the lady to fix it or lose me as a customer. She put a note in the computer and told me to go back to the store and ask to speak to the manager. They tested the phone again and low and behold, "A radio issue". They weren't any more specific than that. 30-day exchange completed. Finally. It's on the charger and I'll install open signal apps, battery monitor widget, and gps status and see what it looks like after a few cycles of the battery.

****MORAL OF THE STORY**** Do not get pissy with customer service people. They just work there and don't make the rules. Polite but firm and eventually you will come out on top. Hopefully.

Honestly with sprint you have to call retentions after any situation gets annoying. I think that's the moral to this story, lol. Having worked part time as a celluar cs rep in my college days about a decade ago this is how it worked(and I'm sure it hasn't changed much)....
tier 1 - outsourced cs company. probably temp workers. mostly very young. no power. even the supes power is limited. I'm guessing all chat is tier 1.

tier 2 - insourced lower tier employess that are employed by the cell carrier. pretty much the same as tier 1, but a little more competent.

tier 3 - professional customer service reps that work for the celluar company. this tier has a lot more autonomy. they can actually make decisions that are against normal policy/procedure esp when the customer has leverage(in this case the 30 day return). for sprint this group is called retentions.

 

[kenn]

This one is going to have to go back as well. I haven't had time to really test it out so I don't know if it is in good working order. (though I have had 3 random force closes followed by reboots as well as a complete lock-up requiring a battery removal).

There is a black fleck of something -- looks like paint -- underneath the glass. My guess is it is sandwiched in the display in some layer. It cannot be cleaned and the glass is perfectly smooth. With the screen off, it cannot be seen. It is about the size of a grain of sand and is right in the middle of the left calendar/clock flip. I keep trying to brush it away, lol.

I'm sure they will think I'm a total a-hole for coming back for something so trivial.

 

[EarlyMon]

For the money they charge for off-contract copies of this pup, and for what you pay in the long run when purchased on-contract, I say they're welcome to whatever opinions they'd like to have of those of us who've been on the receiving end of bad quality control.

It's all of the makers, I've seen this in forum after forum - it seems like they decided that it was cheaper to take returns than to do proper QA on the mass production. And it seems like the carriers sometimes decide that getting in the middle of that and not taking the returns at all is even cheaper for them.

Those forgetting history are destined to repeat it - and it's only a matter of time before they pull this on the head of a law firm specializing in class action suits. The lemon laws passed because of Detroit's shenanigans in the '60s will likely have a resurgence for smartphones.

These guys really need to step it up.

 

[AndroidMax]

Have you considered calling HTC? There what I did with my 4g when I had an issue. It was painless compared to sprint.

 

[kenn]

They gave me a phone with very little grief. As always, I was polite and stated, then asked, "I really hate to be a difficult customer, but, honestly, if this was YOUR expensive device, would you accept that fleck of paint sandwiched between the glass and the LCD panel?" It was basically a "no way" kind of response and that was the end of that. They swapped and I'm good for now.

I did use GPS on the way home and found that it was single-digit error according to GPS status which is certainly better than 17-20 meters. It was hovering around 3-7 meters most of the time which is close to what I had with my Incredible so I guess that's a plus.

I haven't had a chance to test radios yet. Will get back when I have.

 

[Wiley_11]

They gave me a phone with very little grief. As always, I was polite and stated, then asked, "I really hate to be a difficult customer, but, honestly, if this was YOUR expensive device, would you accept that fleck of paint sandwiched between the glass and the LCD panel?" It was basically a "no way" kind of response and that was the end of that. They swapped and I'm good for now.

I did use GPS on the way home and found that it was single-digit error according to GPS status which is certainly better than 17-20 meters. It was hovering around 3-7 meters most of the time which is close to what I had with my Incredible so I guess that's a plus.

I haven't had a chance to test radios yet. Will get back when I have.

Hope you got a winner this time. Nobody should have to put up with this crap, but it seems all to common these days.

 

[CarrieK]

Hope you got a winner this time. Nobody should have to put up with this crap, but it seems all to common these days.

I think it depends on who you talk to. Like anywhere, there are people who are competent and care and others who aren't.

 

[Wiley_11]

I think it depends on who you talk to. Like anywhere, there are people who are competent and care and others who aren't.

I guess I just can't wrap my little pea brain around the fact that people are getting defective phones at a rate of more than one in a row.

Thanks for your never ending reason&logic and eternal optimism.

 

[kenn]

I thought I might drop by and update...

I've had my replacement phone for about a week now and have used it extensively. I'm not seeing the battery drop off a cliff when I make voice calls and according to battery monitor widget, I'm not pulling near the milliamps when I'm on a call. It seems I've got a decent phone. (for the most part -- more below)

What my 3D can't do, is survive very long in an environment with 1 bar. If I don't turn off 3G when I have one bar, my phone won't last the day. My EVO struggled, too, but the 3D is considerably worse in that regard. Both at home and at work, I generally have 1-2 bars. There's really nothing I can do about it so I have to deal with it. I can connect to wifi at home and the battery will easily go a couple of days with light use. At work, the WIFI network is tighter than a steel drum and isn't really an option.

I think I'm going to try juice defender (I purchased it long ago) and have it turn off 3G (and back on briefly) once every 30 minutes or so to get mail and see if that helps.

FWIW, I may just enjoy the 3D for a while and then try the Samsung Galaxy S II variant when it comes out. I dunno. Rooted now and enjoying that aspect, at least.