it literally takes me all of 5 minutes of repeatedly holding down the power button for the phone to turn back on...why does it do that?
It should not be that difficult to do that. Once you power down, you only need to press and hold the button for 1-2 seconds at the most to restart it. Have you tried pulling the battery out before powering it back up?
Because you're not giving it enough time when you turn it off. Step one: Press "power off" after holding the power button. Step two: Wait for the phone to power down to a black screen. Step three: Count to 20 or something like that. Step four: Press the power button again for about a second, or until you see the Samsung logo.
You need to first learn how to use your phone properly. Once that is complete, you should be able to turn the phone on without any problem. If you need help locating the power button, please refer to the manual that came with your phone. You must wait for it to fully power off before trying to restart it. If you don't then you have to wait again before pressing the power button. After the screen turns off it has to still run through several security checks that sends your GPS coordinates to both Google and US Cellular and also sends them your browser history. An easy fix for this is to do a battery pull while the phone says that it is shutting down.
It take a little bit of time to shut completely down just like it take a while for the Mesmerize to become completely operational after you turn it on.
Another way to restart your phone is to hold the Volume UP and Power buttons simultaneously for about 5 or 6 seconds. After that, the screens should go black and within about 3 seconds should display the Samsung logo.
