Getting a new phone soon, having a hard time making a decision...please help

[Zerozx]

furbearingmammal, just to clarify: if I want to replace the phone with the same phone model, do I still have to pay the restocking fee or is it a free replace?

Also, just as a hypothetical, what if my next phone has problems too? I doubt the 30-day thing restarts with each phone...so yeah.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Free replacement, usually. It's a 30-day no-fault warranty type thing.

 

[Zerozx]

Well, I went to Verizon and the person who serviced me basically just told me to reboot my phone at least once a day and pull the battery at least once a week. He told me the phone is like a computer (he mentioned the RAM, etc) and told me that it could help to "refresh" it by rebooting it. He told me if anything else happens to bring it back in before the 30 days is up or they would give a "like-new" phone, not a brand new phone...haha. He checked to make sure I had the latest software, checked for conflicting apps, etc.

A question: would it be worthwhile to go ahead and restore the phone back to factory settings right now and just begin anew or to keep it as is and just see what happens? Any suggestions? Because if this phone is truly defective, I'd like to know for sure before my 30 days is up. Granted, yesterday when it rebooted itself...it hadn't done anything "funky" ever since the couple of days where it locked up and froze. and again, that was before I updated to the latest software which was supposed to fix those problems...it hasn't locked up since, just a random reboot of itself.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Your Rep, like so many before them, is a moron.

Pulling the battery once a week? THIS AIN'T NO STINKING BLACKBERRY, YOU [for the sake of your sanity, a PG rating, and my ability to communicate coherently the rest of this post has been censored] WITH A SPOON! Now I ask you, does that really still taste like a chocolate-covered pretzel?

If you're having that problem then it needs to be replaced. Call VZW and say you want to exchange it and the store you were at refused to do so.

 

[Zerozx]

*sigh* :/ Yeah, he did seem kind of...idk. He wasn't extremely helpful. I had to repeat myself and explain what it had done. He asked the same questions more than once..

Talk about having conflicting thoughts...haha. What if it doesn't reboot itself anymore? The only thing that concerned me was the locking up/freezing I experienced a couple of days after buying it, but the software update said it was supposed to fix that issue and it hasn't happened since (I tried recreating the issue, and since the update, it didn't happen...so that's good?).

In regards to the rebooting itself, it has only done this once or twice BEFORE I updated the software, and that could have been related to the locking up/freezing, could it not? It didn't malfunction in any way for about a week, I think...and all of a sudden, while it was locked and I wasn't using it, I saw the Motorola "M" screen. I have no idea what to think.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Mark the date on your calender for day 30. If you've experienced even ONE more problem like a reboot or lockup, take it back and get a new one. Otherwise, assume the update fixed your problem. No matter what, though, remember the whole "refused to do so" and make note of the rep's name so you can tell the CS agent you speak to on the phone if you have to call. That kind of attitude is inexcusable when dealing with customers.

 

[Zerozx]

Do you think the -occasional- rebooting is normal? I mean, the phone itself is still functioning just fine...it just rebooted itself for the first time in over a week.

and it's not rebooting when I do something specifically...

This is truly annoying, I'd love it if I could just enjoy my phone without having to be on the "lookout" for problems since I'm given a 30-day "grace" period..haha.

 

[furbearingmammal]

If it rebooted randomly and it wasn't overheating that you could feel, take it back. If you don't mind the occasional reboot then that's fine, but considering the cost of this phone over the next year/two years you should have something more stable then that. When I first got my phone it rebooted occasionally. When I first rooted it and started running ROMs on it it would reboot occasionally. Now it only reboots if it's overheating -- and since I'm not overclocking it anymore (well, to 800, but that's how fast it goes playing Flash anyway) it's not overheating. Stock phones with current versions of the OS should NOT randomly reboot.

 

[Zerozx]

Alright. I think I'm just going to mark my 30th day as you said and just watch my phone like a hawk.. but really, if it messes up even in the slightest, I'm going to take it back.

I'm also thinking about using it a bit more than I usually would, just to "test the waters" and see if the phone is truly stable or if it's going to mess up. Right now, I'm not extremely worried about it...but we'll see...

 

[furbearingmammal]

Stress-test it. Good idea. Angry Birds is good. Flash video is good. Easy Tether USB tethering to download a huge file over 3G would stress the 3G antenna.

Anything you can do to put the whack on the phone for a while would be good. If you notice any instability do a sanity check and then consider taking it back.

 

[Zerozx]

Alright, I just installed Angry Birds. I'll go to websites where flash is available as well and see how that does. Anything else you could recommend?

After a few days of testing it, I might post back here just to give a recap if I noticed anything or if it actually handled everything fairly well.

 

[furbearingmammal]

Quadrant and Linpack. Run five or six benchmarks from each of them back to back and see what happens.

 

[Zerozx]

Quadrant and Linpack. Run five or six benchmarks from each of them back to back and see what happens.

Quadrant first benchmark: 1535 - above the rest of the other devices
Linpack first benchmark: MFLOPS: 16.335 Time: 5.13 seconds Norm Res: 5.68 Precision: 2.220446049250313E-16

Now doing Quadrant again, and I'll do as you said..about 5-6 of them back to back. What is linpack doing? Seems different...takes much less time

 

[Zerozx]

Quadrant second benchmark: 1675
Linpack second benchmark: MFLOPS: 16.477 Time: 5.09 secons -- Norm Res and Precision same as first.

Quadrant third benchmark: 1607
Linpack third benchmark: MFLOPS: 16.519 Time: 5.08 seconds Norm Res and Precision same.

Quadrant fourth benchmark: 1607
Linpack fourth benchmark: MFLOPS: 16.39 Time: 5.12 seconds -- norm res and precision same (I'm guessing those don't change? )

Quadrant fifth benchmark: 1679
Linpack fifth benchmark: MFLOPS: 16.275 time: 5.15 seconds -- norm res and precision same

and just for measure...

Quadrant sixth benchmark: 1714
Linpack sixth benchmark: MFLOPS: 16.275 Time: 5.15 seconds -- norm res & precision same

 

[furbearingmammal]

Linpack just tests CPU performance, so it's putting a whack on the CPU. Quadrant tests everything, so it's a good overall stress-test app (though it's just a benchmarking app).

My best Quadrant was about that when I was clocked at 1.2GHz.