New member, previous droid owner

we_suffer

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Hello everyone. My name is Brandon, most people call me B, suff, or suffer.

Not sure what to write here so I'll tell the tale of my experience with the Motorola Droid.

I was up for my new every two upgrade so I decided to stay with Verizon because I had nothing but positive experiences with them after trying a few other providers, the worst being Sprint. I purchased a Motorola Droid last year at launch. I was relatively happy until I started noticing it was unresponsive, slow, etc. etc. I figured this was because it was from the first batch.

So instead of waiting it out I returned my Motorola Droid and got a LG Env 3. HUGE MISTAKE. I figured the Env 3 would be a fairly solid phone since I had owned the original Env before switching to the Droid, the original Env was a freaking champ! How wrong I was.

Everything was fine for the first three months. My biggest complaint during the "honey moon" phase was that the phone did not have adaptive text unlike the original Env. So every time I wanted typed my friend Adrienne's name I had to type Adri [space] [back space] en [space] [back space] ne. This got pretty old really quick. But other than that everything seemed fine.

Then began the silent calls. I rely heavily on my phone for work, I need it to ring when someone calls and it needs to ring every time. My phone decided it would ring whenever it wanted. Then it began shutting off intermittently.

I brought my phone in for replacement because it was still under the manufacturers 1 year warranty, I was only 4 months in. A week in to my replacement the same behavior started happening.

I wasn't too happy and called Verizon asking what I could do about the situation. It seemed odd that I was given two lemon phones months apart. The woman (who I later found out told me a bold faced lie) "helped" me said the phone had to be replaced at least 4 times for the same issue before Verizon would consider letting me switch to a completely different model. She claimed my phone issues would have to go to a warranty review board and they would render a verdict. I thought this was rather bizarre, but who was I to argue?

Well the second replacement failed on me after four hours. I went in the next day to the local office and asked for a replacement. The guy was extremely helpful and polite (as I had come to expect from Verizon). He informed me that the reason it may be shutting off was because LG made batteries that fit poorly and would often "disconnect"; however I was lucky because LG had recognized the problem and issued entirely new phones for replacements instead of refurbished ones. I left the store as happy as I could be knowing that I had a reworked model of the phone. Haha boy how foolish I was.

Twenty minutes into having the phone the entire bottom half of the internal display would change every imaginable color all at once and completely at random. I was pretty upset because I couldn't reproduce any specific conditions that could induce the issue. So I went back to the store, twice in one day, and explained my situation to the person at the counter. He fiddled around with the phone for about ten minutes and had a hallelujah moment thankfully when the screen went wonky. I walked out with my fourth replacement phone less than pleased.

Now mind you the on shift manager said nothing to me when I walked in and out earlier, nor this time. I was pretty miffed because he had just seen me thirty minutes earlier getting a replacement for my replacement and was seeing me again get a replacement for a replacement for a replacement. He sat at the register next to the one I was at and was showing some female coworkers some images on his phone that produced responses such as "Eww", "I'm going to be sick", and best of all "How did he get that in her..." I was fairly livid because while he was showing his coworkers the images on his phone he made certain to say hi and bye to everyone else who walked in the store except me. Then it dawned on me. He was the manager on shift months earlier who helped me return my Droid. When he asked me why I was returning it I said it wasn't up to snuff in my opinion and rather slow so I'd much rather just have a regular phone. He made a comment about how at the time it had the fastest processor of all the smart phones and that probably the only way I'd be happy was if it read my mind or took predictive actions of what I wanted next. I told him in as polite a manner as possible that he was being rude and I understand that the customer isn't always right (I work in customer service and know this truth intimately) but in this instance I was exercising my right to return the phone within the allotted 30 days without making a big stink about it and completely willing to pay the $35 restocking fee; without even attempting to slide out of the fee. He gave me a really dirty look and passed me off to another employee.

I decided to call Verizon and complain both about the phone and the Manager. I was less then pleased with the response. The woman said the complaint would be sent to a supervisor and that would be the end of it. In regards to my phone she said I simply had to wait for my contract to end or pay the full price for a new phone. Well this left me bewildered because it conflicted with the previous staff members statement who said there was a warranty board. I figured I had had enough of the circles and BS so I switched my service back to my original Env. The battery life is atrocious, but it doesn't shut off at random without warning.

Feeling fairly helpless I decided to give it one last try to see what Verizon could do. Long story short they informed me I could get a certified pre-owned phone with a one year contract at a discount or resign for a two year contract and get the full discount of a new plan on a phone of my choice.

I've decided to go with the Droid X. I can hardly wait. I think this time I'll have a bit more patience if the phone takes a moment or two to recognize a command. I am more than excited for Swype and the other features of the Droid X.

All in all despite the hassle and the money wasted on a restocking fee and an Env 3 I am glad I had done what I did. Because now I can get a Droid X and have a better idea of what to expect.

Also dear lord I realized how long of an introductory post this is. I apologize. -__-
 
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96accord

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Welcome to Droid Forums!

Is there an overview to the above post? :X (sorry but that's alot of reading)

-Jeff
 

geta2j

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I am so pleased with my Moto Droid that I am not convinced that the Droid X is for me. *shrugs shoulders* dancedroid
 

hookbill

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First, she didn't lie to you. She told you the truth.

As far as your first Droid "getting slow," there was probably a reason for that. Like were you running any virus protection or task killers? And even if that wasn't the reason usually an simple off/on will fix it. If that doesn't work you can do a factory data reset to fix it.

Phone ringing problem. Probably also app related. Factory Data reset would have fixed that as well.

Trust me I'm not trying to make you feel bad or treat you unkind but it seems to me that you weren't quite up to date on how to resolve some minor issues that will pop up from time to time. I read a lot of complaining but no attempts to resolve the issue other then visit Verizon. And unless you learn what to do in these situations, you'll just be returning phone after phone.

Spend some time in the forum reading,learning and understanding what you have. Maybe you'd like to try rooting and really let your phones potential lose.
 
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we_suffer

we_suffer

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First, she didn't lie to you. She told you the truth.

As far as your first Droid "getting slow," there was probably a reason for that. Like were you running any virus protection or task killers? And even if that wasn't the reason usually an simple off/on will fix it. If that doesn't work you can do a factory data reset to fix it.

Phone ringing problem. Probably also app related. Factory Data reset would have fixed that as well.

Trust me I'm not trying to make you feel bad or treat you unkind but it seems to me that you weren't quite up to date on how to resolve some minor issues that will pop up from time to time. I read a lot of complaining but no attempts to resolve the issue other then visit Verizon. And unless you learn what to do in these situations, you'll just be returning phone after phone.

Spend some time in the forum reading,learning and understanding what you have. Maybe you'd like to try rooting and really let your phones potential lose.

I don't think I made myself clear. The phone I continued returning was an LG Env 3, not the Motorola Droid. I did exchange the Droid for the Env 3 after a week with the Droid because I was relatively unimpressed with its speed and figured a better Droid phone would be coming out later anyways. So as far as not doing anything to resolve the issues with the Env 3... there wasn't much I could do. The LG Env 3 is KNOWN to have software issues as well as hardware issues with the battery.

In response to my Droid running slow I was not running any task killers, no anti-virus, etc. etc.

Also in regards to the warranty board I was informed by a Verizon Wireless representative that no such thing existed and that company policy stated that after 4 replacements for phone defects (not user/owner ignorance/actions) that a customer was entitled to purchasing a certified preowned phone with I believe a one year contract extension or resigning a two year contract with a new phone at the new every 2 price. She laughed pretty hard after I mentioned the warranty board thing so somewhere someone is lying.
 
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