I‘ve recently gone through three replacement phones: all MyTouch 3Gs. They exhibit the same symptoms: freezing, restarting, and general failure with respect to functioning as a phone. Through a bit of experimentation, I’ve come to determine that this is a memory issue.
MyTouch 3Gs (along with most of T-Mobile’s Android-based phones) have 512MB of internal memory. Apparently, my Gmail account (what you use to authenticate against the device) is too large for the phone to sync with. I know this because signing into the phone with my Google Apps account (willie at williejackson) allows the phone to behave normally…for a while.
In order for the phone to act right, I have to disable contact sync (I have less than 700 contacts). This is unacceptable. T-Mobile has a policy that allows you to be issued a replacement if three phones are defective within a three month period. I meet the criteria for this policy.
The trouble is that the manufacturer determines what the replacement device is. In my case, it’s a device with the same amount of internal memory as the phone it would be replacing. So this wouldn’t solve my problem.
The only Android-based T-Mobile phone that meets my needs is, unsurprisingly, the most expensive. I’d need to pay almost $500 to get the phone, despite having been a T-Mobile customer for 5+ years.
They make a good point in that my issue isn’t related to T-Mobile’s network so their policies can’t really be faulted, but it would actually be cheaper for me to pay the $200 early termination fee and get a top of the line phone from Verizon. This is a problem. I can’t come out of pocket like that for a phone that meets my needs on principle because of how long I’ve been a loyal customer. I refuse. This isn’t even about the money.
T-Mobile: you might win some, but you just lost one.
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Man that is so unfortunate. But the bigger question is what phone are you going to get? X?
Not sure man. Check out my post on Facebook about it; one of my buddies shared some insight re: navigating the “Alright, I’m leaving” tapdance in order to get what I need.
Sorry to hear that Willie. It looks like nowadays cell phone companies do not value loyalty anymore. They rather loose customers to their competitors. Their loss! I’ve been with Verizon for over two years… They have good customers service. If you androids make sure the one you will get is froyo compatible.
Ced
No sweat man, someone’s gonna take my money. The people enforcing the ridiculous policies aren’t the people to made them up, so I try to keep a cool head and not take out my frustration on them.
I’ve actually heard the opposite about Verizon’s customer service, so I’m happy to hear a different story. And yeah, whatever phone I get — assuming that I stick with the Android platform — will be Froyo-ready!
Willie –
I feel a little bit of your pain on this one. I started to make the move to T-Mobile with the promise I could use the Dash 3G for tethering — which is what their sales told me it could do. After six hours of fighting with it, researching, and talking to different representatives, I finally get to a supervisor that told me not only do they no longer support tethering with the Dash 3G, but they prohibit it.
Well. Isn’t that special.
I went through a couple of more steps with them, but they couldn’t find it in themselves to deliver what I needed in whatever form we approached it. It became apparent the groups of the company may be fairly effective in what they do, but they aren’t on the same page. (In some cases, they weren’t even in the same hymnal.)
So, T-Mobile lost me, permanently. I will never do business with them.
I thought about ranting about that on my own blog, but … well … I ran across this article that gives my vindictive need for revenge some satisfaction, name T-Mobile one of the “10 Brands That May Disappear in 2011.”
(Bwahahahaha.)
– Daniel
Hey Daniel-
That sounds about right. I’ve had a few minor issues with T-Mobile over the years that were maddeningly frustrating.
That list you posted has a ton of big companies on it. I wonder what Wall Street’s accuracy rate in predicting this kinda thing is.
We shall see.
man I have the same phone, luckily it didn’t break yet. However, this is not no iphone replacement ha ha. Maybe the 500 phone, you are talking about vibrant right. It might be an iphone killer
We shall see :)
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