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.