Ok so my husband and I both got the htc droid in february of this year and have had numerous problems. We had read some of the reviews before deciding to get the phone and decided it would be a good one to get. Apparently the reviews were written sometime in the first month of having the phone.
While the idea is great this phone is truly the first one I have ever yelled at in the middle of a store or honestly felt like throwing against a wall. Great way to wean yourself off using the phone too much? Just upgrade to the htc droid! I hate making phone calls because it takes 5-10 secs to load my call history, then I push the send button and what do you know I called the wrong person. Try using my favorites list, hmm well if I wanted to call the person two people above their pic then thats who I would have pushed. Tried sending pics to my email it took 5 attempts and 24 hours for me to get them. I get force closed all the time, then it doesn't close anything,{word filter avoidance}
? I hate text messaging, i type fast and never had a problem with my LG Dare ( the last phone I had) but the droid seems to have a brain fart everytime I write a text message.
Forget the market, are you kidding me? What a disaster, I don't have two hours to spend on the phone to look for an app that won't affect the already crappy apps I already have on my phone. My husband gave up sending pic messages, not too mention that everything scrolls the the left and then won't scroll back. Every time our phones are plugged in to charge they freak, literally! They jump from app to app, things get highlighted green and scrolls up and down all the time. Set it on the table and walk slowly away! The phone gets hot, the battery runs out, and because we have to charge it so often the car charger is fried! I am constantly in a fight with my phone to get my home screen to come up, the update may have fixed some of the other issues but it also added so many more.
I have waited and waited, to avoid the scene I now know is going to come up, to go into Verizon to complain and see what they can do. We went in once because of the issues we were having, their solution add Advance Task Killer, super! That got old really fast, I shouldn't have to babysit my phone and make sure everything is turned off when I'm done, hello isn't this a smart phone? Then my attempt at tech support, his solution -remove some of the apps since they may be affecting the other ones, oh yeah and by the way, you should pull the battery out at least once a day to reboot the phone! What?! You have got to be kidding me!
I am not a tech savvy person, I know my way around most phones and get along just fine with most things, but I can't tell you what version of some unknown upgrade could possibly be on my phone or what has caused what. I don't want to have constantly be downloading something to fix an issue that shouldn't be an issue. Isn't that why companies have beta testers? To test their products before they are released to make sure that there are as few issues as possible? The race to have the best, smartest, coolest phone on the market, even when two days later it will be outdated, shouldn't be affecting the products that we pay good money for!
There are other issues, but I can be done for now.
go in and DEMAND replacements. they will give them to you. the problem is that they will still be the htc eris. it's a bad phone. however, from what i've seen, they typically will be ok for a while. then, if this all starts again, go in and DEMAND a replacement...but to a comparable other device (hopefully they are running out of eris replacements any. i'm pretty sure they quit selling it?). maybe they will give you an ally or incredible. be rational and polite (even if it kills you)....but DEMAND they make it right. you will have to deal with at least one more shot at the eris though (unless you are real lucky). that's their policy.
Thank you, I know it's inevitable that we have to go in. I also know we have to give them the chance to fix the problem before I start demanding that they give me a different phone. I just hate knowing that I have to spend the time to do that when I am just going to end up with some of the same problems...grrr. What a retarded game. I was reading some of the other comments about the eris and their customer service experiences on getting it replaced and ugh. It is hit or miss with some people that work there, either in the store or on the phone. I normally don't have too many problems with Verizon and think they are a great company, definitely better than the other options, but I just don't want to play "Ring around the Rosy" with them multiple times in a month. Hence the reason I have avoided going in...I guess it's time to suck it up, putting on my very polite, I'm not **bleep** smile and go get them replaced. Wish me luck!
lol...good luck.
Good luck! A refurb will probably fix most of those problems...unless that one suffers from it too. Some users are reporting being on their 3rd+ Eris. I'm "only" on my 2nd.
Two problems in your list won't be helped by a new Eris. You mentioned trouble with picture messages. One problem that the maintenance update in July (called MR4) introduced is that picture messages are now being interpreted as 5-second slideshows. You will not be able to get rid of that problem with a refurb, as the update (which Verizon has made mandatory) causes it. This issue will also affect who can receive pictures from you: I have a friend with an LG EnV2 who is unable to receive pictures from me after the update, though others still receive them fine--HTC says that only those phones which are, "too old" (yes, their words) will not be able to get pictures from the Eris.
Unfortunately, HTC refuses to support this problem, and one representative, Danty, confirmed that they have absolutely no intention of releasing any new updates to fix it. Verizon says they can't do anything if HTC says there's nothing to be done, so I'm not sure if we'll ever see this one fixed. 😞
Second, the "brain fart" while texting will be present in any replacement you get as well. The Eris' touch keyboard is VERY slow; it just can't keep up. I'd guess it's a hardware problem, or the way the software interacts with the hardware: when I had to have mine replaced, it was because the vibrate mechanism died. That was annoying, but it did have a positive consequence: the phone suddenly became very fast; typing could keep up with me, switching to landscape view was snappy, and apps opened faster as well. There are no officially-sanctioned methods of fixing this. (The only method other users are reporting success with voids your warranty and requires being very tech savvy--personally, I haven't been willing to go that route, but others swear by it.)
Overall, it's a shoddy product, and HTC refuses to honor their obligation to support it. Personally, I'll never buy another HTC phone again, and I tell others to avoid HTC as well. Unfortunately, it sounds like you also learned this lesson the hard way. 😞
Oh, and I forgot to add: get rid of the task killer they recommended. If you see the person who told you to get it when you ask for a replacement, let them know they're giving bad advice. Google itself recommends not using one, and in Android 2.2 (nope, we won't be seeing that on our Erises, unfortunately--too bad, too, because it fixes the problem where users can't make calls hands-free via Bluetooth) they've disabled their functionality.
http://androidspin.com/2010/05/25/why-you-dont-need-a-task-killer-app-with-android/
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html
Here's another link that points out that task killers are potentially harmful:
http://wickenden.livejournal.com/940848.htmlhttp://wickenden.livejournal.com/940848.html
i'm ging to have to disagree. these are bloggers, that cite other bloggers. the article that is linked in your last link (article by the android developer) is good, but nowhere does she say a task killer can harm your device. i WILL say this....if you are going to use a task killer, then you have to learn how it works and how to properly use it. i've been running one for four months and it works GREAT. one touch to end any processes that i want to end (unnecessary apps). all you have to do is learn which apps need to continue to run and put them on your "ignore list." now i'm not saying you need a task killer because you most definitely do not. but they are useful if you know how to use them. if you read all of these articles that are against them, the common statement is that android will and an app when it "needs" the memory. id rather end it myself when it "could use some" more memory. it is no different than waiting for your pc to run low on memory, before you shut down the 20 programs you have open. would you do that? no. when you are done using a program, you close it. you don't even have to know why or how it works....you just know that your pc gets bogged down with more programs running. your phone is the same.
If it were useful, and safe to use a task killer, Google wouldn't have gutted them in 2.2:
http://androinica.com/2010/08/09/froyo-update-kills-android-task-killer-apps/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=70754
This one ties it together and explains the negative effects:
http://www.droid-den.com/android-guides/android-guide-should-i-use-a-task-killer
And here are users reporting performance improvements when getting rid of their task killers:
http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/18334-task-killer-apps-truth.html
Those "unnecessary apps" in the background aren't running, and don't need to be killed: (From the Android Dev link)
"A common misunderstanding about Android multitasking is the difference between a process and an application. In Android these are not tightly coupled entities: applications may seem present to the user without an actual process currently running the app; multiple applications may share processes, or one application may make use of multiple processes depending on its needs; the process(es) of an application may be kept around by Android even when that application is not actively doing something.
The fact that you can see an application's process "running" does not mean the application is running or doing anything. It may simply be there because Android needed it at some point, and has decided that it would be best to keep it around in case it needs it again."
ive been through 4 droid eris' and they refuse to give me a different model unless i pay full price...
Start a new topic or ask questions in the open forum.
