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[Q] Should i get a new replacement Captivate?

I was up at the AT&T store today to discuss some overcharges on my bill and during the conversation I mentioned my gps not working. The guy at the store acknowledged it was a problem but was under the impression that JH7 fixes it...which it doesn't. Long story short, I've been offered a replacement handset at the store level, brand new in the box, not a refurb.
So the question is, do I take him up on it? My gps is like most everyone elses and not all that useful and occasionally there's a phantom press of the search button. Those are the only problems I've had.
So, what's the likelihood that a new-in-box captivate will have the same GPS problem? Anything else I need to consider as I decide?

CoreyC said:
I was up at the AT&T store today to discuss some overcharges on my bill and during the conversation I mentioned my gps not working. The guy at the store acknowledged it was a problem but was under the impression that JH7 fixes it...which it doesn't. Long story short, I've been offered a replacement handset at the store level, brand new in the box, not a refurb.
So the question is, do I take him up on it? My gps is like most everyone elses and not all that useful and occasionally there's a phantom press of the search button. Those are the only problems I've had.
So, what's the likelihood that a new-in-box captivate will have the same GPS problem? Anything else I need to consider as I decide?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd keep the GPS issue rather than risking the random shut offs. Just my opinion though, especially since I am about to return my second captivate due to random shut downs.

Just wanted to followup on this. I did swap out my captivate for a new one at my local AT&T store. I even got the manager to put in writing that if I continued to have problems that I could switch to a different model.
The new captivate handset did the random poweroff trick three times the day after I brought it home. In an attempt to fix it I drained the battery and let it charge back up over night and haven't had a problem since.
GPS is also MUCH better than what it was on my original handset but still not perfect as it 'teleported' me from one road to another a few times using Navigation. I do however get a quick lock using only satellites and GPSStatus shows while driving that I was locked on to between 5 and 10 satellites with the norm being 8. With my original I'd lose a lock on all satellites once I started moving, so while not perfect, this is definitely better than my original.

Thanks for your input.
Man this GPS really frustrates me. I used to have your quality GPS and now it is broken. Thinking of flashing to stock and trying to.exchange it
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I was under the impression that if you exchange a phone through ATT they will send it to the Samsung service center, and there they threaten that if they find nothing wrong with it they will charge you $600.
This has always intimidated me since I only paid $60 and I don't want like not being in control of something (like whether or not they will charge me).
Is it really this easy to exchange for a broken GPS?

fatttire said:
I was under the impression that if you exchange a phone through ATT they will send it to the Samsung service center, and there they threaten that if they find nothing wrong with it they will charge you $600.
This has always intimidated me since I only paid $60 and I don't want like not being in control of something (like whether or not they will charge me).
Is it really this easy to exchange for a broken GPS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only time you risk being billed for a new phone at full price is if you send it back with problems, and there was physical damage or you're rooted and messed with things or running a custom rom. Now it's not guarenteed that they will bill you but i'd imagine that the likelihood increases.
As far as returning phones past the 30 day window it usually isn't a problem if you speak calmly to a manager. Explain that you have tried all of the fixes that Samsung has offered, nothing has worked, and you believe you were sold a defective product with which you are unhappy.

fatttire said:
Is it really this easy to exchange for a broken GPS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was for me...but I think that was largely because both the rep I talked with and the manager were aware of the GPS problems. I tried doing the exchange while the rep I had been working with was at lunch and got fed the "exchanges can only be done within the first 30 days of purchase" line by another rep. I came back later in the day and talked to my original rep who brought over the manager and it was smooth sailing after that. If you can believe it, the manager even apologized for the problems I had with the phone.
Worst case, have the manager at your local store browse this forum or do a little googling and he'll quickly see how widespread this problem is. And be sure you have the stock JH7 loaded up; that was the one check that the rep did when we started talking about an exchange.

looks like I spoke too soon - 3 random shutdowns today. Now to decide if I want to try a 3rd Captivate or jump ship and go with the HTC Surround. And here I thought I was done with all my research for a year or two.

fatttire said:
I was under the impression that if you exchange a phone through ATT they will send it to the Samsung service center, and there they threaten that if they find nothing wrong with it they will charge you $600.
This has always intimidated me since I only paid $60 and I don't want like not being in control of something (like whether or not they will charge me).
Is it really this easy to exchange for a broken GPS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As mentioned before it is easy to swap for gps issues and the $600 is only if you did something bad. If you rooted the phone you can restore to stock using 1-click odin and master clear, it passed scrutiny on my case (disclaimer: can't guarantee it would for you).
Sent from mobile xda
Captivate running Axura

I'm glued to this thread like a good tv series ahemm. I've had the exact same issue(s), namely the random search pop-up. It drove me crazy for quite some time, I could even shake the phone without touching any buttons and the search dialog would present itself (sometimes other apps popped-up). I eventually read up on roms and now run perception b8. I ran cognition previously, but experienced 2 deal breakers issues (bluetooth and radio problems). As for the search dialog, it no longer occurs. While on cognition I did experience two random shutdowns, and I thought the battery ran down in a hurry, just a beep and short vibrate and it was deadso. If you stay with the cap, read up on perception stat.

tsachi said:
As mentioned before it is easy to swap for gps issues and the $600 is only if you did something bad. If you rooted the phone you can restore to stock using 1-click odin and master clear, it passed scrutiny on my case (disclaimer: can't guarantee it would for you).
Sent from mobile xda
Captivate running Axura
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THanks, this helps. It's good to know a) whether they let you swap for gps issues and b) whether they check really hard or flash to stock odin lets you do it.
i appreciate your feedback.
i had a bad case with best buy where i returned a broken item and they claimed it was fine... it was broken... but they said it worked okay... had to pay a fee to get it back.. now i'm kinda paranoid about returning items for "subjective" issues (i.e. not a hard brick)

Quick update to the saga....on my 3rd captivate, worst one yet. Seems to poweroff if i set it down for more than 30 minutes. I've had it 3 days and i lost count of the poweroffs around 14 or 15.
Learned they will only exchange at the store 3 times, so i was advised to call customer care and/or samsung to have a fresh from the factory handset (see the poweroff press release thread) sent to me. Thought being that if the brand new one still had problems they could still put me into a Surround at the store.
Getting frustrated, starting to look for ways to migrate my text messages to WP7.
Other bit of info, guy at the store doesn't expect any new models until Spring at the earliest.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Finally a fully functioning phone

So long story short I lost my phone a week ago, one with terrible gps I should add, I didn't get the standard 5 dollar a month insurance from the death star, the guy at the wireless place offered me some other option where you pay a hundred up front but the deductible was only fifty so I did it thank god.
The insurance was through protect cell. So i filed a claim and they two dayed me phone feddy ex new sim card all. So i activated the phone and what do you know it has constant, i mean extremely constant random shutdown, like every 20 minutes while the battery was over 50 percent. So i the insurance company back and what do you the had the cap on back order so instead of being able to over night me a phone I had to deal with random shutdowns for a few days.
So the new phone finally arrived today and so far no random shutdowns and I did a gps test today and it worked extremely better than ever before. Hopefully this continues. Because I did hear fresh phones are more apt to have a functionable gps.
So to everyone with some sort of issue I suggest using those one year manufacturers warranties until you get a completely functionable phone. I do understand that is a big hassle for most of us and we shouldn't have to do all that to get a working phone but imo its better then having a phone that is lacking in some of its functionability.
Now more testing on custom rom and I am all set, praying gps maintains cuz it's a dealbreaker for me

I got my replacement phone last week (random shutdowns). The replacement had 4 shutdowns in less than 24 hours, the phone I was replacing had 4 shutdowns in 2 months. Called and *****ed that the replacement was within the same IMEI range as the affected phones. They overnighted another phone without waiting for the first or second phone to be returned. Third phone is working fine so far. GPS on Andromeda 1.2 is awesome.

Yea my phone also falls into the random shutdown range sadly, but hey so did my first one and I hadnt had any problems with it. Curious do you have insurance through att or did you get your replacement through warranty?

Fortunately, I live within 25 miles of a AT&T Tech Center - right next to an AT&T Sales Store - and they always have the Cap in stock. I'm on my 4th one, due to hardware issues - all at 0 cost under warranty. They were nice enough to show me that the new phone would boot to recovery, lol.
Happily running Serendipity 5.12, and patiently awaiting Gingerbread.
Thanks to all the devs and members at xda forums for your tireless enthusiasm!

No insurance, all replaced under warranty.

well its day two and I'm now running andromeda, gps is decent but not spectacular. Scheming on an inspire now
Sent from my SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

Held out since Dec 2010...replacement on the way
There are quite a few threads about the Captivate Shutdown issue, and actually there are a few with some good observations on how to potentially correct it, but ultimately it needs to be replaced
So, what have I tried:
1) Captivate Keep Alive: Works, but battery drain...and non solution.
2) Load Monitor: Works, not a huge battery drain...still, does not fix the underlying issue.
3) Contrary to what many have said, a custom rom/custom kernel does not fix the issue.
4) It does appear some have had success with cleaning battery terminals, and a few have stated Samsung replaced the battery terminals and it fixed the issue.
I called At&t today, 03/08/2011, they asked me for the IMEI code and what color the water damage indicators where (pink or white?). No water damage here, so white please.
They are doing an exchange by mail, since I do not live close to a repair center...I have 14-days to ship the original back. It was quick and to the point. The replacement is a "refurbished device" direct from the manufacturer. Fingers crossed that I do not experience this again on the replacement as others have.
Hope this helps someone sitting on the fence on whether or not to ship theirs back. Remember to unroot, unlag, and otherwise un-fun your phone before shipping back
Enigma

[Q] Has anyone gotten a refurb from atnt recently?

I mean by calling atnt and having them send you a replacement? I was wondering what model numbers they are shipping and if anyone is having any problems? Ive gotten about 4 replacements in the past 2 months from my local device service center and they all have developed random shutdowns. Ironically my first phone (1009) didnt have a problem but I exchanged it for the gps. And all the replacements had perfect gps but all developed random shutdowns (1008 batches).
I noticed the first random shutdowns on the first few phones would shutdown in my pocket and would turn on normally. My most recent phone is shutting down while charging and the battery needs to be removed. These all all refurbished phones...
So I dont know if I should go to my local store and hopefully they got a new batch or contact atnt via phone and have them ship me one.

NascarFastcar said:
I mean by calling atnt and having them send you a replacement? I was wondering what model numbers they are shipping and if anyone is having any problems? Ive gotten about 4 replacements in the past 2 months from my local device service center and they all have developed random shutdowns. Ironically my first phone (1009) didnt have a problem but I exchanged it for the gps. And all the replacements had perfect gps but all developed random shutdowns (1008 batches).
I noticed the first random shutdowns on the first few phones would shutdown in my pocket and would turn on normally. My most recent phone is shutting down while charging and the battery needs to be removed. These all all refurbished phones...
So I dont know if I should go to my local store and hopefully they got a new batch or contact atnt via phone and have them ship me one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my wife just got a refurb about a month ago and her build is 1006

nyydynasty said:
my wife just got a refurb about a month ago and her build is 1006
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I shouldn't thought twice because I know someone is gonna post about how the numbers dont matter. But I was just wondering. How is the phone doing? gps, shutting down etc? I just think my local store has a bad batch.

In october I took back original 1006 build with shutdown issue. Since it was radio shack and people around here dont know ****, they still had new ones so I exchanged it for a NIB. Another 1006 build, never a single problem with it.

Got a replacement two weeks ago for my Captivate that "disappeared" at airport security. Went through the call-in process and got a refurbished phone without sign of normal wear and tear. Build is 1010 and so far everything is perfect (including the GPS which had never worked on my previous 1008). I have it running on CM7 installed on the SD and I'm amazed how much better this unit is than the previous one. Makes me almost glad the previous one flew the coop.

FishDoc said:
Got a replacement two weeks ago for my Captivate that "disappeared" at airport security. Went through the call-in process and got a refurbished phone without sign of normal wear and tear. Build is 1010 and so far everything is perfect (including the GPS which had never worked on my previous 1008). I have it running on CM7 installed on the SD and I'm amazed how much better this unit is than the previous one. Makes me almost glad the previous one flew the coop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How long does the transaction take to ship and get to you? I know they just send the phone without a battery cover and battery. They also send a box to send the old one back in? The service center is about 20 mins from me but I just dont risk another bad one.

I just got two replacements from ATT this week. One for me, one for wife. Both are build 1102. Both old ones were 1006 (need to mail those back soon). I noticed the three button combo works of stock froyo, but stopped working when I flashed stock eclair with Odin. I tried to flash GB on mine, same way I did with my 1006, soft brick. Had to buy a jig.
They wanted to give me free 5 day shipping, or charge for 2 day shipping. I explained I don't have a home phone, really need my cell to work and fast, they waived the fee. Called on Saturday night, arrived on Tuesday morning.
Sent from my Captivate running Cognition

I've gotten 2 from AT&T since January, one for me and one for my girl. I've had zero problems. Both are 1007 models. I've flashed every ROM available on XDA.... multiple times... Smooth as can be. Sucks your having so many issues. This is a great phone. Very easy to work with. You would think it would be easy enough for them to make it all but new other then the cosmetic blemish here or there. I'm a big fan of putting up a stink if I don't get what was promised to me. If anything else goes wrong, I'd push for an upgrade... With the infuse out now, that would be a great way to go. I'm waiting to make any trouble till the SGS II comes out, then I'll figure out a way to get one for free

Just got one a week and a half ago. build 1010

If there's a ATT repair store in your town, you can get a replacement in about 15min.

I sent my 1008 in for exchange due to random shutdown, paid for 2nd day shipping, received 1010 no shut downs and gps is ok.

NascarFastcar said:
How long does the transaction take to ship and get to you? I know they just send the phone without a battery cover and battery. They also send a box to send the old one back in? The service center is about 20 mins from me but I just dont risk another bad one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
48 hours from call-in to delivery of the "new" refurbished unit.

axis01 said:
If there's a ATT repair store in your town, you can get a replacement in about 15min.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats what I've been doing. But about a week or two in every phone develops shutdowns. I should make a fuss and see if they will give me a new one out of the box.

So wait ya'll haven't paid the $ for a refurbished cap through arts warranty?!

I got my refurbished cappy about a month ago,its a 1007 build.Had some issues with stock kb1 and a lota random restarts on ff 3.0 but ever since the switch to continuum 4(basicly onix kernel) all my issues were gone and became a happy cappy user About the gps : doesnt matter what rom I was on the gps fix from plumbob did it for me,get locks even with 70mph and tue tracking works just fine(no complaints) just be sure to follow the instructions prior flashing the fix.Also for me here in Hungary kb1 modem works the best but jk4 performance is acceptable to,so I dont feel the urge to switch to GB yet since everything runs smoooooth.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

xThe Enforcer said:
So wait ya'll haven't paid the $ for a refurbished cap through arts warranty?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope had about 4 refurbs in the past few months. Didn't have to pay a thing. But what fee are you talking about? But I never damaged a thing.

NascarFastcar said:
I shouldn't thought twice because I know someone is gonna post about how the numbers dont matter. But I was just wondering. How is the phone doing? gps, shutting down etc? I just think my local store has a bad batch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
phone is fine but no matter what ROM we put on there, her phone wont ring sometimes - which I dont understand how that is NOT a rom issue but its happened to all the rom's I installed since she got her refurb. Its random and a reboot usually fixes it for a while until it happens again. There are some other minor quirks that I can't remember too.
GPS is fine
no shutdown issues

NascarFastcar said:
Nope had about 4 refurbs in the past few months. Didn't have to pay a thing. But what fee are you talking about? But I never damaged a thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I pay the $5 a month and I thought if you want a new phone through AT&T you have to pay some $?! Do they comp everyone who has the typical Captivate problems and waive the fee?

xThe Enforcer said:
Well, I pay the $5 a month and I thought if you want a new phone through AT&T you have to pay some $?! Do they comp everyone who has the typical Captivate problems and waive the fee?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know. I don't have the $5 insurance. But every time I go get a refurb they offer it to me. But I never had to pay a dime when exchanging my phone at a service center and like someone said above it only takes about 10 mins.

Hmm, I'm using continuum now but I'm really not liking it. It has some issues like it lags on using the contact list. I've also had it randomly shut off. I was using fire fly before and it was fantastic, but I wanted to use netflix. Going to try out cyanogen.
Oh and I got a refurb 1007, which seems to have fixed my issues.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Is AT&T out of their freaking mind?

My brother has a HOX, preordered from Radioshack and got his phone right before Apple went all Soup Nazi on HTC. He is not what I would call a power user. He does not root phones, load custom roms, or do much of anything other than use his phone. Today he told me that his battery is draining at an incredible rate. Down to 58% in less than 2 hours. He hasn't downloaded any apps or anything that would cause this problem. He called AT&T and their fix was sending him a new battery.....
Now, I might be a little on the slow side myself but I am pretty sure that it takes a very adventurous person to crack open this phone to replace the battery. I told him that he is getting the run around and that he should demand a replacement. He is past his 30 days but they should still do a warranty exchange. He said he will take it to an AT&T store when he gets the new battery and see what happens but I sure as heck would not trust some $8/hr lackey at a random at&t store ripping my phone apart. (no offense to those of you that work at an at&t store but if I don't feel like I could do it myself then I would want someone who is an expert doing it, not someone that is just collecting a check)
Am I the only one that thinks this is a terrible idea?

berdo said:
My brother has a HOX, preordered from Radioshack and got his phone right before Apple went all Soup Nazi on HTC. He is not what I would call a power user. He does not root phones, load custom roms, or do much of anything other than use his phone. Today he told me that his battery is draining at an incredible rate. Down to 58% in less than 2 hours. He hasn't downloaded any apps or anything that would cause this problem. He called AT&T and their fix was sending him a new battery.....
Now, I might be a little on the slow side myself but I am pretty sure that it takes a very adventurous person to crack open this phone to replace the battery. I told him that he is getting the run around and that he should demand a replacement. He is past his 30 days but they should still do a warranty exchange. He said he will take it to an AT&T store when he gets the new battery and see what happens but I sure as heck would not trust some $8/hr lackey at a random at&t store ripping my phone apart. (no offense to those of you that work at an at&t store but if I don't feel like I could do it myself then I would want someone who is an expert doing it, not someone that is just collecting a check)
Am I the only one that thinks this is a terrible idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Considering that you have to take screws out and remove other components to GET to the battery, it's a horrible idea. I'll bet he gets a battery for a Vivid or some other phone.

They screwed up - someone at AT&T didn't realize you can't just swap the battery. They tried to offer me the same solution when I brought back the unit because of the battery drain issue, until I told them that you can't just swap the battery out.
Is your brother in an LTE area? Does he commute to work (subway) - or otherwise runs into issues where he loses signal for some time? That seems to be one of the biggest issues with the battery drain today - regaining lost LTE signal (after it being lost for a while).

Tell him to install Badass battery monitor. It will tell you what's draining the battery.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gsamlabs.bbm

neocryte said:
Is your brother in an LTE area? Does he commute to work (subway) - or otherwise runs into issues where he loses signal for some time? That seems to be one of the biggest issues with the battery drain today - regaining lost LTE signal (after it being lost for a while).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He lives in Houston, so yes he has LTE. No odd commute though, but the has had the phone for 2 months roughly and have good batter life up until two days ago. I don't think he has any issue with signal loss.

danix180 said:
Tell him to install Badass battery monitor. It will tell you what's draining the battery.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gsamlabs.bbm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. I have passed it a long to him. Will let you know if anything interesting is found.

berdo said:
My brother has a HOX, preordered from Radioshack and got his phone right before Apple went all Soup Nazi on HTC. He is not what I would call a power user. He does not root phones, load custom roms, or do much of anything other than use his phone. Today he told me that his battery is draining at an incredible rate. Down to 58% in less than 2 hours. He hasn't downloaded any apps or anything that would cause this problem. He called AT&T and their fix was sending him a new battery.....
Now, I might be a little on the slow side myself but I am pretty sure that it takes a very adventurous person to crack open this phone to replace the battery. I told him that he is getting the run around and that he should demand a replacement. He is past his 30 days but they should still do a warranty exchange. He said he will take it to an AT&T store when he gets the new battery and see what happens but I sure as heck would not trust some $8/hr lackey at a random at&t store ripping my phone apart. (no offense to those of you that work at an at&t store but if I don't feel like I could do it myself then I would want someone who is an expert doing it, not someone that is just collecting a check)
Am I the only one that thinks this is a terrible idea?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lol clearly someone didn't realize that the battery isn't replaceable on a HOX.
Phone has a year warranty. I don't think the device support centers even have the HOX yet so to get his replacement he'll have to call 1-800-801-1101
They'll ship him out another one.

berdo said:
He lives in Houston, so yes he has LTE. No odd commute though, but the has had the phone for 2 months roughly and have good batter life up until two days ago. I don't think he has any issue with signal loss.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm in Houston too and have had nothing but amazing battery life. Just fyi
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

Every time I've called AT&T about the phone their android phone tech people (yeah sure they are), have always first told me to take the battery out of the phone. When I tell them I can't and its a one piece phone. Its as if they heard the word of God and their eyes were finally opened. It baffles how much some people just don't know. I've always been told by att to push volume up and power to reset the phone..
Sent from my HTC One X using xda premium

[Q] UK - Returning phone to Samsung or claiming on insurance

Hi there,
My S3 has died (assuming it's the well known motherboard issue) - just wasn't working one morning, no light, no charge - totally dead.
I wondered what people's experience of returning items to Samsung is? I'm in Central London and the two Samsung official dealers get shocking reviews - seem to claim that everything is water damaged and charge £30 without any actual repair/replacement, taking weeks to do it.
How about returning the phone to Samsung? Any good experiences/horror stories? What is their turnaround time?
I have mobile phone insurance with my bank account - for a £50 excess they'll deliver a replacement phone next day, so that seems very tempting if the Samsung service is even slightly difficult.
One of those times I sort of wish I had an iPhone.

Wrong forum mate this is for the sg3. However I can help you to a degree. Are you completely sure that it's dead? I've never seen an Android phone just "die" without you do/something happening to it. Try to get into download or recovery mode (volume down and power button I believe not 100% sure) also it's not going to hurt to attempt the Samsung insurance, if they ask for a fee or you're getting bad customer service then deny them and go to the mobile insurance and pay the money for less worries. Any ways hope your problem gets fixed.
Sent from my GT-I5800 using xda app-developers app