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I went to Best Buy to peruse this evening and checked out the HTC Inspire 4G - overall it's a pretty snappy phone and the 4.3" screen has me drooling along with the front camera, rear flash and the Sense UI that has grown so much from my good old days of HTC on Windows Mobile!!! Then I thought to myself, hmmmm, perhaps AT&T will let me get it!!!
I purchased the Captivate on July 15th, about three days ahead of the actual release date and I was beaming - until the woeful GPS and now the occasional rebooting if you look at it too hard issues came up, of course I stuck with it because originally they said the holy grail of 2.2 would be out by August, then the end of September, then after Turkey day then by Christmas...... and now it's almost March, almost seven months later to the date!!!
I've been a Bell South/Cingular/AT&T subscriber since 2000, now a little over 11 years, and thru those years I've had let's say about nine phones of my own not to include my wifes phone and then my kids as they grew up and I gave them phones via the family plan. Strangely enough when I upgraded my last phone (HTC Fuze) to the captivate they gave me the option to upgrade a year later which will be July 15th, they usually let me upgrade every year or so so I'm always fresh.
But after this second hassle with them about a Samsung smart phone (first was the BlackJack) I'm pretty done and ready to go back to old reliable HTC and call them up and demand that they give me an Inspire or I nip all my plans in the bud since they all expire this year with my phone being the last one to expire in July and moving over to T-Mobile or Verizon. I know I could get it and they would probably extend my contract another 6 months or so, and I've seen the specs on it and know that by mid summer it would be be beyond old hat since it's pretty much the Evo with GSM with new Sense UI. Or I could wait and see if they would give me the Infuse or the new Motorola but I'd hate to get any of those phones then see in July that the new HTC Super Duper or Samsung Galaxy S 2.5 come out then. Should I wait it out another five months with the Captivate, play the warranty return game till they offer me an alternative or just say" Yo AT&T, if you still want my business give me a Motorola!!!"
Right there with you. Got my Cappy in late July, now on my sixth. They offered to give me a different phone on the last two, but the closest to the Cap's specs were the x10 and iPhone 4. Hoping number six here holds out until the x12's or Atrix's come out. If they're not willing to budge on my terms when it inevitably dies (free and no-new-contract) then I'm paying the ETF and heading to sprint.
I'm planning on doing the same. Although chances are they will only change it (one time) to another phone that is refurbished. So it might take a while to jump on a new phone.
How did you manage to gets a one year contract with a phone upgrade? I wish I got that.I have a one year upgrade option but a t year contract that gets extended with every upgrade. The 300-500 is not worth the contract cancellation for me
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
crystalhand said:
The 300-500 is not worth the contract cancellation for me
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True. But with all the bullsh*t that has came with this droid and having to take 5 phones to the post office to be shipped back (only to be refurb'd again and passed off to some other poor bastard)... a $200 ETF is like paying for the luxury of no longer putting up with AT&T. Every month another $20 less that I have to pay them, etc.
3 times warranty exchange of captivate for the sleep/charge death issue; and possibly account history.
As always, be soft, be patient, and be genuine.
I was told I could swap for a different phone in Dec last if the sleep death issue reoccurred (that was the 4th exchange in all -- once a battery and 3 times phone exchange).
Luckily, my captivate survived.
Im so tempted to just pay the ETF and jump to verizon.. its nice to see that att is getting some new android phones. Even though the htc phone has the lowest specs its so tempting because it will have aosp and 2.3 before the new samsung phone.....and unless motorola goes with an unlocked bootloader they will be in the same boat. Hardware specs don't mean much if the software isn't there
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Early upgrade pricing is $300 and most everyone will qualify for that. Sell your Captivate for $250-$300 on Craigslist and be done with it. It will be hard to get them to swap it. I tried.
gtg465x said:
Early upgrade pricing is $300 and most everyone will qualify for that. Sell your Captivate for $250-$300 on Craigslist and be done with it. It will be hard to get them to swap it. I tried.
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The Inspire is available for $400 with no contract. I'd rather do that than pay $300 for an upgrade and be locked in for 2 more years.
Same boat.... random shutdowns, etc. On my 5th or 6th phone. I have device support center near my house, so swapping them out it easy, but irritating. When I called yesterday, they said I could swap it for an Inspire, but only when the warranty center received refurbished units, which could take 30-90 days. I doubt it will take that long. I do not see them issuing new Inspires to anybody with a problem at 31+ days. I would have to guess they will have refurbs within 30 days, but who knows. Anybody know how long it takes for AT&T to start getting refurbs?
I'm also curious to know if i can do this. I bought a Captivate refurbished, and already got a replacement because of random shut down issues. Maybe i'll give AT&T a call tomorrow and see what I can do, anyone think people interested in this idea have a decent chance as long as we're reasonable to the AT&T rep we speak to?
Tried. Didn't work : /
It's good to know I'm not the only person thinking about the trade out, seeing as how the Inspire 4G is marked monetarily lower than the Captivate but of the same calibur I'm sure that it will be a refurb option really soon. The only thing I dread about going through the warranty process is initially getting back Captivate refurbs that have bigger issues than mine over and over again until AT&T finally gives in and lets me choose another phone of the same calibur which is why I haven't sent mine in for the GPS, media scan of dread and shutdown while charging/rebooting troubles but now that they are becoming more frequent that it's becoming unbearable.
Buying an Inspire straight out or having AT&T extend my contract for another year isn't an option I'm willing to take, that would get me stuck with an inspire until spring 2012 at the least - no thanks I saw what became of the Aria.
The simple fact is the the issues with this phone should have been addressed and resolved a long time ago and we shouldn't have to put on a custom rom to get it to a state that it should have been that way out the box, custom roms should be for fun and enhancements to an already good product not band aids to fix flaws that the manufacturer or carrier wont acknowledge and respond to.
Hopefully in a few weeks once people start going through the Inspire's the option to choose a refurbished Inspire 4G as a swap for a Captivate will become available, either that or the official 2.2 comes out then I'll stick with the captivate until summer, after that AT&T better come correct with the android updates and some stunning hardware or I'll be jumping ship to T-Mobile.
Wow, I didn't realize the captivate was having so many issues...5th and 6th phones? My god.
I got my phone in August and its running like a champ with Darky 9.2.
johnnie5000 said:
true. But with all the bullsh*t that has came with this droid and having to take 5 phones to the post office to be shipped back (only to be refurb'd again and passed off to some other poor bastard)... A $200 etf is like paying for the luxury of no longer putting up with at&t. Every month another $20 less that i have to pay them, etc.
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IT'S NOT A DROID! @[email protected]##%@#$%^#$%^
xreflection said:
Wow, I didn't realize the captivate was having so many issues...5th and 6th phones? My god.
I got my phone in August and its running like a champ with Darky 9.2.
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it's true. granted, i've only gone through one phone, but i did have the random shutdown problem, and at first i wasn't bothered by it. it quickly became the most annoying problem ever by occurring more frequently.
I am still skeptical about the whole 4G network with AT&T especially being such crappy coverage service already with their supposed upgraded 3G network. If they said they finally completed their 3G network upgrade and provide this kind of horrible coverage quality, I can't even begin to imagine how their supposed 4G network speeds are as well as the coverage it will support. If i was to get a 4G AT&T phone, I would wait at least half a year to a year to really see how they push their network out onto the market.
I talked to an AT&T rep last night and I think I am goinh to jack the upgrade on one of my kids' line and get the Inspire 4G. I got it for my wife and it was the bomb.
The rep told me the exception upgrade for the Inspire is 199.
I originally posted this in the Inspire 4g General forum:
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I bought the Captivate day 1 in June after all the hype only to be disappointed like many users. I called AT&T customer service about an hour ago and was online with a rep within 10 minutes. I very calmly explained my issues with the Captivate (GPS, rebooting randomly) and asked to be given an early upgrade. Without so much as a question the rep told me he would approve it through his supervisor. It took me less than 30 minutes to have a full upgrade ready whenever I want to use it. That will be in about an hour when I go pick up the Inspire.
TL;DR: If you want to upgrade from your Captivate but stay with AT&T, it is trivially easy to get the full upgrade price.
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Also, the OP says that the Inspire has a front-facing camera, but it does not. Just FYI.
I did it. Love it. Such a better out of the box experience.
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA App
My current contract with verizon runs out mid-September. Two phones coming out on the market soon originally caught my eye... The Bionic and the Thunderbolt.
I read that motorola phones aren't the best in terms of root, and I have a good history with HTC (the eris and some incredible use as well). I don't have the money to drop $750 on a phone outside of contract, either way.
My question is... when I can renew my contract, what phone will be worth getting? The Bionic, TBolt, or any others? (With the Eris, I picked it up so late in the release that it was literally obsolete in like 4 months and I want to avoid that again.)
To be honest there will probably be even newer phones coming out around that time. With that Tegra 3 quad coming after this slew of phones maybe you should wait till then.
Raikalo said:
My current contract with verizon runs out mid-September. Two phones coming out on the market soon originally caught my eye... The Bionic and the Thunderbolt.
I read that motorola phones aren't the best in terms of root, and I have a good history with HTC (the eris and some incredible use as well). I don't have the money to drop $750 on a phone outside of contract, either way.
My question is... when I can renew my contract, what phone will be worth getting? The Bionic, TBolt, or any others? (With the Eris, I picked it up so late in the release that it was literally obsolete in like 4 months and I want to avoid that again.)
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my opinion for now is no, a contract upgrade in september for the tbolt would not be a wise decision.
take a look at this:
gizmocrunch.com/android/5891-verizon-motorola-targa-htc-thunderbolt
already there is news of another 4g/lte verizon device besides the samsung stealh, the htc tbolt, motorola bionic, and lg revolution. my guess is that by the last quarter of 2011 there will be plenty of 4g/lte devices like this new Targa that will have better specs and capabilities than the tbolt or bionic. though the details are sparse, the Targa is showing a 12MP camera which is better than all of the 4 original 4g/lte verizon phones. this makes me think that it will also have strong specs in ram and processor speed (could even be dual-core) and so by september tbolt and bionic could be obsolete like you said your eris was or at least soon-to-be obsolete.
I'm in the exact same situation...
***shakes fist at September upgrade***
I'm in need of some genuine advice here. I think I screwed up, but I'm not sure.
Here's the run down.
-My plan allows me to upgrade every 22 months on Sprint.
-I have 8 months to go.
-Currently using Evo 4g with the $69.99 Simply Everything Data (450 minutes and unlimited everything else). This only allows me to upgrade every 22 months, as stated.
-Rooted and g2g, but lets face it.. need to be on bleeding edge. Hence my decision as follows.
I called up Sprint multiple times and did my best to flirt with the female reps to help me out, although it went very well, they just couldn't do it.
What I was told by the latest rep was that I should upgrade to the $89.99 plan with 900 minutes so that way my premier status would change to Gold. Then I would be able to upgrade in 3 months time, or 1 year total for full discount on upgrade. She was really helpful and not a bad flirt either lol. Anyway... moving on... Just changed my plan to the $89.99 and I was thinking if I should pay the 3 months in advance to be able to upgrade at full discount before the 3 months acceptance time into the Premier Gold status.
A part of me is anxiously waiting for the Samsung Galaxy S2; Samsung Epic Touch 4g. Now I just found out the Nexus Prime is about to make its debut so I'm at a loss for words. The bleeding edge of tech really sucks.
Please advise me if I have made any wrong doing here. My bill will basically not change after the 3 months because I do get 20% off for working at Petco. Didn't apply it yet because they told me it would reset my upgrade status completely. Just waiting on upgrading my phone so that I can apply it.
OH! And if anyone can kindly guide me to a comparable chart with user feedback between the Photon 4g and the Galaxy S2 would be awesome. I did see the Photon has some bugs with muted calls but not sure if it is a major problem or any other problem not mainstream yet? Also did find the Photon is rooted but not sure if I would go that route because of how moto has treated prior bootloaders.
Sorry for the long post.
Verizon sent me an update notification yesterday. I love my tbolt but am curious about things new. I'm not a fan of MOTO Blur so I'm not really into the Droid series unless someone convinces otherwise. It seems that's the only thing Verizon is promoting at the moment. Does HTC have a new monster release soon or do I need to settle? What is everyones opinion?
I didn't like the original Blur. Ninja, or whatever the launcher was called. New Blur is very sleak and pretty snappy, especially on a RAZR. My only issue with Motorola is the locked bootloader. Makes the developer scene kinda meh. I mean, HTC MIGHT be coming out with something big within the next couple months, but the Rezound is still holding pretty strong. Who knows, a new EVO is about to drop on Sprint, so maybe Verizon will get a taste of something.
According to phone arena HTC is supposed to be dropping a tb replacement in April. Obviously it's a rumor, but it wouldn't surprise me since they have talked about it since a month before the rezound dropped. I'm waiting till April to make my decision between the nexus and the new HTC phone that may or may not be coming. I have the TB and the bionic, and I HATE the bionic. As soon as the Ril is released and made compatible with twisted rom I may go back to the TB. Don't get anything moto, just my 0.02 oh, and I have more problems with lag and data on the bionic than I had with the TB.
They talked about it a month before the Rezound drop because it WAS the Rezound lol
Yeah, that's the reason they just wrote another article on it the other day talking about an April release date. I think it was code named the fireball, model number 6410. So yes, clearly it was the rezound. 6425.
I'm hanging on to my TBolt until something amazing comes out. When I leave my TBolt it's going to be for something that absolutely blows it away and something that shows great developer support.
I'm going back to tmobile as soon as my contract is up since the little lady and I can get on a family plan and cut down on the bills. I was offered a charge but no thanks!
Ryanmo5 said:
I'm going back to tmobile as soon as my contract is up since the little lady and I can get on a family plan and cut down on the bills. I was offered a charge but no thanks!
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Yep. Seems if you like Android, a GSM carrier (T-mo) is the way to go. I'm sticking with Big Red since they have LTE and I have unlimited data. As soon as they find a way to kill that, I'm out.
Ryanmo5 said:
I'm going back to tmobile as soon as my contract is up since the little lady and I can get on a family plan and cut down on the bills. I was offered a charge but no thanks!
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Say it ain't so!!
Sent from my HTC Mecha using xda premium
You said it perfectly.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt
mrkite38 said:
Yep. Seems if you like Android, a GSM carrier (T-mo) is the way to go. I'm sticking with Big Red since they have LTE and I have unlimited data. As soon as they find a way to kill that, I'm out.
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+1
sent from your moms room
I just got the RAZR MAXX last week, coming from the bolt, and am pretty happy with it. The new blur actually isn't bad at all. Definitely not as much on the dev side for it as the bolt, but we do have root and some custom ROMs, themeing and over clocking options. Also, we are rumored to be getting ICS this week! And even if that doesn't drop, there's a leaked version that you can load. Signal and battery life are excellent as well! Would I have paid $200+ for this phone with a 2 year contract? Probably not due to the locked bootloader! But for free...most certainly worth it!
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk
The HTC One X just came out, or within the next week or so, on T-Mobile and I believe AT&T as well. IF a version comes out for Verizon, it will be HTC's flagship device of the year.
If I wasn't getting such a good deal with Verizon ($59.99 for unlimited data, text, and 450 mins), then I would probably switch to AT&T since they are pretty strong up here. US Cellular is my preferred choice of a carrier but they have horrible phones.
geoff5093 said:
The HTC One X just came out, or within the next week or so, on T-Mobile and I believe AT&T as well. IF a version comes out for Verizon, it will be HTC's flagship device of the year.
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Considering we get Flagship phones so late thanks to Verizon's over testing, we would get lucky if we get the One X before X-Mas.
The One X would probably be the first real tempting upgrade from the Thunderbolt. I doubt we'll see such a phone at Verizon though. We would have already heard the rumors.
The Incredible 4G will most likely be our closest counterpart of the One series.
So I currently have a Motorola Droid X2... I use cyanogenmod 7.2rc1 beta2 as a custom ROM. Besides that for stable ROMs it's really only eclipse 2.2, liberty, molten or stock 2.3.5 rooted. cm9/miui4 are both in alpha stages of development and have no working camera/data usage yet and mms is shotty as well as other glitches & bugs. having the locked bootloader and all. Plus we don't get official ICS :banghead::thumbdown:
I had a few questions... First off, my 2 year contract with Verizon Wireless USA is over in December however I am eligible for an upgrade in August. I think I remember reading somewhere after all these VZW/MOTO shenanigans you can get a free 3g upgrade, if eligible, but need to renew contract for a 4g device. I'm obviously very confused by these changes and need clarification.. Basically what I'm asking is, would I be able to cop a new phone in August without having to re-up my contract? Use the upgrade for the remaining months and then sell it along with my X2? Not sure how that works and honestly I don't want to call Verizon about it until I'm due for my upgrade.
Moving on to my next problem. I am going to need a new carrier/phone. I figure since sprint still has unlimited data and their service in my area isn't that bad compared to Verizon, I'll probably sign with them. As far as actual devices are concerned, I will only buy a phone with an unlocked bootloader. Since Motorola failed to live up to their promise of unlocking their bootloaders by the end of 2011, and their overall customer support, I am not interested in purchasing any Moto phones.
Which brings me back to Sprint, lol. I know several people who have been on Sprint for a long time and tell me they're okay as long as you don't break your phone. I've heard countless horror stories of friends/family having to jump through countless hoops just to get their defective phone replaced. I've already left AT&T and will never go back to them so my options are pretty limited. I can deal with less than perfect customer support from time to time as long as I have reliable service and a reliable phone I can hack.
I've been looking at the Dinc2, since my friend has one. I know that's unlocked already. I've heard a lot of fuss over its pentile screen, but that honestly doesn't bother me much. So that can be taken into consideration as well.
I appreciate any opinions you can personally offer as to an awesome, unlocked phone, decent carriers as well as new phone releases you are looking forward to. I'd love to hear what unlocked devices you guys have as well as your favorite custom ROMs for them.
Thanks!
Cyanogenmod all day
Well, if you upgrade your phone, you're more than likely going to have to re-up your contract for an additional 2 years. As of right now, for Verizon, I would probably look at the HTC Rezound, or Incredible 4G. If you go to Sprint, I would look at the Evo 4G LTE (HTC One for Sprint), or the Evo Design 4G, but by December, you'll also have the Galaxy S3 to consider. I'm biased towards HTC phones personally, but those are the options I would look at.
I forgot to mention I'm on a family plan with unlimited data...
Sent from my MB870 using XDA
I can't really suggest a phone but I read that you mentioned people having problems with Sprint with getting phones replaced after they get broke.
My sister is good at messing phones up and with the $8 a month insurance you basically can hardball any phone at a wall and they will replace it for $100. I think the one thing is you just never say that you did anything wrong and most sprint stores don't care. They have gotten much better. Whatever you do don't break your phone without insurance because they wont touch the phone in fear you might swear they broke it. Get the phone insured from day one if you are accident prone. That is about all the advice I can give. They have good phones and have good service (not verizon service but still good.)
Yeah, I treat these phones like royalty. Basically it's just a computer in the palm of my hand... Accidents do happen though and I always protect all devices with insurance.
I was in Sprint once with a friend of mine. Keep in mind he wasn't a smartphone owner, but this wasn't too long ago. He had a flip phone and he wanted it replaced. It was his 4th device experiencing the same hardware problems. When we got in there Sprint did pretty much everything in their power to make sure he did not leave with a brand new replacement. They went as far as to literally take the phone apart - right in front of us - and replace internal hardware. They'd put it back together and he'd show them it still wasn't working and they would try replacing something else.
Two and a half hours later of playing with the display evo and listening to "No I don't want you to fix it I want a new phone" and "Here, maybe this will fix it, let's give it a try..." we were finally out of there. They did not give a replacement that day. Just "fixed" it. Until we got back to his house. The very next day I was there when he called customer support. They gave him the business over the phone and were 0 help. We went back to the sprint store and finally got his replacement. I think the only reason they even actually helped him with a new device is because he was mad enough to break every display case and cell phone in the place - and they knew it. It wasn't like a "here let me help you get this resolved so you can enjoy your phone and service!!" Kinda deal it was more like "get him a new phone from the back so he doesn't make a scene and gets the hell out of my store" thing .... As we were leaving, the female rep not only told us we were lucky we even got a replacement in the first place- she did it in a snobby, attitude riddled tone of voice.
For reference this is when I was thinking of terminating vzw early and jumping to sprint. My friend told me sprint is full of people who either don't give two damns or are just plain stupid. He took me along to give me an idea of what I was in for. Needless to say I didn't switch.....
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