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[Q] Verizon Phone Advice

Okay, so here's my story...
I bought the Motorola Droid X from Best Buy on release. It was a great phone, everything worked exceptionally. I unrooted, went back to stock and such through full SBF and received the Gingerbread OTA. It, in a nutshell, broke the phone. 3G would pop in and out when in a full service area (wifi would do the same). And unlike most, the update absolutely killed my battery life. I called up Verizon to explain the situation, and they claimed it was in fact the update which caused this to occur and it is an unfortunate problem that they have run into before. They sent me a "certified like new" replacement Droid X. I received this phone, used it for about two hours and the bottom half of the screen went out (The one Motorola has defined as a problem with initial launch products). I called up Verizon again, and they were very helpful and willing to negotiate. They offered to send me a different Motorola phone if I wanted to avoid the X. The X2 was a new phone, and it's specs were impossible to pass, so, of course, I requested it. They sent out another "certified like new" phone, I received the X2 only to not be able to make calls from it. Activation was impossible as the phone had a constant beeping noise and would randomly cut out. I finally got through to tech support on the affected phone, and they could hear the beeping as well. After they tried to activate the phone and failed, they decided they would send me yet another Droid X2. I received this phone, and it wasn't faulty for the first day or two. But then I started receiving duplicate text messages... And I mean, like 6 or 7 duplicates from each person almost every other to every three texts I received. This problem still persists, and it was something I just decided to deal with. A few days later, I began getting random reboots. Again, not a huge deal, it's 1, maybe 2 a day. I have now had the phone for 2 weeks, and the smallest thing finally put me over the edge. A pixel has died on the screen. I'm incredibly OCD, so, every time I'm looking at my phone, I focus on this dead pixel and it drives me absolutely nuts. So, I've decided that here soon I'm going to contact Verizon yet again. I hate to be rude with the company as the representatives have truly tried their best in resolving my problems and working with me in a fashionable manner... But guys and gals, this is just ridiculous. I want a working, reliable, and still technically advanced phone.
So, my question... Does anyone have any advice on what I could do? Do you think there is any potential in convincing Verizon that these "certified like new" phones are persistently faulty and that their "100+ point" checklist is not working? Has anyone been in a similar situation and been able to have it resolved (that is, completely resolved)?
Thanks for reading.
TLDR; I've gone through 2 Droid X's, 1 Droid X2, and I am now on my second Droid X2. All have been faulty "certified like new" phones from Verizon. I'm persistently encountering problems with this system. What should I do?

Have you tried going to a verizon store to resolve the issue? The store customer service is pretty good, and that would at least get some notes in your account showing that the device is indeed having physical problems that are not your cause.

i suggest u get on some Chinese forums and discover the recovery for the droid x2. Then we all can fix the problems ourselves. You started it all, you rule!

Speaker Quit Working

Alright, so lately my Inspire has been going to the crapper. I rooted about 3 months ago using the Ace Hack Kit and it ran perfectly for 2 and a half months with the ROM it provides. The last few weeks it has been freezing running simple tasks and locking up. This in itself got very annoying, but now its gone over the top with my external speaker quit on me. I have no idea why it should do that, because I take care of the phone and use it regularly. Any help? I can live without the speaker if I have to, but I would really like to clean up the performance big time
Edit: And battery life is terrible, but I think that may just be time for a new battery anyway

If your speaker is busted, I'd recommend returning to stock and seeing if you can get it replaced under warranty

Joshp406 said:
If your speaker is busted, I'd recommend returning to stock and seeing if you can get it replaced under warranty
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What he said. My external speaker blew too. Just happens in common electronics. Return to stock rom and if want to, then unroot it. Use the search to find the thread on how to unroot. Its very easy and possible. And call up HTC and see if your phone is still under warranty. They will give you a number and you will right that on your package. All you have to pay for is shipping. beats paying for a new phone. ATT wanted to charge me $150 for a new phone and I bought it for $99. You can see why I went with HTC. They didnt detect any software issues with rooting or anything like that. They replaced the speaker and sent it back within 2 weeks.

Buy a new speaker from ebay. You can pick one up last time I checked for $2. Takes about 5 minutes to replace. Will void your warranty though since you have to remove the back.

It came back on amazingly, but it was after several days and restarting it numerous times. It was threatening to not give me my pics back, but it all came back and is running pretty good now

[Q] How many Skyrocket users are now in 2015?

I'm still in love with Skyrocket, but some developers and mantainers stop making new buils because feels like there are just a few Skyrocket users out there.
I think it's just because some of us are waiting for a more stable Lollipop release and better compatibility of xposed. But believe me, Skyrocket only needs a little push, and this is the time; I found a repartition thread for Hercules and same method works for Skyrocket, it means less space limitations and more juice to pull out of Skyrocket.
What do you guys think?

I still have the phone but even with a new battery I don't get much life out of it. Especially compared to my HTC One M7. I still have a real fondness for the Skyrocket. I'm running lollipop on it via the Candy ROM and it runs pretty good . In fact I think it runs much better than it ever did compared to when I had it on stock touchwiz.

I see by looking at file host download counts that over 400 downloads for Lollipop.
So a lot still using,I know some may be repeat downloads where they have gotten bad dl's,but still plenty. Just don't know how many developer's are still rocking the skyrocket.
Hope they keep up the builds there doing now . Lollipop is making my SR faster and longer life on battery.

Just bought one to use as a media streamer for summer.

Mine still get use as Ambio / music players. They are incredible devices, and amazingly enough, still reasonable performers. Not flag-ship worthy anymore, but remarkably close to the middle of the pack for mid-grade devices, and much faster than the low-end crap.
If Samsung hadn't gone nuts on locking (and encrypting) the bootloader for AT&T models, I'd still buy their hardware.

yap my beloved skyrocket is still with me as my daily drive
starting to have some problems with it but not something that a 15$ part cant fix

My husband bought me the LG Optimus G (AT&T) as a gift. Ended up returning it.
I like both versions of the S2 (i727 & i777). My husband used the i727 before upgrading. Mine was the i777.
Parts are cheap and phone is way easy to repair. At the moment I am using the i727 because the i777 needs fixed.
I don't need all the bells and whistles of a fancy phone. I have an S5 but its used by the kids.

Still have my skyrocket. I'm running cm11 but really want a stable lollipop rom. But my phone is about dead. it is so slow and laggy i cant figure out how to fix it. ive switched roms and it still remains frustrating slow.

I got my i727 back in 2012, and it's a great phone. My problem is finding a stable AND secure rom (meaning, consistent updates). My favorite for a while was Slim Roms' "Slim Kat"... but they haven't updated it in over a year I believe. I did find a way to increase app space by partitioning using a custom PIT file (someone shared how on these forums). I would be happy to hear rom suggestions, as I am using T-Mobile in the US currently.

Skyrocket going strong still, even after 3 years.
I bought my skyrocket 3 years ago and I still use it with Stock AT&T touchwiz ROM. Battery is new and gives me half a day backup. I love it and the old 4.1.2 interface seems refreshing after seeing tons of lollipop phones with similarly decked out homescreens and notification bars. The big font, the big icons and the bright colours on this phone (Especially with the AMOLED screen) still feel awesome.

pallbearer911 said:
I still use it with Stock AT&T touchwiz ROM...
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That sounds nice! What service provider do you use? I am currently using T-Mobile, so I had to use a different radio to get it working better. Do you happen to know what radio that stock rom comes with, and if it might work for T-mobile? My phone is seriously throwing a fit right now so I gotta get a new rom on there soon.
*Edit* I just used Odin to return my i727 to stock AT&T rom (ATT JB 4.1.2 I727UCMC1 ..) which can be found here on Vincom's sticky under "
3: STOCK FIRMWARES: ODIN FLASHABLE - FULL/COMPLETE/ STOCK", and it seems to run fine as I use my T-Mobile sim card! Running very smoothly right now. Before the AT&T stock rom was updated (back when I got my phone in 2012), I do not recall it even using the signal correctly when I inserted the T-Mobile sim card, so I opted to use custom roms with short-term joy and a lot of pain and suffering in the long-run. Will let you guys know updates as I continue to use it, because long term is the real test of how a rom handles!

CobyKR said:
What service provider do you use? Do you happen to know what radio that stock rom comes with, and if it might work for T-mobile?
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I'm on Airtel in India. And the stock ROM comes with UCMC1 radio and it works pretty okay. The ROM is solid now that I've used it for 3 weeks now. There was one occurrence where the phone rebooted when the battery was low and when it came back on it had factory reset itself (That was a pain to bring back everything update). Other than that ROM has been solid.
As far as signal and data is considered, what I found out which worked better is when I installed xposed framework and installed a mod called Intelli3G. If I change the network mode to WCDMA via UltraCfg I used to get 1 bar signal. But when I used to switch network mode via Intelli3G I get 2-3 bars. I don't know why it is like that, but it works.

Why would anyone still be using this phone? It was a piece of crap. Literally the worst purchase decision I have made in my entire life. Nothing but problems.

jimv1983 said:
Why would anyone still be using this phone? It was a piece of crap. Literally the worst purchase decision I have made in my entire life. Nothing but problems.
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ymmv but for me it has never failed me in over 3 yrs since ive had it, its still my dd, flashed a ton of roms and apps and still using the original battery.
best purchase ive made

vincom said:
ymmv but for me it has never failed me in over 3 yrs since ive had it, its still my dd, flashed a ton of roms and apps and still using the original battery.
best purchase ive made
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Still using the original battery after three years? My battery life wasn't very good even when new and was awful after like 6 months getting like 1.5 hours screen on time with like 8 or 9 hours off the charger.
I could see it being a little better with custom ROMs since you wouldn't have to deal with the pathetic TouchWiz but not much and I didn't want to void my warranty and insurance by installing custom ROMs. After the first update it was so slow(even after a factory reset) I missed half my calls because the phone was so slow that the call had went to voicemail before it had registered my swipe to answer.
The build quality sucked too. The phone was creaky and had several gaps between parts. The back cover didn't sit flush with the back of the phone even after replacing the back cover which I did 3 or 4 times during the two years I used the phone because of how easily it scratched and worn out.
It also had issues every few months were it would get stuck in boot loops.
After using that piece of crap for two years I vowed to never get another Samsung phone unless serious changes were made by Samsung.

jimv1983 said:
Still using the original battery after three years? My battery life wasn't very good even when new and was awful after like 6 months getting like 1.5 hours screen on time with like 8 or 9 hours off the charger.
I could see it being a little better with custom ROMs since you wouldn't have to deal with the pathetic TouchWiz but not much and I didn't want to void my warranty and insurance by installing custom ROMs. After the first update it was so slow(even after a factory reset) I missed half my calls because the phone was so slow that the call had went to voicemail before it had registered my swipe to answer.
The build quality sucked too. The phone was creaky and had several gaps between parts. The back cover didn't sit flush with the back of the phone even after replacing the back cover which I did 3 or 4 times during the two years I used the phone because of how easily it scratched and worn out.
It also had issues every few months were it would get stuck in boot loops.
After using that piece of crap for two years I vowed to never get another Samsung phone unless serious changes were made by Samsung.
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I have two - my wife and I bought them the same day - and the only issue I have had so far is the power button on the black one going out after 2.5 years. (One of the solder techs at my work replaced it for me.) Otherwise, both have been fantastic devices. They don't creak, the backs go on perfectly, and they still function quite well - even if they are fairly slow compared to my M8. Even the TouchWiz poo that shipped on them was functional - I just prefer CM.
I think you got a lemon.

even though i got mine new i also bought 2 used ones for family members, all 3 are still working great

Just bought a new Moto Maxx. Need a little guidance here, please

Hi there guys. Im coming from the stupid Zenfone 2. That device was plagued with problems and mine is still working fine (except for the sim tray being shoddy and there being no technical assistance here in Brazil - at least not competent ones). I've read alot and decided for the Moto Maxx due to its battery autonomy and also because Motorola seems to keep supporting it (Marshmallow update and probably the next updated will also roll out, right?).
I am receiving it from the retailer tomorrow, and got some doubts: is the battery life and performance satisfactory even without rooting/xposed/amplify/greenify and stuff like this? Even if it is, have you guys done it just to improve it even further? I only use Whatsapp and occasionally a few games here and there, but the ****ing Zenfone 2 won't even last through 3 hours SOT.
Can you guys give me your personal opinions on the device? Given the price range, would you nowadays opt for another one or would keep it?
Thanks in advance!

Hawtpants said:
Can you guys give me your personal opinions on the device? Given the price range, would you nowadays opt for another one or would keep it?
Thanks in advance!
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I bought a 3rd one earlier this year -- new -- to keep as a backup since I like my first two so much (my wife and I use them daily). So, I own three, yeah.
Yes, Marshmallow can be rooted and Xposed installed. Is there a link yet to the OTA? Last I heard people were still installing all three stages of the recent Marshmallow soak test. Stage 3 became the final version, but I didn't know there was a download link yet.
One of the devs who maintains two custom ROMs, TWRP and a custom kernel for this phone (code name Quark), is in Brazil. @baybutcher27.
Of course, Brazil is a big country. I've been there half a dozen times, will be going back in a few months.

Yes the battery life is great, and with custom ROMs + kernel becomes even better. I play games on my Droid Turbo pretty frequently and they run great without a hitch. I love my phone

got mine last month
In my case it was a toss up between this and the HTC A9, a killer phone by all means, sure, it has a nice DAC but the puney 1900mah battery steered me towards the maxx,I use it for gaming ,etc overall medium usage and I never have to get ahold of my charger till night, on days when I don't use it that much it lasts for 1.5 , or even almost 2 days, this is all without greenifying or anything mind you, although the MM ROM I have might've played a good part in it
the audio IMO is a little lacking but overall I'm happy
Hope this helped

Thank you all you guys for your input! Have you tried any custom roms? If so which one is your favourite? Im putting my hands in it later today, cant wait to hammer down my Zenfone 2

WiFi hotspot: without root?

I used to enjoy an HTC 4G LTE rooted and unlocked, but that needed to be replaced
due to random restarts and display problems. I'm still using it to play a few games
not available to current Android models, while my working device is, in fact,
a Samsung A71 5G. (the old one has been transferred to a newer display,
which allows me to play the games as I chill out in my car before going in to work.)
So my question is this: Is there any way to get past the reduced-bandwidth limit of this device
for tethering without resorting to an expensive root procedure? I was flush a year or two ago when I
took delivery on the phone, but I can't justify the expense now for gaining full root, especially
when my wife and I are making less than we did then.
Is there anything out there for me?