How long did your smartphone last?

[luv2climb]

I've had three smartphones so far. The first one was a Samsung Code with metroPCS. It worked fine, but only had Windows Mobile 6.1, so I was limited by the OS more than anything.

A friend who works at Verizon gave me a HTC Touch Pro 2, which he had upgraded from the default Windows Mobile 6.1 to 6.5. It had the Opera browser, so it worked much better for browsing. I also got a heck of a deal on the service, since it was on a family plan. I got unlimited data, texting, unlimited nights and weekends, and 1400 shared peak minutes for $21 a month.

Unfortunately, it too became obsolete and I couldn't even access my email via Hotmail. It kept telling me to enable Java even though it was already enabled. I also suspected it was starting to get flaky when it wouldn't ring sometimes, and the person attempting to call me told me it rang normally on their end instead of going straight to voicemail like it would in a bad signal area or if the phone was off.

Recently the same friend sold me his HTC Thunderbolt. It was (and still is) in mint condition. When I got it I did a hard reset. It had Froyo 2.2.1. Like a fool, I upgraded to Gingerbread 2.3.4 as soon as the update was available. I should have waited until the next update, which fixed the frustrating voicemail notification bug introduced by Gingerbread. The only way I was able to see if I had a voicemail was to tap on the "Voice Mail" icon on the home screen.

Another bug caused by the Gingerbread upgrade is related to ringtones. I made several unique ringtones that I put on the microSD card and assigned to different people in my contacts list. That way I know who's calling without even having to look at the phone.

After Gingerbread, if someone called me, the next person to call me would set off the ringtone assigned to the first person. If the first person who called was not assigned a unique ringtone and the second person was, the second person would set off the default ringtone.

Deleting the call history does not solve the problem. This bug has not been fixed yet and it sucks!

[zoom-zoom]

Oh, great...can't wait to encounter the ring tone bug. One thing I have already discovered with Gingerbread is that I can no longer have a custom ringtone for my alarm clock. I also can't have custom tone for texts. I used to have a bicycle bell sound for texts. The alarm thing I can fix with a different clock app than the stock one.

[luv2climb]

I wanted to use one of my own ringtones for texts too, but even in Froyo I could never figure out how to do that, let alone Gingerbread. It would be nice to do the same for the alarm clock.

[zoom-zoom]

I wanted to use one of my own ringtones for texts too, but even in Froyo I could never figure out how to do that, let alone Gingerbread. It would be nice to do the same for the alarm clock.

Download the Ringdroid app. That will convert ringtones sent to your phone so that you can use them.

[zoom-zoom]

Just noticed another new and annoying thing. I have my phone set so that the ringtone gets quieter when I pick it up. No...instead it actually gets louder. Much louder. Embarrassingly so.

And I found the date that I can get a new phone...not until Aug. 24. Damn, that's a LONG time away.

[ny biker]

Just noticed another new and annoying thing. I have my phone set so that the ringtone gets quieter when I pick it up. No...instead it actually gets louder. Much louder. Embarrassingly so.

And I found the date that I can get a new phone...not until Aug. 24. Damn, that's a LONG time away.

That's too bad.

I posted on facebook to get input from friends about their smartphones. One guy said his Incredible is working fine. I really don't want to go into all the details about why he's one of the lucky few.

[zoom-zoom]

I posted on facebook to get input from friends about their smartphones. One guy said his Incredible is working fine. I really don't want to go into all the details about why he's one of the lucky few.

Hmmm...sounds vaguely dirty. Does it involve sexual favors?

[luv2climb]

Download the Ringdroid app. That will convert ringtones sent to your phone so that you can use them.

Will it allow me to use them for texts and alarm clock tones? I already have my own homemade ringtones set as phone ringtones. I just can't get them to be used as text and alarm tones.

[zoom-zoom]

Will it allow me to use them for texts and alarm clock tones? I already have my own homemade ringtones set as phone ringtones. I just can't get them to be used as text and alarm tones.

Well...it did with Froyo. It doesn't with Gingerbread...but that's no fault of the app.

[luv2climb]

Another bug caused by the Gingerbread upgrade is related to ringtones. I made several unique ringtones that I put on the microSD card and assigned to different people in my contacts list. That way I know who's calling without even having to look at the phone.

After Gingerbread, if someone called me, the next person to call me would set off the ringtone assigned to the first person. If the first person who called was not assigned a unique ringtone and the second person was, the second person would set off the default ringtone.

Deleting the call history does not solve the problem. This bug has not been fixed yet and it sucks!

My friend who works at Verizon told me about an update last night. It supposedly fixes the ring tone bug. I didn't have enough charge in the battery to do the update when he told me about it, so I figured I would wait until the battery was fully charged.

After the battery had been charging for a while, I heard my phone reboot. I checked it and it appears that Verizon pushed the update automatically once the battery had enough charge.

[zoom-zoom]

Funny that this thread should pop back up. Last night I took my phone to the Verizon store, since the service warranty is only for a year.

Told the guy my issues (the daily crashing/freezing) and he laid out a couple of options:
• restore the phone to factory settings, which would likely do nothing for more than a week or two, as I have already done the factory restoration, then update to Gingerbread.
• exchange my phone for another identical phone. Again, I'd most likely run into the same issues within a very short time.
• make use of one of the 2 eligible for phone upgrades on our 3 phone account.

I didn't even know I could do the 3rd! Our "home phone" is a freebie phone that we just have for a contact for DS's school, doctors, and anyone else who might otherwise not have our cell #s (older family members, etc.).

So I took the 3rd option and applied it to my cell #. Sometime in the next week a shiny new iPhone 4s will be in my hot little hands!

DH is going to take over my Droid once there's a way to root it. He rooted his ancient HTC Eris and loves it, but it's WAY slow. My Incredible is pretty fast and works much better for playing Angry Birds.

[ny biker]

I'm glad you were able to get that iPhone!!

My phone has been okay since the guy at the Verizon kiosk cleared the data from the bad facebook app. And it's been charging well with the charger that I use for my mp3 player, or at least it was until I lost it. I just got a new charger today that can charge 2 devices at once. So far it's working okay. The phone is plugged into it right now as I type this.

I keep declining the gingerbread upgrade.

[zoom-zoom]

Wise move!

BTW, there must be a lot of charging issues with the Droid. A friend of ours couldn't get hers to charge with any charger. Then when I was waiting around for help at the Verizon store I was behind a couple who was also having issues with their Android phone not charging. Perhaps these are all one model that's having the issue. I forget which phone my friend has...I want to say it's the X or 2 or something. One of the larger ones with a slide-out keyboard.

[ny biker]

So, back to this thread. I've managed to make my HTC Incredible last, and I've had it for about 25 months now. I go through the running apps several times each day to clear cache and clear data/force stop the ones that Verizon insists on running automatically even though I never use them.

But, yesterday I noticed the power cord was frayed near the plug that goes into the phone. My father is going to wrap it with electrical tape, but this is just a temporary fix. I see no point in investing in new accessories, so I'll be getting a new phone shortly.

I really don't need a giant screen. 4g would be nice. I don't really want to spend lots of money.

I have decided against an iphone -- I just really want to have navigation based on google maps on my phone. So I'm looking into Motorola phones. The Droid Razr Maxx gets good reviews but is expensive and big. The Droid Bionic and regular Razr also get good reviews and are big. The Droid X is only 3g but is cheap and reviews say it's fast and it's a bit smaller than the 4g phones. The downside for all of them seems to be poor photo quality, specifically re: color reproduction.

Anyway, I'm heading to a store to look at them now, though I'm not buying anything today.

[smittykitty]

If your problem really is just the cord, I would go buy a new charger. Incredibly they seemed to have standardized for now and all of the phones are using the same size charger!!!! About time! So you could get a new charger and potentially use it when you have to upgrade.

We have both 3 and 4G is our house and their is no comparison. The 4G is really, really fast!

I've got the original Droid, 2 1/2 yrs olds. The battery is doing great. Ms. Droid gets a little tired when I try to multitask with it (ask her to do too many things in a row). I think its the memory filling up. Its a bit frustrating when I'm in a hurry and it doesn't want to do anything for 30 sec. or so. Somewhat like this laptop! (Gee I'm complaining about waiting 30 sec. What a world we live in today!)

Its not bad enough to replace it yet, but I've done a bit of looking and if she were to give up the ghost today, I would get the Razor Max for the battery life. I'm in no rush because of the size, cost and I'm too busy right now to learn a new phone. She does make me want to toss her across the room sometimes though! I wish she would either behave herself and live on or just die so I could then justify the expense.

I find the camers good enough for quick pics. I have a DSLR for anything else.