Shop Talk
Defective Phones (how many are really defective)
Now a little background...
I've been in wireless communications since 1999. I've seen ALOT of changes but one thing still bothers me...
I see sooooooo many defective phones that it scares me.
Who are these people that continue to get bad phones? It's not new people either.. It is the SAME people.
"My phone drops calls" or "My phone can't get signal" or my all time favorite "It doesn't charge.
People.. I am a power user of my wireless phone. I don't have a house line. I think I have dropped 5 calls in all of 6 years. I got my first phone in March 2000. I've used Sprint, Cellular One (Cingular), ATTWS, and now VZW.
NEVER EVER had a bad phone. Bad service occasionally yes but NEVER a bad phone. If a phone goes bad it is becaus...
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I've been in wireless communications since 1999. I've seen ALOT of changes but one thing still bothers me...
I see sooooooo many defective phones that it scares me.
Who are these people that continue to get bad phones? It's not new people either.. It is the SAME people.
"My phone drops calls" or "My phone can't get signal" or my all time favorite "It doesn't charge.
People.. I am a power user of my wireless phone. I don't have a house line. I think I have dropped 5 calls in all of 6 years. I got my first phone in March 2000. I've used Sprint, Cellular One (Cingular), ATTWS, and now VZW.
NEVER EVER had a bad phone. Bad service occasionally yes but NEVER a bad phone. If a phone goes bad it is becaus...
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Not the end-all be-all on this, but I do have some observations.
If I were guessing, I'd say between 35% - 50% of the phones sent back as defective are really truly manufacturer defects. The rest have damage that's not obvious or just have nothing wrong with them.
I'm a power user also. There are places where I drop calls - however, having been tech support for the area in which I make the calls, I know when I'm going to drop them. I don't drop calls in good signal areas or when I'm still. I've had phones with mfr. defects. The current phone I'm using is a Nokia 3595, has it & the battery for over 2 years, currently nothing wrong with it.
It's not impossible for some of what we see, persons getting def. equipment one after another....
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If I were guessing, I'd say between 35% - 50% of the phones sent back as defective are really truly manufacturer defects. The rest have damage that's not obvious or just have nothing wrong with them.
I'm a power user also. There are places where I drop calls - however, having been tech support for the area in which I make the calls, I know when I'm going to drop them. I don't drop calls in good signal areas or when I'm still. I've had phones with mfr. defects. The current phone I'm using is a Nokia 3595, has it & the battery for over 2 years, currently nothing wrong with it.
It's not impossible for some of what we see, persons getting def. equipment one after another....
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Okay, so a while back I had someone come in, phone was stuck searching for service (no, it was not a nokia or an audiovox 8600). He said this was his 3rd phone that had done it and he was getting rather uspest. sure enough, I opened his account and saw 2 warrenty exchanges, each for signal loss. the one exchange that was properly noted stated the issue was duplicated in store, same as the one I was holding. Now, i figured this was on the edge of defying probability, seeing that each exchange was about 3 months apart. I decided to probe into the matter. It turned out the customer was a goverment worker, the building he worked in was EM shielded, and he had to walk through 2 metal detectors to get to his office. It was at this time we both cam...
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My first phone was actually a bad phone. It power cycled itself and occasionally wouldn't call anyone. I'd have to power cycle it to get it to call people sometimes. It wasn't a biggy. I just got a replacement within my 30 day trial. I get people that return their phones all the time though and complain that it power cycles by itself all the time. I turn the phone on and leave it on for about 5 hours straight, and have no problems with them. I love when people tell me it won't hold a charge and if they talk on it for 2 minutes, the battery goes from 100% down to nothing. I leave the phone out for a couple hours and play with the speakerphone, voice dial, and camera, and after 3 hours, it's still at 75%...
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Come to think of it, I have ran across one defective handset - the V710. The first one I got had something wrong with the wiring to the displays, because most of the time it would just display random crap. Every once in a blue moon it would actually briefly display something properly, generally after wiggling the flip. The second one I got lasted a year and a half and over 400 hours of in-call use.
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i was just saying to my coworker the other day it's funny that 97% of the people you sell you never see again until they need somthing else and the other 3% you might as well move in with them. i see them more than i see my wife.
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I work in wireless too, and have had a cell phone since 1994. My first phone lasted me 7 years before it finally gave up the ghost. I've gone through several others since 2001, but none of them died, I just wanted different phones. I've seen a few dogs that simply were crap; the V180/220, the SE T226, the Siemens A56 I think it was. That's about it. Most "defective" phones are really defective users. But, god bless the idiots, they help pay our paychecks, so I can't complain about them too much.
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I've had two phones that were at least marginally defective, one more than the other. The one that was really defective was a Moto V300, and I'm not a big Moto fan to begin with... I got it as a phone to get the SIM shipped out to go with the Aircard for internet that I had already purchased. I didn't use it for about six months and then my Aunt was wondering if I was using it and I said she could have it. When I went to give it to her the screen just Would Not turn on. It was blank. The phone itself seemed to work just fine but the screens (both inside and outside) were blank, didn't even light up. It was probably just like a loose wire going to the upper half of the clam-shell and I'll bet they fixed it pretty easily. I exchanged it...
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