OK, so I semi-reluctantly bought my first smartphone 2 1/2 years ago, a Samsung Galaxy 4. In the 30 months or so that I had it, it :
crashed within a few days of purchase after an unsollicited upgrade.
was sent back TWICE for repairs for over 3 weeks each time. Both times, the issue had not been solved at all when I got it back. My phone had however been reset, leading to loss of data. Sterling tech support, there.
wouldn’t connect to any wi-fi network.
would spontaneously turn itself off. As a result, I would miss important calls and got into arguments with relatives who couldn’t reach me when needed. I started checking whether that piece of shit was indeed on a dozen times each day. Paranoia setting in.
stopped detecting my SIM card. By that time, I considered it so unreliable that it took me days to realize that it was ANOTHER problem and not the old “turns itself off on its own”.
stopped detecting any signal, so it wouldn’t even work as a “dumb” phone anymore.
So, time to get a new one. I went to the store with two criteria: (1) not a Samsung and (2) much cheaper than the useless one I had. I walked out with a Samsung :smack: .
That was 10 days ago. Today, the screen is dark grey with a few coloured pixels. It does beep and bleep, though. So, I have thrown away an ugly brick and got a glorified music-box instead. Yeah !
I don’t have a Samsung currently, though I have had one in the past and I thought it was a good phone. Being the most sold phone in the world, I think you just had bad luck. Some people are struck by lightning twice, even though it is statistically pretty unlikely.
I have a phone made by Lenovo of all people and so far it has been great.
Bummer. I have an S4 Galaxy mini. It’s been rock solid. I don’t want to replace, even though it’s getting to be time according to my provider. My wife has had the same experiences with Samsung.
That’s a crappy run of events. Out of curiosity, how did you end up with a Samsung if it was your number one criteria?
Personally, I’ve been attached at the hip to the Motorola Droid series. My MAXX is a bit short on memory space and no room to expand though - it might be time for an upgrade.
You went in determined, for thoroughly righteous reasons, NOT to buy Samsung but bought one anyway?
Sorry about your phone bad luck, but any chance you can share whatever sales pitch they used to sway you? I for one am curious what they said to change your opinion so thoroughly.
An awesome price? Cool looking phone? Asssurances first experience was a one off?
I thought I’d just had bad luck, all the other phones in the (much lowered) price range I had settled on didn’t look particularly appealing and the one I liked best (Sony) was just a bit over budget. So I just went “what are the chances, really ?”
The seller did admit to favouring Samsungs but he definitely didn’t try to push them.
Totally my fault, which is why I pit myself. Fool me once…
House full of Samsung devices, nothing but good experience. My aging Note II is the exception in that it’s started to give me some reboot issues after five years.
Do you have an app that’s causing trouble and was possibly auto loaded on the new phone?
If there’s anything that doesn’t get said enough about smartphones, it’s how reliable they are. My various phones (I’ve had phones from LG, Sony, HTC, basically everyone but Samsung) have hardly ever crashed. Individual apps, yes, but system crashes are vanishingly rare.
I started with a Samsung Galaxy S4 years ago and had some of the same problems you experienced. It didn’t take long for my provider to give up on it as uniquely defective and upgrade me to the Galaxy S5 as an alternative to repair. The S5 was perfection. I loved everything about it until it was time to buy a new battery for it and by then the S6 was out, I wanted a slimmer case that was only available for the S6, so I upgraded. The only complaint I have is that I lost expandable memory with the S6 and I greatly miss it, as I am now running out of space on the internal 16GB (I take a lot of pictures of my outdoor activities). I hesitate to upgrade to the S7, which again incorporates an SD slot, because otherwise my phone is working just fine.
Suffice to say, I think my negative experiences were exceptions to the rule and I think you are far more unlucky than I. My provider has a 30 day return policy in which if I don’t like the phone I can exchange it for a different model. How about yours?
I have a Samsung Galaxy S4, Google Edition. It served me well as my primary phone until I upgraded. It now serves as my rooted backup. It sounds like you’ve either picked two lemons in a row or you’re abnormally hard on your phones. 10 days out you’re almost surely under warranty.
I will say this for the unsolicited update: there need to be more updates. One reason I moved away from the Samsung devices was to get a Nexus and quicker security patches.
Samsung Galaxy S5 user here. The glass is cracked, the chrome on the frame has eroded down to the primer layer, and I have to reboot it when I’m in the bathroom, but it’s still awesome. I can do Mobile Hot Spot, take pictures and sync with my Google drive, use it as a microphone, and buy books through Google Play. Bestest toy ever.
I think I mentioned somewhere else that until recently I had an ancient Motorola flip phone with a cheap voice-only plan, but the thing was going to stop working when my carrier ended CDMA support. So they sent me a Samsung smartphone free (no contract – I haven’t had a contract in years) on the same cheap plan. It’s only a J3 which I understand is a low-end model, but it’s more than enough for my needs and in the three months I’ve had it I’ve had absolutely no problems with it. I really love it despite being quite a bit bigger than the old flip phone.
I haven’t heard any particularly awful things about Samsung phones other than the unique tendency of the Note 7 to catch fire and explode in flaming shards of destruction. But the other models don’t do that. I don’t think there was in principle anything wrong with choosing another Samsung. If I were you I’d bitch like hell to your provider and to Samsung and make them replace it with something that works.
Right, if it’s defective there’s no restocking fee. However the store will swear up and down there is because the stores are worthless. You can just pay it and call Customer service and try to get a bill credit or argue with the manager and insist he call the retail support line with you present.
! If I had just forked those extra 40€ for the Sony…