So it's been raining cats and dogs all day in NY and as I was getting in my car I heard something fall and hit my car as I sat in my car I looked around and saw nothing then checked my hoodie pocket and realized my phone was gone and I said FUCC...then I noticed it laying on it's back half way submerged in a big puddle...so I grabbed it and opened it without flipping it over and wiped away all the water...The white sticker wasn't affected by the water so my warranty is safe I assume and my insurance won't be affected in anyway....The only problem that seems to be occuring is the vibrations are very dim now compared to the earthquake that it used to be....Will the warranty/insurance cover this after I let the phone dry out? Or will they not see this as a valid problem?
i am pretty sure you will be ok since the white tab is not changed but i think the warrenty does not in anyway cover water dmg.
well the phone dried out and the vibrations seems to be normal again
Sadly after having my new Note 2 a good 6 days it fell from a foot and a half, hit the front corner of the screen where the glass is weakest, and completely shattered.
I was pretty devastated and it's currently costing me $180 to replace through samsung.
Silver lining of it all though? No more ugly Verizon button!
Thought I would share
This is the SPRINT forum. Not Verizon.
wooops
noobing it up over here.
Result
I broke mine after 10 days, got it repaired by Samsung in Sweden for $100. The best thing was that I sent it with no battery and it came back with a battery
I've become pretty exasperated with these phones lately, so I thought I'd share my experience. My question is: are these phones supposed to be this fragile?
It started two years ago: due to Verizon's discontinuation of unlimited data, I'd convinced my family (me and my parents) to move to T-Mobile. It seemed like a great deal: we could finally upgrade from our Galaxy S Fascinates, and the plan was cheaper too. Me and my dad, both power users, chose S4s, while my mother, who was more of a casual user, picked the S3 since it was cheaper. At first, it seemed great: the S4s were powerful, and the screens were awesome. We purchased the insurance, but neither me nor my dad bought cases, and my mom got an aftermarket back for her S3 with a swing-closed screen cover.
Fast-forward two months later. My mom's S3 started rebooting randomly, especially during periods of high use. It got so bad that we were considering replacing the phone, when I noticed that I could trigger a reboot by running a CPU stress test application. This pointed to a battery that was going bad and couldn't always provide enough voltage to keep the phone running. We replaced the battery, and were off on our merry way.
Over the next year of heavy use, the silver coating on the band of plastic around the front edge of my S4 started to flake off. By summer, it was totally gone, exposing the white plastic underneath. Meanwhile, my dad's S4 had developed an odd issue with the screen , causing vertical bands of color to be visible. It wasn't a huge issue, and he didn't seem to notice it.
After the first year, it all changed. A new issue cropped up first in my dad's, then my S4. It seemed that dirt had gotten inside the case, underneath the proximity sensor. The screen became more and more reluctant to wake up during calls. Dad could seem to keep his in check by canned-airing through the speaker grill on a regular basis, but I had no such luck. Once I hit dial, my screen would turn off for good unless the other person hung up, or I put my phone in a spotlight or direct sunlight. Eventually, I had to start pulling out the battery to hang up a call. I could only check my voicemail by plugging in headphones.
Then came the cracks. That autumn, it happened, that thing all phone-owners dread: After surviving several multi-foot drops with only dents and scratches, my S4 fell off of my leg when I was sitting on the ground, landed upside-down, and developed a small crack off to the side of the screen. It wasn't bad, but I was kind of shaken, since up until then I'd considered my phone screen to be pretty much invulnerable. Then, a week later, it fell only a few inches out of my pocket onto a stucco floor. It landed directly on the screen, and I heard an unholy cracking sound. I picked it up to find two cracks stretching diagonally from the top left to the bottom right of the screen. We discussed getting a new phone, but I decided that it wasn't worth the insurance deductible, especially since I would get a phone with the new KNOX bootloader. Later on, I dropped it another couple times, and the display shattered in a few places.
A few months later, Dad's phone's SIM card holder started to fail. At first, whenever he went for a bumpy motorcycle ride or otherwise shook his phone around, the S4 would lose cellular signal until he rebooted. It got worse over time, to the point where he was rebooting multiple times a day just to stay connected. I decided to do some troubleshooting, and, with his agreement, ODINed it to 4.4 touchwiz with the KNOX bootloader. It had been over a year, so we figured that the warranty had run out. This got results, as soon after booting up the phone it would show an error, "SIM Card Removed!" I guess that the other rom hadn't had this error, and just lost signal when the card momentarily disconnected. Anyway, we contacted T-Mobile, who gave him a new SIM card. The problem persisted, and he had to wait a long time at the store while it was being provisioned. We proceeded to call the insurance, who told us, surprise surprise, that buying the insurance also comes with an extended warranty. Which I had just voided. Now, Dad was really angry, since he had to pay $150 for basically no reason. We got the refurbished phone, but he refused to let me root it because that would void the warranty, and he didn't want to have to pay the insurance again. Instead, even though we had Titanium and Clockworkmod backups of everything, he painstakingly rebuilt all his user data by hand. And so the story ended. Or so we thought.
You see, about a week after he got his replacement, the screen cracked. He didn't drop it; according to him it just spontaneously happened. It wasn't very noticeable, and it wasn't a big deal.
Two days ago, his Wi-Fi just stopped. Completely. It wouldn't turn on in settings. Neither would Bluetooth. He did some research, and it turns out that a common issue with refurb S4s was that the internal Wi-Fi antenna would not make good contact with the mainboard. He went to a T-Mobile store, and found out that that little crack actually voided his warranty, so all of that manual rebuilding he did was for nothing. So, he took apart the phone according to a YouTube video, cleaned the antenna contacts, and put it back together. He turned it on, and it was still broken. Oddly enough, it worked for a while after uninstalling some apps, but it soon broke again. Desperate, he gave it to me in hopes that it was a software problem. I tried two different ROMs, but the issue persisted.
So, his replacement phone is a bust. The thing is, he refuses to consider any other phone because he goes through two or three batteries a day, and needs a phone with replaceable batteries, and these are becoming endangered species nowadays. So, he's going to get another S4 from the insurance company, which might be just as unreliable.
Meanwhile, Mom's S3 is still running Android 4.1, and has given us no trouble since the battery thing.
We owned our fascinates for the same amount of time and never had any hardware problems at all. I gotta think that this isn't normal. Are we unlucky, abusive, or is this actually the normal failure rate for these phones?
To me, the physicality of your use case suggests you should have the phones in strong cases. This kind of phone just isn't as physically robust as say the Motorola phones (e.g. the RAZR max series or even the Moto X). If you are going to be dropping it and taking it for motorcycle rides put it in a case and get a screen protector.
Yes, this slim design centered around an almost border less screen is relatively fragile. And yes the S4 has some design flaws like the sim card problem. My next phone may be a return to Motorola if they have a suitable contender at that time. Or other brand. Most of my phones have been Motorola and they have felt MUCH more solid than any of the recent Samsungs.
A note about removable batteries: instead, consider an external powers pack to recharge the phone. I got a pair of them at Costco... Very convenient!
Good post. Sorry to hear your troubles and best wishes going forward!
Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
A long, slightly boring story, but what's the bottom line?
So you got 3 phones a few of which you broke. Just buy a new one and put it in a case. Are you abusive? I don't know. Everyone has their own definition of normal I guess. I don't normally drop my electronics. But hey, it's yours, and you can do whatever you like to it.
I still have my almost 4 year old galaxy s4. It's basically like new, without a single scratch and I gave it to my 9 yo son and got myself an s5.
Yeah, I still dislike using cases because I feel like they make the phone hard to hold, but I'm planning on getting one for my next phone because I seem to be too clumsy not to need one.
I wrote this after I spent like 4 hours getting increasingly frustrated trying to fix my dad's phone, with no results. I guess I'm just wondering if it's worth switching to a different manufacturer because of this ordeal.
I've had my S4 for over two years now and it looks, feels, and runs as good as the day I bought it. No nicks, cracks, scratches, or errors whatsoever. I've had mine in an Otterbox since day one, and I've never dropped it from more than a few feet onto carpet or hardwood a few times.
These Galaxy devices are about like any other device, really. If you abuse them or fail to properly protect them, then they'll crap out on you like anything else. No amount of rooting or roming can fix that.
I kill my battery daily, or I would if I wasn't sitting at a computer most days with a readily available power source. I do enjoy the ability to pull my batter (especially when rooting, hanging, etc...) but power packs work well too.
I've had the dirt in the sensor issue. I just took the phone apart and cleaned it (as canned air did not work in my case). It literally took 10 minutes. My newest issue (which did require an RMA to SquareTrade) was a stuck power button. For a full day I could not turn the phone on. I finally bit the bullet and paid the deductible for a "new" phone. The next day I was able to turn the power on again but I already received my replacement so I just factory reset the old unit and sent it back. Now I have a previously refurbed unit, I can only hope has the power button fixed.
In the end, $500 pieces of small electronic equipment might benefit from having a $10 case on them. YMMV
I've never had the slightest problem with the proximity sensor on mine. About once or twice every month, I'll take the Otterbox off and give the phone and case a nice rub down with a microfiber clothe. It keeps everything nice and clean. I've never had to use compressed air or anything to clean it out.
Protip: a little routine cleaning goes a long way toward maximizing the lifespan of your devices.
Hello, so I thought it might be helpful to share my experience. I got my Note 7 on launch day (August 19th) from a retail Bell Store here in Canada. The salesperson offered to sell me as case as well but I thought it was ugly and didn't want to cover up this beautiful device. I also turned down purchasing extra insurance as I have never broken a phone before and I've had a lot of them.
Anyway it wasn't even 24 hours later I was working and the phone slipped from my hand...max 4 inches from the ground... But on to concrete. It unfortunately also hit on the edge and shattered the top left corner of the display. I was surprised at the damage this being Gorilla Glass 5 and all.
The display still worked just small part of glass missing and cracks. I knew this would drive me nuts and not something I could live with so I called Samsung to see if I could pay to have it fixed. They suggested I either send it to a repair shop or take to a local authorized one in person. There was a place about 3 hour drive away so I went this route. The place couldn't do it right away, they had to order a replacement display because they had none in stock. I went to Atlantic Cellphone Repair in Moncton, New Brunswick. Less then one week later it was in and I dropped off my phone. It was the first Note 7 they had done. They were going to ship it to my home to save me the trip again because the guy who specializes in the newer Samsung phones was out for the day.
It cost me around $400 Canadian to have fixed. It's coming in the mail today. I should have taken a picture of before but I forgot. I've been assured by Samsung it will still maintain the waterproofing. I don't plan on ever completely submerging it anyway but this is still important to me.
Ill update later today with how the repair turned out, after I get it home and try it out. I'm now going to be using a case even though I hate to. This phone needs it it seems.
Update: Got it today and highly impressed. They seem to have also replaced the metal band part as it had chips before but looks pristine and had another Qualcomm sticker on it where I had taken the other off. So while it's expensive it did turn out good.
so i was at the lake today, had the pixel in my pocket, and without even thinking, swam straight into the middle of the lake to get into my buddies side by side.
I had pulled out my phone, realized it wasnt responding (screen was still on) then after me trying to unlock it, it randomly shut off. came back on with a ram dump message, then went off and stayed of for 5 hours. Finally got it to come back on, it kept restarting, i assume the water made the adhesive fail because the glass started lifting away from the chassis (no it wasnt the battery). And now its completely done, just an occasional white flash on half the screen.
luckily i bought the protection plan from google (through assurant) when i bought the device, so im getting that worked out now.
its about time i got a new device anyways. my speaker would always quit working, the back glass was cracked, the volume buttons didnt work half the time, etc. I used this phone like no pixel should be used , haha.
i decided to order a sim tray for one of my 5x's. and figured ill just use it on work or fun days, and switch to my pixel on casual and nicer/professional days.
i know, i know, lots of typing and reading right? well i mainly wanted to ask if anyone had experiences replacing there device through insurance, and how it went. did you get a refurbished device? same color? the rep put alot of emphasis on "it may be new or it may be refurbished, and the color may not be the same"
noidea24 said:
i know, i know, lots of typing and reading right? well i mainly wanted to ask if anyone had experiences replacing there device through insurance, and how it went. did you get a refurbished device? same color? the rep put alot of emphasis on "it may be new or it may be refurbished, and the color may not be the same"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I personally have never had a device replaced through Google or the device manufacturer, but for those people who had their Nexus 6P's replaced through Google got refurbished devices, random colour and sometimes even a higher storage option than the device they turned in.
Doubtful you'll get a blue, even though it's the nicest looking, but they'll probably send a random coloured one, but hopefully not a VZW variant since that has the un-unlockable bootloader.
noidea24 said:
so i was at the lake today, had the pixel in my pocket, and without even thinking, swam straight into the middle of the lake to get into my buddies side by side.
I had pulled out my phone, realized it wasnt responding (screen was still on) then after me trying to unlock it, it randomly shut off. came back on with a ram dump message, then went off and stayed of for 5 hours. Finally got it to come back on, it kept restarting, i assume the water made the adhesive fail because the glass started lifting away from the chassis (no it wasnt the battery). And now its completely done, just an occasional white flash on half the screen.
luckily i bought the protection plan from google (through assurant) when i bought the device, so im getting that worked out now.
its about time i got a new device anyways. my speaker would always quit working, the back glass was cracked, the volume buttons didnt work half the time, etc. I used this phone like no pixel should be used , haha.
i decided to order a sim tray for one of my 5x's. and figured ill just use it on work or fun days, and switch to my pixel on casual and nicer/professional days.
i know, i know, lots of typing and reading right? well i mainly wanted to ask if anyone had experiences replacing there device through insurance, and how it went. did you get a refurbished device? same color? the rep put alot of emphasis on "it may be new or it may be refurbished, and the color may not be the same"
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I fell in a lake on july 4th with phone in my pocket.
Worked a little random screen movements(water under the screen)
Next day, wouldnt take a charge.
Chatted with google support, i have no insurance on teh phone.
they directed me to an approved repair shop in my town.
Took it in.
$54 they cleaned it out and dried up the water still in my phone 7 days later as I was on vacation and the Rice did nothing.
Phone works good as new.
Shop said if the corrosion was bad enough they would replace other parts, but fresh water isnt as bad as salt so I was fine.
Phone has been working like a champ since.
Keep it off so you dont induce any shorts and take it somewhere.
Bought a White Pixel XL from Best Buy (I wanted Black but they were sold out and I was in a hurry) and got a protection plan on it. My phone started exhibiting behavior indicative of a factory defect. Best Buy wanted $200 to replace. The protection plan was a colossal waste of money. Luckily I paid monthly for the protection instead of a lump sum up front. Anyways, I went to Google instead, who offered to replace it for free. Sent them my Pixel XL and got a Black Pixel XL in return. So it's possible they'll send you a different color, I suppose. The phone was new in box, not a refurb. Pretty happy.