Smartphone Headaches and Excessive Cost!

[toyotafan]

GRRRR, smartphones will be the death of our civilization I'm convinced.

LAST WEEK - WIFE'S GALAXY S6
Last week the main phone mic in my wife's Samsung Galaxy S5 stopped working. She went to the AT&T store and they looked at it, couldn't get it to work. Cost $99 for insurance to get a new phone sent overnight. This is for a well taken care of phone that is like 13 months old (which was a replacement for a dead phone that was 12 months old - so this is the 3rd in the line that she's had in 26 months).

THIS MORNING - MY GALAZY NOTE II
Anyhow, this morning my phone worked first thing as the alarm woke us up. Then I noticed that it was turned off, and it froze when I was trying to restart. Now it's dead. No LED lights, nothing.

AT&T CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HIT AND MISS
So I spent between 90 minutes and 2 hours on live chat support with AT&T (a lot of that was trying to get access to my accounts as they were not being linked properly due to my AT&T u-verse account login and my AT&T Wireless ~ which are not the same thing ~ accounts not being linked properly).

The end result is frustration. I really don't understand my bill clearly and I feel like hitting my head against my desk.

It looks like we're getting two discounts on the main account, so after those discounts are applied, we're paying about $138/month + fees and taxes for 30 GB of data (which isn't impressive to me, it's just the cost of electricity for them, so "extra data GB" really cost them pennies for hundreds of GBs)

WIFE'S OLD PHONE IS NOW WORKING
So since my NOTE II is just dead, I took my memory card and SIM card out and put them into my wife's old phone. Guess what??? It's working fine now, so looks like we didn't need that new phone after all.

Wonder if I can keep this old phone, I'm pretty sure we're supposed to send it back to them under the terms of insurance, but I looked and I don't see any notes or instructions on how to return it.

So for now, I'm going to use it and maybe I can find a cheap used Note III or Note 4 online that I can purchase to replace the dead Note II?

 

[toyotafan]

With all of the fees, we're easily at like $170/month. That's insane. How did we get to the point where everyone is ok with spending $2000/year on wireless PHONE and INTERNET?

 

[tbplus10]

Its all about what youve convinced yourself you need.
My work phone is a Galaxy S5 with all the bells and whistles, the minute Im off work that phone gets turned off, I use my 6 yr old Pentech sliding phone that has no add ons and costs $16 a month for service.
My wife has a smart phone through her work that cost's $32 a month.

 

[toyotafan]

I would be ok with a regular flip/slide phone and a wifi hotspot so I can talk and text with a phone and then get onto a laptop when I need to.

 

[tbplus10]

I was reading a tech article that stated many people were choosing that route, or using notebooks or tablets.
Smart phones have to much tech for them.

 

[toyotafan]

It's overwhelming. We're at the point where we're not talking to people in the same room as us, we're texting or chatting with them on facebook.

I've found that I'm always late for just about everything that I have to do in life because I've always got something to keep me occupied.

 

[tbplus10]

Yea, I got guys at work texting each other across the shop instead of talking to each other.
We had to ban them from sending each other pictures, jokes, etc. because they werent getting work done.
Our company was forced to set up a nanny program on company phones, we run company apps. to process work orders so everyone has to have smart phones, but they cause to much lost manhours with goofing off.

 

[toyotafan]

So I gave up the Samsung Note series of smartphone and took over my wife's Galaxy S5. Impressed by the processor power, but >>> SUPER <<< disappointed with the sound that comes from it. It's so poor that even if they gave it to me for free I wouldn't take it over a new Note 4 that I would have to pay for.

Anyhow, the wife got a Note 4 and I took over her phone and that's that I guess.

 

[toyotafan]

S5 just locked up on me. This appears to be an android bug as hundreds of people have been reporting it.

Usually it starts with people who use the fingerprint scanner to unlock the phone. This will turn off on it's own. Then when they go in to setup a PIN because they're tired of not having a lock on their phone, the next time they try to enter the PIN it will say invalid.

Fast forward a couple of hours (or more) ... eventually they go to their carrier and/or device manufacturer and get the run-around. Finally they're told to go to google.com/android Android Device Manager and they can change the password to their phone.

The problem is that the phone is stuck on PIN, it will not take a PASSWORD. So there is essentually no way around this.

Just had to nuke my phone to factory and lost some vacation pics and what not, but I just lost a 1/2 day of work today.

GRRRR

 

[DaniMolo]

These problems sucks and that's why I don't like android. I think Iphone is better solution for those, who have an addiction to phones and use the a lot, otherwise - you can live with really simple phone, who has good camera for travelling and that's it.