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Help with few Stratosphere problems

I have had this phone for 1 week. My 1st Smartphone. Overall, I am liking it. Even with all it's little quirks; I have had a few weird things happen in the last couple days. I want to find out if I am alone in experiencing this particular issues, or if these are known to the phone.

1. When the phone rings, the 1st ring is very soft. If I am not near phone, I don't hear it. Then they seem to get a bit louder.

2. On several occasions, the letter "S" has not worked when I am trying to text.

3. Phone has shut off on its own

4. and my biggest concern and the deal breaker if I can't fix, the sound quality on some calls has been bad. When the other person talks, I have trouble understanding them. I have to turn volume up and really concentrate on what they are saying. Even then, it was tough to decipher some of what they said without saying "what?" One was a voice mail so there was no one to say "what" too! :smileyhappy:

Have other owners noticed these seems problems? Any fixes to them? Will Verizon be able to do something about the call quality? Would a new phone be any better? Or is it time to research a different phone for the replacement? I hate to do it because I do like this phone overall. Like the physical keyboard!

Thanks for any and all comments!!

Comments

mawii

I do noticed the same thing with the soft, then loud ring.

I have had no problem texting on the keyboard or on the screen.

The only time the phone has shut off is when I ran the battery out.

Have had no issues with call quality or hearing when on a call.

Maybe you just got a faulty phone and need to have it replaced.

Dave-in-Decatur

The first ring being soft, then subsequent rings louder, seems to be an intentional feature. I've had my Stratosphere about 6 weeks, and it's always been that way. I think it's so that if you're in a place where a long, loud ringtone would be inappropriate, you can catch it on the first ring while it's still quiet.

If the S isn't working on your physical keyboard, you might want to go back to the Verizon store. There should be a warranty, and this sounds like a manufacturing defect. On the other hand, I've had some keypress issues that have more to do with my dexterity or lack thereof than anything wrong with the keyboard.

When you say the phone "shuts off" on its own, do you mean the screen goes black and you have to press the side button to get it back, or that it powers down altogether? If it's the former, that's a designed battery-saving feature. You can adjust the time before blackout by going to the Home screen, pressing the Menu button, and then Settings > Display settings > Screen timeout. There are options from 15 seconds up to 10 minutes.

Call quality might have to do with where you are at the time of the call. If you're in a poor reception area (and even Verizon does have them), I think that could affect call quality. The same might be true if the other person is on a cell phone and in a poor reception area for their carrier.

Hope this is some help.

pdaddy

I think Dave in Decatur answered your question pretty well. I just wanted to add that my Strat shut down on me once. It was about an hour after I downloaded a certain battery app. I got rid of the app and it hasn't happened since. Hope this helps.

nana51

Yes thanks for the great responses. The phone completely shut down once like yours pdaddy. I don't know if it was app related but hasn't happened again. Also haven't had the "s" problem again. I was definately pressing the S key down all the way. Who knows? I am liking this phone more and more. Have gotten really used to the texting now. I am taking one of the Verizon classes tomorrow to hopefully learn more about the phone. Thanks again!

GA1985

I am having all sorts of problems...the funny thing is I called within a few days or week that I got my phone complaining. Now I really wish I would have been more persistant and told VZW what they could do with their phone now. When my phone turns off the light stays on for a long period after sometimes it will pull up things just sitting there. Also in the middle of texting of the qwerty keyboard it will just stop responding and working all together (will then have to do a shutdown and reboot...NOT CONVENIENT!) Mostly all in all I am just tired of the phone. But if I could figure out a solution so people dont get a muffle sound or like my mom says "It sounds like Charlie Browns TEACHER!!" After about 5 to 10 minutes of conversation I have to let them go and try to call them back because the quality gets so bad. There is other noises and problems but at this point I am just so frustrated that I need to figure out what my next step is going to be. Haven't had much luck in the past with people/business/devices...been a customer for ALONG TIME and have a bill of over $200. How does one go about getting help or figuring out what the next step is. Should I just throw in the towel???

I did try the many things including seeing if there was an damage on the phone (which there is not)

Also deleted ALL my apps...which still did not help with the quality of calls OR battery life. Pretty sure with the little I use my phone for data/calls/mssgs that I should be charging my phone multiple times a day!!!

Please help me on how I should go about any of this or if I should just give up and move on

Dave-in-Decatur

Regarding call quality, you may want to join this thread: https://community.verizonwireless.com/thread/767038, which is discussing that issue specifically. The fact that the qwerty keyboard quits working in the middle of a text suggests that something's wrong with the phone, even if there's no obvious physical damage. If it's still under warranty, you might want to take it in to a Verizon store, or at least call tech support. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "When my phone turns off the light stays on for a long period after sometimes it will pull up things just sitting there," but if you are pushing the power button on the side and it still stays on and active, that again sounds like a problem with the phone. OTOH, my phone will sometimes light up briefly while it's turned off, and I'm pretty sure this happens when Google calendar is syncing with it.

paul44837

i have anew phone i wasa acctvated yesterday 2 16 12 now it does bot want to work

Mallosaurus_Rex

I purchased my Samsung Stratosphere December 2011. After a few weeks my S button quit working and my Q button started taking me to my Messaging App or my Home Page. Resetting the phone helped for a little bit, then I started doing it again I got sick of it after a couple months so I contacted Verizon, it was covered under the Manufacturers Warrenty so they sent me a new phone. I have had the new phone for a week and now my L button takes me to my calender, my P button takes me to my music player, and my e button takes me to my hotmail inbox. Yet again Verizon Tech Support had me do a Factory Reset. I am awaiting the next step and to see if it continues. I am so happy I am not the only one with this problem!

GA1985

I totally know what you are talking about because I am in the middle of texting and a certain key will do a function over and over like bring up a browser or different function. Until I actually shut my phone down does it quit doing it. Which is annoying when it don't just take a few seconds...its like turning off a computer. Thanks for the info. I might have to have them send me a new phone. Usually they have these kind of issues worked out after the phone isn't new anymore.

Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:33:08 -0600

From: community@verizonwireless.com

To: {Removed email for privacy purposes}

Subject: Re: Help with few Stratosphere problems - Re: Help with few Stratosphere problems

Re: Help with few Stratosphere problems

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Dave-in-Decatur

Check this out: From the Home screen I do Menu > Settings > Applications > Quick launch. There is a list of shortcut/hot keys that can be used to activate specific apps quickly. Each of them calls for using the Search button + an alphanumeric key. And the list matches up exactly with what you're seeing: L for Calender, P for Music player, E for Email, but in every case with the Search key held down. I've never used this feature, but when I test it, it only seems to work with the physical keyboard (and for some of the keys it seems extremely awkward).

So, it may be that you were accidentally hitting or holding the Search key while typing (either the one on the front of the phone or the one on the physical keyboard). Otherwise it could be some defect in the hardware or software that was simulating a Search key press while you're typing.

One way to fix it might be to long press (hold down) any entry in that Quick launch list to bring up a dialog to clear the setting for that key. If you do this for all of the ones that are set (by default there aren't that many), it could solve the problem.

Mallosaurus_Rex

That was very helpful, but has not resolved my problem.

Now that I know that the "search" button has to be held at the same time as the letter to get the shortcut/hot keys to work.

I reviewed the video I took of when it was happening, and I was using 1 finger to press the buttons and never touched the search button, even when I exited out of the messaging app and re-entered it, it was still doing it.

Sooo now that I know there is something wrong with my "search" button that's helpful.

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