After this week's firmware upgrade, I think it is time to seriously ask if Verizon actually tests the firmware upgrades they issue for phones or if this company is just winging it, because there is absolutely no excuse for the screw-up that this week's "update" has created:
- With two identical Samsung S3 phones, one with the firmware update and one without, the phone with the update can barely hold on to a 4G signal, and even as it does, speed tests show ping times in the 1000ms range and an amazing thruput of 10kbps download, 1kbps upload (when the test can even complete). The one without the upgrade shows a ping time of 24ms and 15.5Mbps/11Mbps;
- The phone battery on the upgraded unit gets enormously hot and burns through battery life, the one without does not;
- When the phone drops back to 3G service, it is incapable of getting 4G service back until a reboot, even when you drive by the cell tower;
- Caller ID plus Name bloatware added by Verizon forces the Wi-Fi and 3G/4G wireless radios to both remain on, showing on the status bar. By going into settings, Application Manager, and choosing the "All" applications tab, you can find this little nightmare, select it, and permanently disable it, resolving this particular problem. This won't resolve the problem of the app auto-enrolling you to a paid feature that costs $2.99 a month, as others are reporting, so watch your bill.
Of course, there is no way back to the last firmware version which did not exhibit these problems. So now we are at the mercy of Verizon to push a rollback or fix the problem. Considering how long the GPS problem has been around on this phone, I do not hold out much hope.
My cell bill is over $160 a month for a service I can no longer access and nobody seems willing to do a thing about it. Samsung guarantees as long as the phone works for phone calls, their responsibility ends. Verizon wants to push the problem to Samsung, when it fact it is Verizon's update that created this problem.
This needs a fix, immediately.
