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iphone 5s a lemon?

I splurged and upgraded my iPhone 4s to a 64GB iphone 5s. I have had the phone for exactly 13 days and have found that the reception is lousy. Compared to my iPhone 4s it really doesn't work anywhere, I use to have five bars almost all of the time but now I am lucky to have 3. It drops calls when I am at work and when I am in my bedroom at home, problems that never happened on the old phone. We actually did a "test" today at work, 4 people with various devices, all with verizon service, compared the reception and whereas the other devices had great reception and 4G I had 2 bars and intermittent 3G. I have tried this with and without LTE, that option does not seem to do a thing except drain the battery. I am lucky to get 6 hours of battery life even with the location feature and push notifications turned off on everything and employing every other power saving strategy I could find online. If I am close to a wifi router (like at home) I am able to use the web, check email, download almost anything, but I definitely cannot do this with the phone's cellular connection or on an average wifi connection. I have spent a ton of time on the verizon and apple web sights trying to figure this out and a few days ago I called verizon for help. The technician advised me to remove the case from the iPhone and if that didn't help to bring it into a store so that someone could check out the antenna. Of course taking of the case didn't do a thing so I went to the closest store earlier this evening.

Granted, the person who helped me at the store has an obvious bias against Apple (he basically predicted that they would be out of business within 5 years unless they get new management), but he also told me that the iPhone 5 series is flawed beyond the point where the phone can ever be fixed. He told me that users have to choose between 4G speed and battery life, you basically cannot have both. He also told me that Apple failed to fix key processor issues with the 5s model and that the current processor is fundamentally incapable of consistently handling 4G speed or of providing reliable cellular reception in most cities. He said that there was a chance that if I exchange the phone the replacement may be a little better but he advised me to switch to an android device. Since I ordered the phone online he could not exchange it for me and when I called Verizon to arrange for an exchange I was first told that since the 64GB iPhone 5s is currently backordered and I only have 1 day left on my return and exchange policy there was nothing that could be done. After a lot of negotiating the call center operator finally backed down and agreed to send me a new iPhone 5s when they are back in stock (sometime toward the end of the month).

I am really hoping that exchanging the phone will help, I like the iPhone and I don't want to learn a new operating system, but is there any truth to what I was told today? I found information online about battery problems with the 5s, although, I have not received a call from Apple informing me that my device is on of those affected. There seem to be scattered reports of lots of other problems but nothing as serious as what I was told in the store today. Despite my fondness for iPhone I can't say that is enough to justify the price tag if it cannot function reliably as a phone, I travel a lot and reception can't be an issue. Since the phone is on backorder it looks like I have a little more time to do some research but if anybody has had a similar experience I would appreciate hearing about potential solutions!

Comments

B33

Jasmin you mentioned you had it just under the 14 return, has the phones performance been ill since you had it from day one or has it progressed.? If it's been since the day you put it into service then I would exchange it for either the same model or for a Different one, remember when you take it back to the store have your box and papers and accessories and there will possibly be a Restocking fee of $35 dollars.

Good Luck on the Return and Welcome to the Forums, :smileyhappy: b33

erictheredviking

I'm not totally thrilled with the i5s either. Only had it for just under a week and I'm also finding the reception to be a little on the weak side but the worst part is this thing is sucking up data like nobody's business. There's no way I've used almost a gigabyte in 6 days time. I've been keeping a sharp eye on this and manually added up what all my apps should've consumed and it ought to be under 300MB only, not triple that amount. I'm also not that impressed with Verizon's network coverage around here either. Everbody was saying it was supposed to be so much better that ATTs but I swear I had more bars of signal with them in the places around town I most frequently go to. I think I'm going to consider this a failed experiment and return the phone tomorrow or the next day and cancel service, cut my losses and give Sprint a try next instead and go back to an Android phone, Sprint's unlimited data plan is cheaper anyway.

B33

Understandable.. Enjoy the Move..b33

Pnhtricey

I am having horrible LTE service in my area. Funny thing is I was having horrible LTE when I had the iPhone 5 too, I went through 2 iPhone 5s and a SIM card and ended up returning it altogether. Now I recently got the 5s and now having LTE problems AGAIN.

B33

I don't know why apple phones struggle so much on Verizon system maybe it has something to do with the Sim or the electronics inside of them, I assume they do good on at&t and sprint my cousins sprint iPhone 4s does well for him but that depends on were he's Located when he went up to lake kanopolis early this year signal for his phone was terrible last year it pretty Good but sprint lost that coverage Area so there's for the dip in signal.

He hopes when goes down into Texas to a place call Zapata,TX he has good signal there as for Cell phones is all they have to make calls living in there Motor Home..

Pnhtricey I know you must like iPhone's since you've a couple of them but since your having the issues with the models that you've had.. have you thought of trying android just to see if there is difference in the two.. b33

Pnhtricey

Yeah, I think it's something with the Verizon networking or something because everyone else who has iPhone on another company I don't hear of any service complaints. I had the S4 before I went back and got the 5s, the S4 was the best android phone I had. There was definitely a difference because I was able to have LTE inside my building with the S4 but for some reason with the iPhone it falls short....I'm starting to think iPhones weren't made for Verizon, wondering if I should switch to AT&T.

erictheredviking

Well, I returned the i5s, cancelled my service and went back to ATT and got the HTC One android phone. I think I found a winner with this phone. Reception blows away the VZW i5s, battery life is very good, and my data usage is back to normal. The display screen is bright and vivid and the camera is nothing short of awesome. The "Beats Audio" is overhyped, but the twin speakers do sound pretty good anyway. As a bonus, I've now got 32GB memory onboard instead of just 16GB. But I am disappointed that HTC didn't include a removable microSD memory slot or wireless charging with this phone, but I think I can live with it for 2 years .

Mkemple

I have had this phone for about 3 weeks. I constantly have issues with the sensitivity on the screen. The finger print recognition hardly ever works, when I swipe over the screen it jumps where ever the hell it wants to, when the phone rings it takes several attempts to answer moving to the right. Text messages will not send when upright, you have to turn the phone to the right to make the send button selection function. The phone locks up and you have to shut it off wait 30 seconds and turn it back on. I called Verizon and some admin person walked me through the screen sensitivity functions in settings so it would be less sensitive. Well that stopped 20 A's from running across the screen when you tap it once, but there are still several dead spots on my screen. If you want a "W" you have to turn the phone on its side. If you want to send the same applies. This is the biggest piece of shit phone I have ever owned. I get so frustrated that I just want to throw the f**king thing across the room or smash it against the sidewalk. Verizon has done very little to help.

unknown

Bring in to an Apple Store. They will look at it and even warrant it if it is defective.

The finger print activation has to have all of the print not just part of it. Go back into the settings and delete the print then do it again. Make sure the print goes completely RED and make sure there is no grey left.

I had to do this since I found the first time it just did not read my print correctly. I also used my first finger instead of my thumb.

It now works great turning the device on. Try it.

Good Luck

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