Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
cyberassassin
Newbie

I upgraded my Droid 2 to the Samsung stratosphere in June. It was a horrible decision. I am so unhappy with this phone and now I am stuck with it until June 2013!

Phone has many problems:

- horrible battery life,

- it reboots itself whenever it wants to

- Very slow to respond

- apps run slow

- takes 30 seconds to a minute or more to make a call once you hit the Call button

- not enough memory/RAM

- Keyboard sucks compared to Droid 2, 3, & 4

- Stops reading SD card at times

- Overall Cheap feeling

Is there anything I can do to get a better phone at a cheaper price? I really don't want to be stuck with this for another year.

I am a VERY UNHAPPY phone user at this time.

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
Dave-in-Decatur
Specialist - Level 2

I'm sorry the Strat has been such a problem for you. I've had mine for over 4 months, and haven't experienced what you have. I know others have reported various problems with it here, but I suspect there are more than a few reasonably well satisfied Strat users like me. Obviously, since we're happy with the phone, we don't have much incentive to post about it here.

Anyway, that's not to downplay your experience. Not having owned other Android phones, I don't have anything to compare the Strat with, for instance regarding keyboard and RAM. I will say that I have not found it to be at all slow (unless Web pages load slowly because of a weak 4G connection, which isn't the phone's fault). When I hit Call, it calls; and I haven't had the rebooting or SD issues that you and some others report. As for battery life and inadequate RAM, that, of course, depends on what apps a person installs and runs.

So, like any mass-produced product, it's possible to buy a bad Stratosphere, but that doesn't mean that it's a horrible phone for everyone.

I do have one last question: how did you manage to upgrade a Droid 2 to a Stratosphere last June, since (as I understand it) the Strat was not released until October? (See, for instance, http://www.droid-life.com/2011/10/07/samsung-stratosphere-launching-october-13-full-specs-and-user-m....)

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
cyberassassin
Newbie

Well, I was going by the fact that my account says I am not eligible for upgrade until June 2013. I think you are correct though, I believe I got in in October.

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
commonsense101
Specialist - Level 2

Do you have advance task killer or lookout? Remove those if so

Might have to buy a new phone and sell that one

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
cyberassassin
Newbie

Nope, I have Easy Task Killer that I use to manually kill tasks if the phone is going to slow.

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
commonsense101
Specialist - Level 2

uninstall that and watch your problems melt away

The truth is, these task managers and Android work against each other. Task killers are redundant, unnecessary and typically cause more harm than good. Yes, this goes against all that you have been told as an Android user; they seem like they're helping. This is called a placebo effect. So why are these app managers bad? How do they actually cause harm?

Unlike a PC where you must manage memory yourself by closing programs, the Android OS (2.2 and above) is meant to manage memory and processes on its own. Let's say the user launches an application. This app will then stay in memory until it absolutely needs to be closed. This is done to improve application launch time; the app will "run" in the background – leaving battery and performance essentially unaffected – ready to be launched again at any moment.

If a previously launched application is kept in memory, launching it again at a later time will take much less time. Killing the app removes it from memory and will slow down the application launch next time you need it. Android will automatically begin closing applications as needed, starting with the ones that have been inactive for the longest.

Most of these dreaded task manager applications come with a “kill all” or “autokill” feature. Why is this bad? I don't think I can explain it any better than Whitson Gordon of Lifehacker:

"... it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.

In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you're more of a casual user."

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
cyberassassin
Newbie

I have hear this before and I have heard that you need one. However, it will not hurt anything for me to uninstall the application and see what happens. At this point anything is worth a try.

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
notarep
Contributor - Level 3

Uninstalling is fine, but other apps will take it's place in the memory. If the app has an option to quit, use that. Do not just hit the home key.

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
Enigma75
Newbie

I was just reading some issues on here and I have the stratosphere and have not experienced any of the problems that have been posted on here. I got the phone a couple months ago and have nothing but good things to say about it.

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Re: Stratosphere is the WORST phone I have EVER owned
jrh4054
Specialist - Level 3

I completely agree with Dave-in-Decatur.  I have had my Strat for several months and haven't experienced any of the problems cyberassassin described.  I also agree with those who have posted about app killing/battery saving apps.  I was using an app killer and it totally screwed up my email to the point that I couldn't send or receive emails with the preinstalled email client.  To cyberassassin, have you talked with VZW customer support?  I have found them to be most helpful when you get to the Strat support folks.  You may have a bad phone, which Dave-in-Decatur said.  Have you tried removing the battery then reinstalling it?  Have you tried doing a factory reset?  You also said the phone had a cheap feel.  I'm not sure what that means, but the Strat is not a high-end phone.  If you wanted something that doesn't feel cheap, you should have paid $300 for the Razr Maxx, the Nexxus, or the iPhone 4S.  My only real problems with the Strat are that it's heavy and thick.

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