Call quality

[colfrmb]

I've had my Motorola Droid for 4 days and I am returning it today.  My biggest issue is that this is a phone and it drops calls constantly in places I have never, ever dropped calls before.  Also often it all sounds clear on my side but person on the other end keeps saying WHAT?, WHAT?  - I cannot have that.  Other issues: the keyboard is really not useable and I avoid it like the plague.  The Unread Email feature doesn't coordinate with your accounts.  My phone tells me I have unread email all the time when I have read them all either on the phone or on my laptop. I won't bother to review the other features because a phone should be a phone first and I have to be able to take calls.  With today's technology, nobody should have to say "WHAT, I CANT HEAR YOU, OH THERE YOU ARE" .  That is bad business.  So I have to return this phone.   I cannot accept  such bad phone reception. The rest is novelty and I might as well get an ITouch and use my 3 YO phone that never let me down.

[colfrmb]

My question to you out there is, which smart phone has the best phone in it?  I'd like a smart phone but I can't go through this again.

[snorkel]

You know for the touted coverage, My AT&T phone gets more bars in the same places or so it seems.

I was not on Verizon before so I don't have any thing to compare to.

It's possible that there is something wrong with the way the antenna is mounted in the Droid causing poor reception.

You coulld wait a week or so, that way they will have exhuasted the intial run of phones and you might get a better one.

[colfrmb]

Very good idea to wait to return.  I returned to the Verizon store tonight and they uploaded some kind of patch using *22 which I saw referenced in another thread.  I asked if there was a way to keep track of patches and the clerk said that the phone automatically uploads fixes? I said, why didn't this fix get automatically uploaded and why did I have to come in to get it fixed?  She said because software fixes get uploaded automatically but not this kind of fix (maybe firmware)?  Every time I go to the store I get different stories. When I called customer support, they couldn't help me at all and suggested going to the store.  Time will tell whether this patch fixes things and if it doesn't, I'll wait til next week to get another phone.  Very good idea.  Thanks!

[scubaguyjohn]

I too have found the reception quality to be worse than my blackberry...

[colfrmb]

did you do the *22 procedure?

[alxnet]

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snorkel wrote:

You know for the touted coverage, My AT&T phone gets more bars in the same places or so it seems.

I was not on Verizon before so I don't have any thing to compare to.

It's possible that there is something wrong with the way the antenna is mounted in the Droid causing poor reception.

You coulld wait a week or so, that way they will have exhuasted the intial run of phones and you might get a better one.

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Bars really aren't too indicative of much.  Different makes of phones have different ways of displaying signal quality.

My office is a walled off stainless steel environment (inside a restaurant).  I get crazy reception problems with ATT but Verizon cuts through the walls and remains solid in both voice and data.  For all you people with reception or voice quality issues, have you done the following?  1) *28 programming to set your cell tower locations.  2) Disable "voice privacy".  I've read a number of posts over the years about this feature (voice privacy) creating all sorts of havoc with call quality (echoes, static, etc.).

[fezzik]

Unless they have changed something the PRL upgrade number is *228 and it is your responsibility to update it yourself.  You will get conflicting information as to whether to do it on a regular basis or whether to wait until you are having issues with reception.  Personally I try to do it about once a month or once every 2 months and I usually do the full programming cause it upgrades the PRL as well as any other software updates like firmware, browser, Get it now, and others.  It may be the smartphones are on a different system but we shall see.  I imagine most of our updates will come to our Gmail accounts or as a text telling us to call this number or click this link.  For instance when Eris gets the update it will either come in a text or a notification to call *228.  They used to do those notifications now you just have to do it your self. 

[BI]

*228 works. Disabling Voice Privacy works very well for static and cut out issues. 

[colfrmb]

Did the *228 and still no good and I have clicking too.  After I used *228, my phone went to silent mode somehow and I missed a couple of calls and then I reset the ring to be on.  Very strange.