From bad to worse....

I am writing this to see if anyone else has had this experience. I purchased my first Incredible 2 just after Thanksgiving last year (2011). It worked fine for about a month and then it had a problem. It booted up fine but the phone could not get a connection through wi-fi or the 3g network. I took to the Verizon store. They tested it and confirmed there was a problem. I was sent a new phone. The second phone worked fine. I can only recall one or two incidents when the phone locked up and I had to take the battery out to reset which it did each time.

Yesterday the phone locked up again and twice within the span of a half hour but did the take-out-battery reboot and it recovered. A few hours ago the phone locked up on me again right at the end of a Word With Friends Game when the game flashes who won and if a rematch is wanted, it was stuck on that screen. The battery was at about 30%. I took the battery out, put it back in and the HTC screen came up, then the red eye with the two red dots came up and stayed there for a few minutes then the screen went blank. I could see the phone had power as the screen was slightly lit but blank. I waited and after a few minutes the white HTC Quietly Friendly screen would come up for a few seconds and disappear, this would happen two or three times in about 30 seconds and then go blank again for a few minutes and repeat. It seemed it was trying to boot itself but it was in a loop, like some stage of the boot process just was not working and it kept trying. I took battery out for about a minute, put it back in and the same thing happened. I let it sit for 20 minutes and it kept repeating the pattern I described earlier.

I took the battery out and put it back in. Instead of turning the phone on I charged the battery to full power. I turned the phone on and removed from the charging cord. It went to the white HTC screen (no Quietly Friendly) and it just stayed there with nothing happening. I let it sit for about 5 minutes. I took the battery out and put it back in and now the phone is completely unresponsive. I plugged the charging cord and there was no green or orange light appearing to show the status of the battery charge. The phone is completely dead, even when the charging cord plugged in.

I will be taking my phone in tomorrow to the local Verizon store but it is very very disappointing to have two failed phones in a little over a year. I hope my warranty is still good.

The phone I replaced was a Droid Eris which is now almost 3 years old. It still works just fine even after it falling out of my holder while riding my bike at about 25mph and was dropped many times. I remember choosing the Eris because user reviews raved about how tough the phone was. The Incredible 2 and Eris are both HTC phones so you would think they would apply the same build quality but 2 fails in a year is unacceptable.

My brother has an the original Incredible, he's had it for just about 2 years and it still works just fine.

Accepted answers

rkymtnskyr

Have you tried a factory reset? Turn off the phone, press and hold the volume down button, and then briefly press the power button. Wait for the screen with the three android images to appear, and then release the volume down button. Press volume down to select factory reset and then press the power button. This should get your phone going again. Only downside is it wipes everything you have saved. Better than a bricked phone though?! If this works for you, be careful about what apps you install on your phone. They oftentimes will create a locked up phone. Also, in lieu of pulling the battery-see if you have a task manager stock app. If so, touch the active applications tab and try closing the app that way by exiting out of it. Hope this helps!!!

All comments

unknown

If it's been over a year you'll be out of luck. Has it had any kind of system update in the last year? And have you installed that update?

kellyjsf

I have had at least one update. Don't remember when but it wasn't recently, like in the last 4 months. As far as the warranty I can't recall the exact date I received the phone I have now. It was either the last week of December 2011 or the beginning of January 2012. I can't find the information for that online when I check my account. I guess I will find out when I go into the Verizon store tomorrow. Hopefully I am still under warranty protection. I just checked available smartphones online and there were none under $500 and I really can't afford that right now. If I am not covered by warranty I will definitely be looking into what kind of deals other carriers have to offer.

unknown

kellyjsf wrote:
I have had at least one update. Don't remember when but it wasn't recently, like in the last 4 months. As far as the warranty I can't recall the exact date I received the phone I have now. It was either the last week of December 2011 or the beginning of January 2012. I can't find the information for that online when I check my account. I guess I will find out when I go into the Verizon store tomorrow. Hopefully I am still under warranty protection. I just checked available smartphones online and there were none under $500 and I really can't afford that right now. If I am not covered by warranty I will definitely be looking into what kind of deals other carriers have to offer.

Except you'd have to pay an ETF to leave Verizon. Seeing you only had the phone since late November 2011 you'd have to pay $220 to get out of your contract.

kellyjsf

I am aware of that but often carries have exclusive deals for new customers and it could be more economical to pay the fee and break the contract rather than pay $500-$600 for a new phone.

I would have to take a look to see what else is out there before spending that much on a phone right now. I think most people would at least take a look to see what else is available. I have been with Verizon for about 10 years and have been a satisfied customer but having two phones fail opens the door to other possibilities. I feel for as much as these phones cost the warranties should last longer or they should ensure the phones they get from the manufacturers work better.

I have a laptop, a desktop, xbox360, PS3 and other electronic devices and I expect them to last at least three years with regular use. It is unacceptable to me for expensive electronics to completely fail in a little over a year or less.

rkymtnskyr