Incrdedible becomes unusable outdoors

I haven't found this repeated on any forum, so I may just have a bad piece of hardware. But would be interested if anyone else is having a similar issue or if Verizon may have suggestions on what may be the cause. Here's the issue...

When I take my phone outdoors with me the first thing I notice is that the touch screen becomes unresponsive. This happens within 10-20 minutes of taking the phone out. A short time later the phone begins 'doing things'. The home screen goes to helicopter mode, then a screen will become open and a seemingly random application will open. It even managed to place a call on one occasion and on another it opened (but did not appear to change) my system settings.

I have also noticed that taking the phone back indoors allows it to recover, though recovery time seems to vary between a few minutes to an hour. My latest recovery left me without the use of some screen areas so that the N, T, V, and J keys were unreachable.

It was a warm, sunny day with temperatures around 86F. This certainly should not be a problem since I do, and expect to use my phone outdoors.

This sounds like a hardware problem. But I would like to be certain it isn't a design problem.

Accepted answers

ncdroidman

Just wanted to update this. My Droid Incredible was becoming increasingly unstable. The problems were intermittent, but getting worse by the day.

Verizon did replace the defective device. By the time the replacement arrived my original had become completely unusable, indoors and out. I'm sending it to Verizon, as agreed in the replacement policy.

My problem appears, to me at least, to have been a hardware problem. I believe this because it initially appeared only when I was outside, in the sun. Later it became outside, whether the sun was out or not. Then I began noticing that I could, occasionally, hit the letter 'T', though 'V' never did come back for me.

My thanks to all of you for your input. You helped me eliminate a design problem as the root cause. And my thanks to Verizon Wireless Tech Support monitoring this forum for helping me get the problem resolved.

It is sooo nice to have a working Incredible.

All comments

budone

Was the phone left sitting in the sun?

ws450r

I had mine outdoors Saturday and had no problems with it.

scarshapedstar

Are you in a super humid area? Helicopter mode sounds like something is fooling the optical trackball, and in general it sounds like maybe water vapor is getting into the phone and short-circuiting things. Very strange, maybe it's got a bad seal? I would go exchange it ASAP before the water damage sensor gets set off. (Have you checked that yet?)

ncdroidman

Thanks, everybody.

No, I kept it out of the sun as much as possible. It was a typical late spring day here in NC.

I talked with tech support and they too recommended I exchange it. I'm taking it in to the store to have their tech look at it so I can get it resolved. Really great handset otherwise.

budone

ncdroidman wrote:
Thanks, everybody.
No, I kept it out of the sun as much as possible. It was a typical late spring day here in NC.
I talked with tech support and they too recommended I exchange it. I'm taking it in to the store to have their tech look at it so I can get it resolved. Really great handset otherwise.

Let us know if they exchange it.

ncdroidman

Just wanted to update this. My Droid Incredible was becoming increasingly unstable. The problems were intermittent, but getting worse by the day.

It is sooo nice to have a working Incredible.

whatupc6

i am having the same problem you are talking about... i will be heading to the verizon store it looks like...

ncdroidman

Sorry to hear you're having similar problems, whatupc6. My replacement Droid Incredible is working perfectly. Which is really good news for me, because I think the Incredible really rocks!, but should be good news for you, too. Good luck at the Verizon store.