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How Disappointing...

I would just like to say how incredibly disappointed I am by this phone. I purchased the Fascinate 3 weeks ago at a Verizon store, as part of the Buy 1 Get 1 free promotion. I combined two single accounts (both over $100 a month), change our plans to a family plan, and purchased the two new phones. Although our salesman was great, when he installed LauncherPro on our Fascinates, he "deleted the Samsung apps" that came with the phone. When I realized a few days later that I actually wanted these original features back, I called the store, and they instructed me to call Tech Support. TS instructed me to do a hard reset on my phone, and in doing so, it caused the phone to crash in it's entirety. In order to have a working phone that evening, I had to go back to the store and get it replaced.

Sadly mistaken, I thought this was the end of my issues...

Not long after getting the first phone, I noticed the terrible echo of myself in the earpiece of the phone. It took a while, but I realized that if I held the phone away from my face, I would no longer hear it. Unfortunately, holding the phone away from my face activated the screen, and we both would inadvertantly keep hitting the onscreen buttons (particularly mute). We were told on numerous occasions that (especially when calling landlines) the call quality was horrible. To the point that people said it was easier to hold a conversation over text, since it sounded like I was "calling from a rotary phone in the middle of the desert." Still, I pushed thru, hoping things would improve. They haven't...

From the beginning, we both noticed that the phone would not hold a battery charge for an entire day. Within the two weeks that we've had this phone, I now have to bring a charger with me to work, as my phone will not hold a charge from 8:30 am (when I take it off the charger) to 6:00 pm (when I get back home from work). Not only are the phones no longer charging, they are also no longer finding a signal. I have *228-ed galore, done battery pulls, factory resets, and hard resets, with no signal in sight. After speaking with tech support twice in 12 hours, they said they could send me another new phone, or I could take advantage of the 30 day return policy, and exchange it for a different one. But that they wouldn't honor the Buy 1 Get 1 Free promotion for a different phone. After speaking to the second representative, and decided that it would be best for me to exchange the phone, things still got drastically worse. Not only would the phone only find a signal for about 10% of the rest of the day, it then decided to lock up completely. After numerous battery pulls, with no outcome, the phone decided it was out of memory, and that I needed to delete messages, contacts, or other items to free my memory. My memory card was reading 14.47 GB unused, and the hard storage on the phone was reading 1.67 unused. A few minutes later, I started getting popups that would read "application (fill in the blank) has failed, please terminate" with the force close button. However, when the phone did decide to react to pushing the button, it would just send another popup. Since I do not have a home phone, I had to wait over an hour for my fiancee to come home (with his phone) so I could call tech support. Again. We were able to do a force reset on the phone, which, upon turning the phone back on, did not actually reset the phone at all. It did, however, provide me enough time without a popup in order to do the hard reset thru the menu of the phone.

Needless to say, I will be re-visiting a Verizon store tomorrow evening, to replace this overgrown paperweight. It amazes me that while on the phone with TS, all three have been oh-so-kind to state "I'm sorry you're having issues with this phone, and I completely understand, but you have to admit, it has a great screen quality." REALLY?!? Yes, the screen is great. BUT THE PHONE DOES NOT WORK!!

If you are reading this forum, debating the purchase of a Fascinate, please, don't waste your time, energy, or money! I purchased this phone to replace a Blackberry Curve 8330, and although the BB had it's own issues (trackball anyone), I would GLADLY take my Blackberry back! Never once did I have the issues with a BB that I am having with this phone. Please Verizon, discontinue the frustration, and trash these phones before selling them to the public any longer!

Comments

LandLockedPH

When LauncherPro was installed, it didn't delete the Samsung widgets. If you would have uninstalled LauncherPro, everything would have been back to normal. Why a salesperson would install that for you without giving you a chance to try the Samsung launcher is beyond me and requires a serious discussion with his/her manager.

As for the other issues you've experienced... yes, battery life sucks when compared with BB. I also came from a Curve. But the rest of the issues you've described don't make sense. I'd suggest letting Verizon replace the phone you got and give it a try. Stock first... then start adding apps. In general, tech support is not well trained on these various devices.

I've had no issue (other than GPS taking too long to lock on) with my two Fascinates.

mlacher

Correct, LauncherPro did not delete the Samsung widgets. The salesman at the store did. And how/why that happened has been discussed with his manager, so hopefully it doesn't happen again.

Not only does the battery life suck... the call quality sucks, the performance sucks, it rarely has anything better than 1 bar of signal, and that's if I'm standing perfectly still, outdoors, with no wind, and HAPPEN to get lucky. It's so bad that about one out of every 3-4 texts I send come back as "delivery failed". I've had numerous people text me and tell me that they've tried to call me, but it's going straight to voicemail. And no, it's not at the same location, or even from the same people. It has happened while I've been at work, at home, on the road, at friend's houses, and at family's houses, all in different cities, miles apart from each other. I can't remember the last time I was actually on a phone call that it didn't drop the call for me.

And if I allow them to send me a new phone, by the time I get it and let it do it's thing for a couple of days, I'm out of my 30 day return window. If my fiancee wasn't having the same issues (also in different locations), I would think I just got a crappy phone, and wait for the replacement.

PJNC284

What apps are you referring to? There's a 0% chance that the rep deleted any of the apps as he would've had to root your device which isn't going to happen in the store otherwise the rep would be jobless. The native samsung widgets don't work with 3rd party launchers but you can clear the defaults and switch back to regular touch wiz to get them back.

mlacher

Please don't tell me that "There's a 0% chance that the rep deleted any of the apps as he would've had to root your device which isn't going to happen in the store otherwise the rep would be jobless." I have already talked to that store manager, and the salesman fully admitted to deleting whatever it was from the phone. It wasn't just simply that they didn't work with third party launchers, or else the hard reset would have worked. Whatever it is that he did, he ended up deleting key information that makes the phone work, therefore rendering it useless. Which is why they replaced it.

PJNC284

What was it that he supposedly deleted then? Simple fact is that unless he rooted it in the store (highly unlikely), there is nothing that you can remove that can't be re-added from the market.

LandLockedPH

This sounds like a bogus message thread to me. If others were having the issues that mlacher is claiming, the phone wouldn't be one of the most highly rated ones (over 5 million sold) in the world.

Moving on...

AFguy

I have had the Samsung Fascinate for 2 weeks now and haven't had any issues. Sounds like the OP lives in an area that does not get a very good VZW signal, thus causing the signal problems, voice issues, and fast battery drain. Also, it seems like the OP would be better off with a non-smartphone as his/her knowledge of this phone isn't very accurate. What is it with EVERYBODY wanting smartphones these days when they do'nt know how to use them. Geesh.

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