End of the line for Samsung here

[jack22182]

I was on my fourth Fascinate and life wasn't bad, running the stock ED05 update. I went to charge the phone Thursday night and noticed no "start of charging sound" and no lightning bolt in the battery icon when I plugged in the phone. The battery was about half full prior to this and was successfully charged in the car earlier in the day. The charger checked out OK, so I shut down and did a battery pull, thinking a cold start might be needed. Replaced the battery and tried to power on the phone, and got the "phone is off, battery has just started charging" image in the screen - the one that looks like a big battery with a spinner in the middle of the screen. It remains on the screen until the power button is released, and returns when the power button is pressed again, but the phone never starts to boot - no white "SAMSUNG" appears.

I have the Samsung external battery charger and a spare battery, so I popped a full battery in and tried again. Same thing happened.

When the phone is plugged into the charger, there is no indication that the phone is charging, and the phone still can't be powered on.

So, for no apparent reason:

The phone won't power on with a fully charged battery installed - it just shows the "phone is off, battery just started charging" icon while the power button is pressed, and, the phone won't charge.

I spoke with Verizon tech support yesterday morning, went through the usual checklists, got to Tier 2, and they determined that it's dead in the water. They said that they would get another Fascinate on the way, and I said "wait a minute, we need to talk". So, the are sending a "certified, like new" DINC2. I complained about this, after three CLN Fascinate FRUs I don't have a lot of confidence in the refurbishment process, but they told me that's the best they can do, and no, there's no process in place that would allow me to pick up a new phone at a local VZW store. So, I'm going BB Storm 2 retro for a few days.

They did not have any standard battery covers in stock for the DINC2 FRUs, so I am also getting an extended battery and extended battery cover.

I hope I have better luck with the DINC2. Folks in the DINC2 forum seem to be pretty satisfied, but there are some complaints.

The Fascinate was my first Android phone, purchased September 2010. Being a bit of an Android noob it's hard to know how many of my issues were Samsung related and how many were Android related. From what I've read I'd like to think most of them were specific to the Fascinate. For the record, my issues (common to all the Fascinates I've had) were:

• Abysmal GPS performance until the big GPS fix came out, which helped, but the GPS was never as fast to start and lock as my BB Storm 2. This was a big deal for me. I wanted to be able to rely on this phone for navigation when traveling, and it totally failed to meet my expectations, even after the big GPS fix. (For what it's worth, to me it the GPS seemed to get bad again after subsequent software updates). Some trips and outings were impacted severely - me and my wife waiting many, many minutes for a GPS lock so Google Maps could tell us where we were and how to get where we wanted to go. (Now I am required to bring backup paper maps on all future trips.) I really would have been better off with my ca. 2003 nuvi.
  
• Poor radio performance (e.g. weak signals) unless sitting very close to the cell site. Whoever had the great idea not to have real antennas on cell phones anymore needs to learn a thing or two about how radios work. The Fascinate seems especially deaf compared to my BB Storm 2.
  
• 3G Mobile Hotspot *never* worked right for long sessions. This took a while to study and characterize, but after much use and study, it's clear that it starts off good at the beginning of a session, and craps out after it's been connected for a while - eventually the 3G Mobile Hotspot just stops passing data, even with plenty of signal strength from the cell site. I was never able to just connect, stay connected and browse the web or send/receive emails for extended periods. Rebooting the phone seems to get data flowing again when this happens - for a while, then the problem soon returns.
  
• Plenty of 3G connectivity issues - for a long time this was really bad with my first Fascinate after I had it for about six months, it almost never worked with 3G at all at its worst. When that one was replaced I could get 3G again, yet all four Fascinates experienced 3G reliability issues to some degree. This might have also contributed to the 3G Mobile Hotspot performance issue I mentioned above.

There were things I liked:

• The big, beautiful S-AMOLED screen.
  
• The thin form factor, tough screen surface and, as it turns out, a fairly decent rugged design overall.
  
• The ability to pop a fresh battery in anytime. I am seriously tempted to go VZW iPhone one day, but the fixed battery is kind of a deal killer.
  
• The simple fact that I was really carrying a very powerful and very small computer everywhere I went. WIth Dropbox and Documents to Go, I could get to all of my work files anytime if I needed to, and this was just huge for me while out in the field.
  
• Swype. Another potential deal killer for any future VZW iPhone. I don't think I could ever go back to typing on a touch screen.

The subject of my post/thread is "End of the line for SAMSUNG here". I just don't think they have the quality that's needed to make a complex device like this work right. I've lost all confidence in their ability to field a decent smart phone. I'm sure the Charge shares a lot of this phone's DNA - that's just the way these guys work, they want to re-use as much hardware design and code as possible. I can't imagine starting again with a Charge unless I could get proof that all of these botched issues were addressed, and a cursory read of the Charge forums suggests to me that the Charge has similar issues, at least for some users.

Thanks to all the forum users, advisors and admins for such a great community - reading your posts daily surely enhanced my experience with this phone.

Jack

 

[wyllic]

I had pretty much every problem you had on the fascinate, got a charge as a replacement and I couldn't be happier. Great reception, great battery life, 4g is insane. I love it

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