AT&T Galaxy S4: Inconsistent Service and Warranty Replacement

[Mike Zumbrun]

Lately my ATT S4 has had horrible service. I will be outside and have 5 bars then all of a sudden no service. Sometimes it still says I have service but I will not connected to 4G or any other data type, so if wifi is on I never know if I have real service. I have received texts up to an hour later than when it was sent on average being 10-15 minutes late when I have the phantom service. I would have days with 20% of the time with no service, by checking settings, battery, then cell stand by. This has been happening for about a month now.

I tried to get help from ATT customer service and they made me get a new sim card as well as do a factory reset on my phone after. Well the problem still persists so they decided to do a warranty replacement. I was nervous about paying $530 since I have a chip in the bezel and went into the local store and they say my phone will be considered physically damaged. It is about a .5 cm chip that I got dropping my phone 2 feet the first month I had it back in June. They already sent out the phone even though they didn't expect to do so until Monday, ordered Friday at 5:30, sucks they were actually quick for once. Now I'm gonna have to send that one back and figure out whether to sell this one or just deal with the service problems.

Do you guys have any idea what the problem could be and do you guys believe this to be physically damaged. They told it failed the finger nail test, if it catches it is damaged.

 

[wd4oay]

Re: Inconsistent Service and Warranty Replacement

Can you change out the bezel from the new phone to the old phone to send back the old phone?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[Mike Zumbrun]

Re: Inconsistent Service and Warranty Replacement

I looked into that, the screen is glued to the bezel and when you try to unglue the two the screen has a tendency to break. Samsung and their cheap plastic

 

[Social Distortion1968]

Re: Inconsistent Service and Warranty Replacement

I had the same problem with my S4 and ironically have the exact same chip. AT&T swapped it out with no problem.

 

[metle_geek]

Re: Inconsistent Service and Warranty Replacement

I looked into that, the screen is glued to the bezel and when you try to unglue the two the screen has a tendency to break. Samsung and their cheap plastic

Took the words rite out of my mouth but now you know why it's soo thin and lite plus that would void the warranty because you have to take it apart there's void stickers once you break them void

must have unlocked boot loaders!!

 

[shamelin73]

I was having sim errors and AT&T wouldn't replace it as I got a refurbished unit and only had a 90 day warranty.
Had to go through Samsung 3 times to get it working but the gave me a new screen and bezel. I too had a ding like what you have in the picture.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[metle_geek]

Dude you dropped it it cracked it's damaged no matter how small it's damaged WARRANTY VOID DONT MATTER THIS IS WHY I HAVE A CASE 50 DOLLAR CASE AND A LITTLE HEFT BEAT THE HELL OUT OF THAT this is why I always get an otter box hell of a lot better dealing with them for a replacement trust me I've broken 5 otter boxes things work

must have unlocked boot loaders!!

 

[Mike Zumbrun]

I do not want to risk paying $530 for a used soon to be last generation phone. I received the replacement phone today and will just send it back tomorrow. I will most likely just sell this and buy a nexus 5. Unless I am able to just figure out what the issue is. Not sure if it is a problem with the attena or a chip on the mobo. I have heard of others having the issue but it is right after they buy it not 9 months later.

 

[Mike Zumbrun]

Well I turned off my LTE and I have yet to have a single dropped signal. My download speeds were 6mbps for 4G and 9mbps with LTE which is fairly bad for LTE. The problem seem to start after the network went down about a month ago. No one else seemed to have problem so it could be a coincidence. I'm just glad it is working decently now.

 

[metle_geek]

Um yea seems your in an area with low lte coverage so when it tryed to connect the signal was too low therefore it would drop it's like being on the edge of a walkie talkie the signal is garbled and nearly leadgeable

must have unlocked boot loaders!!

 

[metle_geek]

Lte should look like this

must have unlocked boot loaders!!

 

[Mike Zumbrun]

Other members of my family will get about 30 mbps, we all tend to get about 3 bars. It worked fine for months just for some reason it now has problems.

 

[metle_geek]

Did you get the 4.4 2 update? Came with a new modem seems for some it broke lte have you tryed resetting your apn?

must have unlocked boot loaders!!

 

[Mike Zumbrun]

Yeah I got 4.4.2 but I had the problem before the update. I have yet to have a single drop of service or texting delay since turning off lte. I can live without it, I am still able to watch HD on normal 4g plus I can always turn it on if need be.

 

[francis skrzycki]

Were you ever charged for the phone?