New Strat goes blackscreen

[duanedude1]

Wife's new Stat at times goes blackscreen, either while she is in the middle of doing something or when trying to turn on. Home and other buttons lite up, so it was not a dead battery. A battery pull and reboot got it going again. Does she need an exchange?

 

[acejavelin]

First thing I would try is disable the auto-dock feature, lots of people have had similar issues and disabling it often takes care of it. Go to Settings -> Dock Settings -> Auto Launch and set it to Never.

If it still fails, drop by a VZW store and explain what is happening, they will go through some troubleshooting and it takes some time, so if you can Factory Restore it first and try it it will save you a lot of time.

A word of advice though, if this is within the 30 day "buyer's remorse" window, return it and get something different, possibly an HTC Rezound or if she is stuck on the physical keyboard consider a Motorola Droid 4. The Stratosphere is kind of a dog and not being developed or updated in the least... if I could do it over I would have gotten something different knowing what I know now!!!

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

That sounds like good advice overall. "Kind of a dog" seems a bit harsh, though. It never was the very most high-end phone, but at one point it was the only available 4G LTE from Verizon with a physical keyboard. That's why I bought mine, and it has worked well for me. Some people have reported problems with it, including random shutdowns, and neither Verizon nor Samsung has been very forthcoming about addressing those problems. But that's true of a lot of phone models. As for "not being developed or updated," it's probably never getting Android Ice Cream Sandwich, but again that's hardly unique. So, "dog" or "workhorse" or whatever, it's a matter of opinion and differing experiences.

 

[acejavelin]

LOL... true enough, but I didn't mean to cut the phone too hard, personally I have it and it's not a bad phone at all but it doesn't even compare to my HTC Rezound. My point wasn't to degrade the Strat and send you to the "best" physical keyboard device out there, there just are not many choices and my experience with the Stratosphere has been acceptable, but then again I am kind of a nut about these things, but I think there are better devices available with minimal investment.

As far as "updated" goes, I also think it is doubtful Samsung/VZW will get ICS on this device, but by "developed" I was referring to rooting and custom ROMs, we have root access and some decent "tweaked" stock ROMs, but Samsung hasn't released the Radio Interface Layer for this device and it has yet to be hacked by ROM developers so really nice ROMs like MIUI, CyanogenMod, or AOSP/AOKP are just not available at this time, but I am keeping my fingers crossed!

All things considered, the device is a solid middle of the road performer even with a stock rom and all the VZW bloat (which is considered pretty excessive on this device, even for VZW) and if all you need is a dependable, physical keyboard device this one will probably work fine.

BTW, did the dock thing fix your issue?

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

As far as "updated" goes, I also think it is doubtful Samsung/VZW will get ICS on this device, but by "developed" I was referring to rooting and custom ROMs....

All things considered, the device is a solid middle of the road performer even with a stock rom and all the VZW bloat (which is considered pretty excessive on this device, even for VZW) and if all you need is a dependable, physical keyboard device this one will probably work fine.

BTW, did the dock thing fix your issue?

Yes, I think that about nails it. I hadn't thought in terms of rooting, which I've decided not to try, so I wasn't aware what the issues were there.

The issue was the OP's. Duanedude?

 

[duanedude1]

Just an update. Vzn reset the phone and it continued having problems (not related to do dock mode). They mailed her a replacement and it still developed the same problem. Sometimes turning off when she was using it, only to turn on and taunt her when she was not using it. Vzn just replaced it with a new one (third phone in 2 weeks). If this one is also a lemon they have noted the account and may let her choose another type of phone. When it works she loves it but is tired of setting up her stuff all the time. So far third phone having problem reinstalling apps (just got the replacement today). Wife said that she is beginning to think this is a piece of.... We may go back to Vzn later today and see about getting a Droid 4 or something. Thanx for all your help.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur]

So sorry to hear you're having these problems. I like my Strat pretty well, and haven't had anything really to complain about. (Don't get me started about VZW's 4G service, though!) However, I've seen other reports of problems like this. It seems to be a product that it's pretty easy to get a bad batch of.

 

[duanedude1]

So far wife is having less HW problems, and is learning to deal with the idiosyncrasies it has. It may be a keeper. If not, back it goes.

 

[duanedude1]

Well that did not last long. After third phone she switched to a SGalaxyS3. However her phone replacements (for bad phones)... even Strat to Strat... triggered a tiered data plan instead of keeping unlimited. She is not happy about that and is fighting them on it. Thanks for your help, but after 4 visits to Verizon and 3 replacements it was time to move on. No sense being stuck with a paperweight for two years.

 

[duanedude1]

Update to Update: Wife got off the phone with Verizon. After trying to convince her to stay tiered, they restored her Unlimited Data, retroactively.

 

[MaggieLH]

I've been having this issue too but I can't find an option to disable an automatic dock feature. Is there something else I can try?