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How many have or will return the Fascinate?

Keep, return, or wait and see?

  • Yes I'm returning it!

    Votes: 26 15.3%
  • No way, it's great! I'm keeping it!

    Votes: 106 62.4%
  • I'm going to wait and see.

    Votes: 38 22.4%

  • Total voters
    170
I would think if you take back the first SF [not return] due to it being faulty that that would not count as an exchange. You are doing a replacement then not an exchange. Maybe its semantics but in principle I cannot see it any other way


I agree with you, it would be a replacement of a lemon and shouldn't be part of the 30 day trial period. Verizon told me otherwise. Sooo, I'm going to head to the store this morning and speak to them. :D
 
I agree with you, it would be a replacement of a lemon and shouldn't be part of the 30 day trial period. Verizon told me otherwise. Sooo, I'm going to head to the store this morning and speak to them. :D
Good Luck. I've found the retail stores often are not helpful. Go right to a manager if needed. Otherwise, call the CS line they are always more helpful and might be able to help you. Although you shouldnt have to you should be able to walk into the store and get help that way [unless they are out of stock]
 
I'm going to be going to Verizon in about half an hour to return the Fascinate. Really sad to let it go as the screen and form factor were great, but too many darn bugs. Plus 2 minutes for a GPS lock -- stupid. Back to my Incredible, which feels so small now, but it kicks but in responiveness, and GPS locks in in less than 3 seconds. This is already my second Fascinate due to the voice reverb issue. If they charge me the $35 at the store, I'll probably explain the problems, and if they still charge me I'll call CS on the way home. Too bad about this phone. Samsung and Verizon had a chance to really hit it out of the park, but instead only got a double. Oh well, hopefully Verizon's version of the EVO will come out soon.
 
This baby is a HOMERUN in my opinion. My GPS locks on about 10-20 seconds ahead of my wifes Inc. It is also around the 7-10 feet range as compared to the Incs 30-40 feet accuracy. My wifes Inc has 11 sats in view and locks on 6-7 or them. My Fascinate views 14 and reads 12!! LOVE THIS PHONE!! Maybe this phone works differently in different parts of the country. I find in so strange that they are all so different in performance.
 
This baby is a HOMERUN in my opinion. My GPS locks on about 10-20 seconds ahead of my wifes Inc. It is also around the 7-10 feet range as compared to the Incs 30-40 feet accuracy. My wifes Inc has 11 sats in view and locks on 6-7 or them. My Fascinate views 14 and reads 12!! LOVE THIS PHONE!! Maybe this phone works differently in different parts of the country. I find in so strange that they are all so different in performance.

Mine seems to lock instantly sometimes for GPS, and take about a minute or so at other times. Can't yet explain it, but other than that, it's about as close to perfect as a phone can be, at least for me!
 
GPS is a hot button topic and for many a deal breaker. My own GPS sometimes connects almostly instantly and other times seems to lag. Sometimes its within feet and other times is blocks away. But I dont really use it on a daily basis. Smaller town I live in and I know where Im going. So for me the GPS issue would be like me complaining my Ferrari F40 doesnt have a radio [which it didnt]. Some people love that radio though. Me I'm keeping my F40
 
I'm going to keep mine unless a 4 to 4.3'' slide out keyboard phone comes out in the next 3 weeks. I have such good Verizon service here that the weaker radio doesn't hurt me much. The GPS can take 5 or 6 minutes to lock on sometimes. I guess I'll just have to start it up 10 minutes before I leave lol.

I've had the Droid X also. I really liked that phone also. But I just couldn't go back to that screen after using the Fascinate/Epic.

All the little quirks the phone has (Radio/GPS) I'm hoping Samsung fixes in an update.
 
I do feel bad for those that are having issues with this phone. Mine is perfect!! I was on the flip side with the Inc. Even though I loved the Inc, I had a lot of issues compaired to my Fascinate!!! No device/phone is perfect. If you check all the other forums for the other major phones (Inc, X, Droid 2 ect), they all complain about something being wrong or needing to be fixed or could be better. There is not one single phone that everyone agrees is "Perfect", there will never be one. There are to many people with different thoughts on what would make a perfect phone. So you just need to pick the one that best suits you. IMHO

Finally! I was saying this several times in other forums smh!
I agree with you!
Then some people bash it because it's not their favorite phone. Like their thoughts are everyone else's. Not everyone thinks the same.
 
Finally! I was saying this several times in other forums smh!
I agree with you!
Then some people bash it because it's not their favorite phone. Like their thoughts are everyone else's. Not everyone thinks the same.


The only thing I could "bash" about the Fascinate is how Verizon pulled the whole Bing fiasco, and loaded it up with junk bloatware. My other gripes were with the device malfunctioning. I'm gonna hold off on my available upgrade till 2.2 comes out for this and come back to see what its like.

Like others said the phone is a stunner as far as the screen goes, and how fast it is. Just too many little nagging problems for me to keep it.
 
Ok, I have two Droid1's and picked up the fascinate yesterday. First thing I noticed was BING! What a let down! I remedied that with a few downloads and changed the home page. I rooted it after about an hour out of the box. That brings me to the second issue. There is VERY little out there for the SF as of now. As a matter of fact, Rom Manager does not even have the SF listed yet. As for the radio issue, I got lousy signal until I updated through *228 /option 2. I will be testing the GPS this week for both timeliness and accuracy. The third issue, and the most annoying so far, is the home/soft keys. I would love to meet the idiot that programed these. Moving them wasn't really the big issue. It is the fact that they do not stay lit for the duration of screen use. Seriously! 3 seconds is NOT enough time already!

Ok, so, we have:

BING: Fixed with d/l's and home page
Rooted Support: This will be fixed very shortly as this phone is VERY new!
Radio/GPS: Looking for update to fix GPS. "If it truly is an issue" *228 seems to have fixed the signal issue. *I put the SF next to my two droid1s using "Network" from the Market and the difference was literally -0db...*
Home/Soft Keys:
I'm hoping that either an update from Samsung or a fix in SuperUser will occure! "I can still get over it once I get used to the locations..." lol

With all that said I love this phone!! The first thing I noticed was the light weight. My loose shorts don't fall off of me when I have it in my pocket.. lol
The screen is immaculate! Both Still and video options are near perfect for everyday uses! After using the swipe style keyboard only a few times I was able to type faster than with the slider or onscreen keyboards from the droid1. "I have fat fingers"... lol
The 1 GHZ processor is a very nice improvement... I can't wait to test the overclocking speeds....
I do not have, nor have I ever had a Droid X. However, after playing with them in the V-store, I see no difference in the everyday uses.

I will be keeping my Samsung Fascinate! "or, at least until G4 phones hit Verizon"... LOL
 
The only thing I could "bash" about the Fascinate is how Verizon pulled the whole Bing fiasco, and loaded it up with junk bloatware. My other gripes were with the device malfunctioning. I'm gonna hold off on my available upgrade till 2.2 comes out for this and come back to see what its like.

Like others said the phone is a stunner as far as the screen goes, and how fast it is. Just too many little nagging problems for me to keep it.
And thats your choice, just now it could be months until we officially get Froyo on the SF
 
It is interesting, after watching this forum for months, and being one that was very excited about the fascinate when the whole galaxy line was announced... and then reading about the gps issues, for example... got me thinking... I am an ex-Omnia I and current Omnia II owner, which the fascinate in many ways is modeled after... Without ever thinking about it, my GPS is slow on that device as well... usually takes a good 3-10 minutes to get a lock... once locked it seems to be able to "pick it back up again" pretty quickly within a few hours, but after that...

Makes me wonder if the fascinate issues are related to the chips used for GPS by samsung... possible tied to CDMA as well???

Just thinking out loud...
 
It is interesting, after watching this forum for months, and being one that was very excited about the fascinate when the whole galaxy line was announced... and then reading about the gps issues, for example... got me thinking... I am an ex-Omnia I and current Omnia II owner, which the fascinate in many ways is modeled after... Without ever thinking about it, my GPS is slow on that device as well... usually takes a good 3-10 minutes to get a lock... once locked it seems to be able to "pick it back up again" pretty quickly within a few hours, but after that...

Makes me wonder if the fascinate issues are related to the chips used for GPS by samsung... possible tied to CDMA as well???

Just thinking out loud...

This sounds strange, even to me, but mine only had trouble getting a lock when AutoKiller was set to more aggressive settings than "Optimum." Since I changed back, I haven't had to wait more than a minute for my GPS lock in the car, and usually less than that. Before I cranked AutoKiller down a bit, there were times I never did get a lock, regardless of being out in a field in a clear open sky, or waiting in a stationary location for several minutes. I didn't investicate what processes were affected by the more stringent settings, but I think it's possible it was related on my phone, perhaps in conjunciton with a number of things, as it's rooted with launcher pro, I've tried to get rid of the bing stuff and put google on there ... lots of factors to potentially add some unexpected conflict to the list.
 
At this point its 80-90+% chance of return. Call quality and GPS are killing me. If they don't roll out an update with a fix for these problems before my 30 days the phones are going back and Im not holding my breath.
 
At this point its 80-90+% chance of return. Call quality and GPS are killing me. If they don't roll out an update with a fix for these problems before my 30 days the phones are going back and Im not holding my breath.
Yeah I dont think there will be an update for the SF in the next 3 weeks. Nothing on the rumor mill suggests there will be
 
When I first got the phone friday there was no way I was returning them.. And now I am not sure.. We were out looking at houses this weekend and it takes 3 or more minutes to get a lock on my gps. There is terrible feedback or distortion in my ear when I talk although no one on the other end hears anything. Are these things that can be fixed with an update?
 
When I first got the phone friday there was no way I was returning them.. And now I am not sure.. We were out looking at houses this weekend and it takes 3 or more minutes to get a lock on my gps. There is terrible feedback or distortion in my ear when I talk although no one on the other end hears anything. Are these things that can be fixed with an update?
Software issues mostly definitely can be fixed. If its a genuine hardware problem that becomes problematic, there's only so much you can do
 
Software issues mostly definitely can be fixed. If its a genuine hardware problem that becomes problematic, there's only so much you can do

So do you think the audio issue I'm finding is hardware or software? It does seem to be better as the volume is turned down.
 
Yeah I dont think there will be an update for the SF in the next 3 weeks. Nothing on the rumor mill suggests there will be

Yep. Took blitherin' forever to get 2.1 on the Eris. Android really is slow coming forth with updates.

And the blame rests largely on the carriers and the manufacturers that bow down to their demanded lockouts and customizations, or customizations of their own. The only custom UI that I felt really enhanced the experience from the get go was the Sense UI from HTC, and it had the most maturity out of any of them, such as Motoblur or Touchwiz.

Pure Android would provide us with updates so much faster and with vastly fewer bugs. Yeah, I know, the hardware on each device is different, but the software differences are even greater: Custom UI's, different preinstalled app sets, task managers, camera software, dialers, file managers, web browsers.

WHOA that is such a load of CRAP to have to deal with from an OS standpoint. Kind of reminds my of all the junk that Windows has to support, and with the growing number of different devices and customer base, this has got to be seriously putting a cramp on Android's potential style. Look how polished the Apple experience is, despite how much more open Android is. I bet if android had fewer hardware and software setup variations to support, and carriers would be more uniform in their demands, Android's experience would be much more polished as well.

Regardless of Android's foibles, I still vastly prefer it to an iPhone. I've used both, and there's no way I could go back to iOS after using the Samsung Fascinate or Droid X. Both devices are mean and nasty iPhone killers that deal swift justice to its limitations with all the force of a tidal wave.

iPhone advantages:
FFC
Picture quality
4G (lol ...)
Super hi-res

Droid X advantages:
Biggest screen
Triple noise cancelling microphones (The best call I made on the iPhone sounded like the worst quality call I ever had on the Droid X)
Best web browsing battery life
Rugged, rubberized industrial body
Android OS
Best Nav
Killer reception (and ZERO antenna issues)
Arguably on the best network (for reception)
User removable battery

Samsung Fascinate advantages:
Still a bigger screen than iPhone
SuperAMOLED screen - can see in day, best black levels/contrast
Fastest phone GPU, by a LOT
Thinner and lighter than iPhone 4
Watch out for some killer custom roms thanks to widespread Galaxy S market penetration on ALL major carriers
Android OS
Best Nav (after Google download, and provided you've got one without the bugs, and many people have no GPS problems)
Arguably on the best network (for reception)
User removable battery
Best ergonomics (at least in my opinion) of any phone I've ever used

There's no way I'd ever want the iPhone 4 to come to Verizon when there are phones like the Droid X and the Fascinate for us to use. Let the iZealots bog down their own network with their beloved Facetime. :D
 
Terrific points as usual SK. You know smartphones these days are like buying PC's from Dell or HP. They are bogged down with so much pre-installed utter garbage. Someone somewhere actually believe they are probably helping the consumer by loading all this junk onto our "devices." Its why those of us who are [H] prefer to build. In addition to saving $$, we have complete and total control over what is and isnt on our machines. Not to mention you cannot OC most pre-fabs. Now none of us are in position to build our own phones but at this point the next best thing is the android platform where we at least have a taste of semi-total freedom and control
 
Terrific points as usual SK. You know smartphones these days are like buying PC's from Dell or HP. They are bogged down with so much pre-installed utter garbage. Someone somewhere actually believe they are probably helping the consumer by loading all this junk onto our "devices." Its why those of us who are [H] prefer to build. In addition to saving $$, we have complete and total control over what is and isnt on our machines. Not to mention you cannot OC most pre-fabs. Now none of us are in position to build our own phones but at this point the next best thing is the android platform where we at least have a taste of semi-total freedom and control

And overclocking. :D
 
im returning mine.....only to exchange it for another fascinate lol

i dropped mine and im still within the 30 days..so im hella paranoid about having dropped the phone and its buggin me..i'll be at ease after the exchange ha ha
 
im returning mine.....only to exchange it for another fascinate lol

i dropped mine and im still within the 30 days..so im hella paranoid about having dropped the phone and its buggin me..i'll be at ease after the exchange ha ha
Is anything actually wrong with it post-drop? These things arent bullet proof but they often can and do survive a bit of rough handling. Not to mention after this initial 30 days what will you do if you drop it again? I mean more power to ya getting a replacement and all.
 
^^idk man..theres just a minor scuff/scratch on the very edge of the phone..prolly nothing wrong but i can't stop thinkin about it haha..after the 30 days, if i drop it again, i'll just cry lol..but ima go and buy a case too haha..that was my bad
 
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