Any product - smartphone, computer, lawnmower, washing machine, whatever - will have a forum somewhere of people complaining about something going wrong with it. That's what people do with product forums; they search them for solutions to problems and post about their problems, hoping for answers. What you have to remember is that these people generally represent only a small fraction of the product ownership. The majority will be happily using the product with zero thoughts about posting to some forum.
The take-away: don't let the normal number of problem posts dissuade you from buying something.
I agree 100% you are always going to have problems with any product. Just because someone posts about an issue does not mean their product is a piece of junk. I personally love the Photon and the possibilities of this phone and the others to follow. Not happy with problem I am having right now, but I remeber when the EVO first came out, I had that phone also, and it had its share of problems to. People on this forum helped me solve alot of the issues I had with that phone as well.
The majority of the people posting here are posting to gripe, but there are also people posting here, wanting to help find a solution. Personally I would like to help find a solution, because this phone and it's possibilities will help me.
Now a little more on my issue with the phone locking up. I was reading on the Motorola website that this could be due to problems with a battery. I went to the sprint store yesterday to have the battery tested and my battery tested fine. The salesman again offered to replace my phone. After thinking this thru, I decided to get a replacement phone. Last week when I went in I did not get the replacement phone because I was hopeful that the problem would be cured with the OTA update. My opinion is that this issue is hardware related. I may be 100% wrong, but that is part of trobleshooting. The alternative would be for all these phone manufacturers to wait till they were 100% sure their phones were flawless, if that was the case we just now be getting the original EVO 4g.
So now that I have the new phone one of three things are going to happen. First the lockup problem has been cured, leading me to believe that this was a hardware problem, but that does not explain why others are having issue, unless they were getting older stock that also had hardware issues. Second the phone will still have the lockup problem, leading me to believe this issue is software related and another update can and will solve the problem. Or thrird the phone now gets some of the other issues reported on site, along with the lock up problem leaving me totally confused, HA!
Either way, I am here to help trouble shot these problems. If anyone knows of an app that can be installed to monitor the phone and save whats happening right before lockup, I think this could give valuable info.
By the way, did I say that I love this phone! I am typing this reply using a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Currently I do not have the HD dock, its on order and cant wait till the LapDock is made avaliable for the Photon. The need to carry a laptop everywhere will be gone.