A Few serious Questions about the Captivate.

[Infinite-t]

OK, I have had my captivate for 3 weeks now. I upgraded from the iP 3G because it was time, and I wanted to try something other than an iPhone.

After having some issues out of the gate (bad drivers and syncing problems) I am really liking the phone. I love the endless customization, the speed (and mass potential for more) the big beautiful display and being able to to things my iPhone could never do.

BUT:

The GPS problem.. I know, I know, "samsung said..." "They didn't say..."
"mine works fine.. (so you must be an idiot)") Please, dont turn this into that kind of thread. So far, and I have looked, I have not seen anything that convinces me they will fix it, and they dont have the best reputation for support. Yea, I have GPS in my car, so navigation isnt the deal. There are MANY other apps that rely on GPS.. not to mention, I paid for it. I would have no problem whatsoever with the GPS problem if they even said, "Yea, we know it's broken, and we are working on a fix to be released soon". Then this would be a NON-Issue. Again spair me all the bull$#17, I have read all those threads already.

Unacceptable Problem:
During music playback, there is "skipping and shuttering" and sometimes a crackling sound. I thought at first the crackling was the headphones, but it has done it on 3 different sets. The skipping and stuttering, I have no idea why this would happen either. All other apps can be closed with 1 widget running, and it does it. I listen to A LOT of music on my phone, and this kind of performance is not acceptable to me on such a fancy, expensive device. Anyone have any Ideas of what that is or how to fix it? Not to mention i dislike having to unlock my phone to access the media controls... its a pain in the arse to pop out my phone, unlock it, etc just to skip a song while I am jogging..

UNACCEPTABLE PROBLEM:
It has happened twice now (in just the lat few days) and this alone makes me very annoyed. The phone rings, I go to answer it and the screen is blank... hit the power button.. . nothing, soft keys, nothing.. Phone stops ringing, screen comes on with an error message saying something has 'crashed" and needs to be "force closed". Now I have a missed call. Big deal right? YES, It WAS A BIG DEAL. I am a contractor, and because of the crappy economy, every job, every phone call could make or break me. I missed this call, they called a competitor, and since his phone didnt screw up and he answered, he GOT MY JOB! True story.

Second time: Phone rings in my car, on blue tooth. It was my wife. I tapped the answer button on my BT screen and answer the call. The phone kept ringing. Even tho I was connected, and having a conversation with my wife, the damn phone was still ringing... Loudly thru the head unit. I know it wasnt the head unit because I have used it flawlessly for 2 years and never an issue. AND, i pulled my phone out of my pocket, looked at the screen, and there, and error message saying something had crashed. I couldnt even force close whatever it was till the call ended (The screen would not respond and I had to ask my wife to hang up).Even after she hung up The phone was still ringing, then I clicked force close and it stopped. Both times I was in a hurry and didnt get a good look at the error, but it was something like "com.android.xxxxxx" stopped working. But I CANNOT have crap like this happening to me while trying to conduct successful buisness. oh yes, and after those FCs, the phone responded sluggishly for an hour or so. Any ideas? Anyone else have issues like this?

Of couse, there are a handful of other small annoyances that alone, arent a tremendous deal. But together, wiht the problems above have got me a bit worried. I have 6 days left to return this thing, and as much as I like most of the things, I dont want to get stuck with these problems and annoyances for the long term or end up shelling out a ton in early termination fees because of a defective device.

I guess it would be like if you had a super hot girlfriend, you are thinking about popping the question, but.. She smacks on her gum, says "like" or "ya know" all the time, is a bad cook, and loves "Lady Gaga" and blasts it in the car when you ride with her. She is hot, but you wonder if out can work out those bugs, or if you tie the knot are you stuck with her and hafta spend a lot of money to get away a few months down the road..

Any ideas? thoughts? Suggestions?

And please spare me the the off topic rambling and bickering that seem to find there way into a lot of the "I have a problem and need help" threads.
Thanks

 

[baddress]

Exchange that thing or at least try a factory reset. It shouldn't FC trying to answer a call. If your media is on external SD what is the speed of the card? Also it will skip the music when a notification tone plays. The tone is usually much quieter than the music so you might not notice it was interrupted for a notification. Also I agree with you about the GPS thing.

 

[Infinite-t]

Thanks for the constructive help.

I have tried putting my music on both the internal card and an external sandisk 16gb class 4 card, so card speed should not be an issue. I know it wasnt the notifications because i can hear those without trouble during music playback. Plus it isnt always a skip, sometimes its a "stutter" like someone hitting the mute botton off and on rappidly. Then there is the crackling. I know that it isnt the music files themselves because it does it in different places of the same song in separate cases, and the same files play flawlessly on other devices.

I may take it back and exchange it for a different captivate, but man, my faith is Samsung is really low. Being on this forum for the last month, 90% of the posts here are about all kinds of problems people are having. Yea some are user errors or just plane not knowing how to do something. But samsung is really screwing the pooch. I think A LOT of people buying the Captivate are people who had iPhones that they were in the market to upgrade. Then because of the issues with the iP4 and its elusiveness, they came to the captivate.

But I feel like I am paying good money to beta test a product for Samsung. The issues people are having with this thing.. some are common but there are many that are very random and very different from device to device. Yea, maybe samsung will patch all this and make it work, or maybe we are guinnie pigs and they will just use this user subsidized beta test to improve their next batch or version of these phone in the next 6 months or so..

I have 5 days left and I dont know if I should give that to Samsung when there is a really good chance of having the same problems with the next one.. I may just return it and go back to my iPhone 3g until these problems are fixed, or someone else releases a good andriod phone on AT&T.

 

[c2k]

You may want to try downloading a different app for playing music on the market, it could just be the music player itself. Ive never had an issue with my music skipping or anything of that sort. Any on my old backflip, phone calls would sometimes force close, but nothin like that on this phone. And the gps is a known issue... annoying, yes.

How tech savvy are you? You can backup your apps and contacts with or without having rooted your phone, although there are more free programs if its rooted. But if you backed up everything and did a factory reset, it shouldnt take long to get your phone back up and running. You may want to give it a try