To those that own the SF, do you upgrade your phones pretty often (every half a year to a year), or do you keep them for 2+ years? The thing that scares me most is the longevity of Samsung's support for their phones and untimely updates for fixes (lag, GPS, mic quality).
Well, I have an extra bum line on my plan. I normally want two years out of my phone. The reasons there have been so many exceptions for me lately are the following:
1. The Samsung Omnia
2. The Droid Eris
Allow me to explain. The Omnia wasn't for me. It was going to be for my wife. She's the one that is responsible for our family getting contracted into a data plan in the first place! She had to have a windows mobile phone in order to do instant loan applications and get signatures.
She hated it. I did lots of stuff to try and make it better/faster. She still hated it. Therefore, I ended up with it. I was excited at first, because I was a casual (and largely satisfied) windows mobile user from back in the Compaq iPaq ... oops, I mean Ipaq days. Compaq's support was awesome on those things back then. I bought a newer HP Ipaq with bluetooth and wifi after the merger, and HP was still awesome on supporting it for me. I had problems, they sent me replacement parts. The software update department was lacking, but I didn't know whether to blame HP or Windows because other brands had similar issues.
Anyways, the Omnia was my first time depending on a Windows Mobile device not only as a PDA but also as a phone. In short, it SUCKED. If I could always use the pen to make calls and answer calls and text it would be fine, but how do you do that when you're holding a baby or a bag of groceries??? I'm a DAD you know. I quickly learned why my wife completely loathed the thing. What a piece of CRAP.
So I heard all these rave reviews about android, and they had the Eris on special for free after rebate. About five of my friends had just got theirs and thought they were awesome. It was slim, attractive, had a nice screen, and it was certainly fluid and easy to use. So I jumped on the bandwagon with my co-workers.
The Eris is a great phone. For about two days. I don't want to make this post any longer than it already ridiculously is, but I used my primary line to upgrade to the Omnia because of its new every two. When it sucked, I used my secondary line to get the Eris. When it also sucked, I had to use my wife's line who just came due for an upgrade to the Droid X (which I traded for this Fascinate). I gave my wife the LG VX8700 that used to be my primary. Awesome phone. She is loving that phone, and I am loving my Fascinate.
We finally have phones that we love. I would say most people that love their phones to pieces will tend to keep them longer than the ones that get phones they hate, logically. But who knows. I know some people want to be on the cutting edge all the time. I'm kind of right in between. I like to buy the latest and greatest when I do buy, but I don't mind spending a little to get stuff that will last. Just ask Saps, as he's a buddy from HardForums where we custom build most of our own PCs.
Anyways. I have no idea why I wrote you a book to answer a simple query. Sorry about that!
Through reading these forums and others, that anomaly isn't unique to just his phone. It seems sometimes people will have terrible GPS use, and then suddenly it starts working perfectly, or the opposite happens with someone who normally had great GPS. For others, they apply a fix that seems to work right away, and then later it no longer works. Since all satellites do is send a string of text, it makes you wonder wth Samsung did.. the inconsistencies in the GPS doesn't seem like a hardware issue.. so is it possible their software has different conflicting variables?
Well, knock on wood, but this hasn't happened to me yet. It's been very reliable every time I've needed it. And I didn't do that update that came out either ...
jk