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Few questions, mostly about activation

M

MRW1215

Well-Known Member
I finally got to upgrade to a smart phone, and I ordered the Thunderbolt, which UPS will be bringing me later today. I ordered from Amazon, though, and I'm curious, do I have to follow their activation procedure, or can I just use that "Phone Activation" page on Verizon's site? Can I activate it while it's still charging for the first time (before I power it on, of course), or should I wait until it's done?

Also, is there an activation fee, if I'm just upgrading from my current phone? Or do you only pay an activation fee when you first open a new line? When I ordered on Amazon, it showed the "one time activation fee" as $0.00. I was always under the impression that you have to pay the activation fee every time you get a new phone (even if it's still the same line), but this would be a pleasant surprise if I don't have to pay that.

Lastly, not an activation question, but can I play around with the phone while it's charging for the first time, or should I wait until it's done charging before I power it on or do anything with it? UPS tends to come pretty late, for me, and I kinda wanted to be able to set up the phone and all my desired apps today, because I have work tomorrow morning, and I kinda wanted to have it all set up by then.
 
When you receive your package, there should be a number for you to call in the activation instructions . call from a different phone not your new one. Do not power on your new phone yet. It's a 877 number . You must accept the contract before you can activate your phone. Once you so that you just place the sim card in the phone , put the battery in and put the back cover on. <------- that last step is very important as the antennas or built into the battery cover. Next power on your phone and it will activate itself. You don't have to dial anything.
 
jreed2560 said:
When you receive your package, there should be a number for you to call in the activation instructions . call from a different phone not your new one.
Click to expand...

Can I use my old cell phone (the one with the phone number I'm transferring to the Thunderbolt), or no?

Also, I'm on a family plan, but not the main line. I won't have any problems calling that number to accept the contract, will I? Or is it just some kind of automated thing? The other people on the family plan are upgrading to new phones in the next couple of days, too; I won't screw anything up for them by accepting the contract first, will I?

What about the rest of my questions, like the activation fee, playing around with the phone before it's done charging, etc.?
 
Activation fees are only for NEW lines of service. Upgrades aren't new lines. You will need that last four of the account holder's social or the billing acct. password to call the automated activation. As soon as its activated you can play with it as much as you like.
 
Oh, okay, thanks. And me going first won't screw things up for the others on the family plan, right?
 
Just got my phone, charging it now. I didn't receive any info about activation, though, from Amazon. It just came with a card that directs me to amazonwireless.com/activate, and on there, it basically just says to insert the SIM card and the battery, charge it, and power it on. Nothing about calling some phone number or anything.
 
Alright, I just activated it through the Verizon site, and it seems to be running good. New question, though; when I try to add my ATT e-mail address (ATT is my ISP) to the Mail app, it keeps saying it couldn't connect to the mail server. It doesn't have any problems adding my Gmail accounts.
 
You probably have to manually set up your email for ATT. Should be able to Google the settings you would need to use.

Not to be a Dick or anything, but this is exactly why i advocate purchasing from a store where you have a rep there to help you set all this up.
 
Hah, I dunno, I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, I'm just new to the in's and out's of Android, and I just had a few specific questions.

Speaking of which, here's another one... I wanted to put some music and videos on my Thunderbolt, so I connected it to my computer, and selected "Mount as drive". My computer showed the "Found new hardware" bubble, but then the computer got a blue screen error and restarted... I'm using Windows 7 (32-bit), if that makes a difference. Any idea what's causing this, and how to fix it?
 
I had this with my new build PC with my Fascinate before the Tbolt. So far, it hasn't happened before, but it was blue-screening religiously prior. The one thing you can try, if it'll let you, is leave the phone plugged in while restarting the PC. You may also want to make sure your computer bios isn't set to start from USB as the primary boot device, to be safe. I was able to get mine to access that way.

I also ended up having a bad stick of RAM though, which contributed, I'm sure, as it hasn't happened since, on either phone.
 
Eh, I guess if all else fails, I can just insert the memory card into my computer, but that'll become kind of a pain, considering I'll have to constantly pop the battery out to get the memory card.

Has no one else had this problem? Any other ways to properly "fix" it, so I don't just have to let my computer blue screen, restart, and hope it doesn't blue screen again when I leave the phone plugged in?
 
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