Hi all. Just joined this forum entirely because of this most recent Roger's massive Customer Service screw-up. My wife has an HTC Dream, and I have the Magic, and up until 3 weeks ago, we've both loved these phones.
...
I've now deleted what I was going write next three times in an attempt to avoid running off on a mindless rant. I can assure you, a number of mindless rants have been running through my head for some time, now.
...
I suppose it's just easier to add our respective problems to the list...
HTC Dream
- Now won't hold a charge for any significant time. As a 'for instance': The battery was fully charged and with absolutely no activity but for a 20 minute, local call, the battery died in 3 hours. Usage habits haven't changed and all settings (GPS, WiFi, etc.) are the same pre- and post-update.
- Alarm clock absolutely refuses to work under any conditions unless the screen is active at the time the alarm is supposed to go off. Thus, the phone's screen has to be illuminated all night (making sleep rather difficult, at times), and with the phone's decreased stamina would kill the battery in one hour (though this problem is gotten around due to the fact that it can't last out the day to begin with, so it's naturally on the charger EVERY night).
- Frequently, when my wife sends a text message, it will send the text with no problem, but also send a blank message immediately following.
- On the topic of text messages, it turns out now text messages seem to be getting deleted. There's one contact in particular from whom she would most definitely NOT delete messages, and she's lost approximately three and a half months of messages. She tells me now that this has happened to other text conversations as well.
- And, of course, generally slower to react. Whether opening apps, sliding from one home screen to the next, rotating the screen when the keyboard is opened, basically doing anything at all with the phone takes nearly twice as long as it did pre-update.
HTC Magic
- Battery life is most definitely shorter than it was, though not nearly so drastic a change as in the Dream. Again, no significant change in usage habits, settings are the same pre- and post-update... battery's just not making it as long anymore. I used to be able to make it two days before having to charge the phone before going to bed after the second day. Now if I don't plug it in EVERY night before going to sleep, it'll be dead before I wake up in the morning (which will be late since we both use our phones as alarm clocks).
- Anytime I make a voice call, when I try to hang up, whether I hit the physical button or the on-screen "End Call" button, the phone will initially react as though the call is ended. However the green phone icon will still be in the notification bar, indicating that the call is still active. Seconds later the screen will revert to the active call screen. This has happened twice today and at least two other time since the update (don't voice call often, as I have little opportunity to use my phone at work).
- I frequently lose service, both data and voice in areas that I've always had full bars and consistent 3G connectivity pre-update. Moreover I'm getting data-roaming notifications (and the 'R' over the signal bars... that's normal service roaming too, right?) in many of those same locations. Again, no problems with this in the past 5 months in these same areas prior to the update.
- And the requisite general sluggishness. VERY slow to open apps, whether added from the Marketplace or pre-loaded. ALL apps, EVERY time take a number of seconds to open when they used to snap open almost before I could move my finger from in front of the screen. Further to this, while typing out a text message it frequently likes to freeze entirely while I continue to type. Then it'll catch up to the 8-10 characters that I've managed to type a few seconds later. EXTREMELY irritating when you don't know if you've made a typo and need to wait before it displays the characters.
Now that I've got all that out of the way I should let you all know that both these phones were un-rooted Android 1.5 phones. Had I even been aware of what I could have done with a rooted phone I would have been all over it, but I guess I don't even have that option anymore... I haven't checked Bluetooth at all yet, though I intend to, since when I do use it, I absolutely need to use it. Also, driving while talking on the phone without a hands-free device is illegal here.
My wife has come to completely mis-trust her phone (rightly so, since it seems Rogers doesn't care about the Dream anymore either), and I've quickly come to wish for my old, happy, and fast Magic back, too.
(And on a side-note to Rogers: offering this waiver to sign now is too little, too late. It doesn't undo your Big Brother update, thus I am still not allowed the freedom to customize my phone to suit my needs/desires.)
Has anyone's Dream ever stopped working and needed to be power-cycled? Or their battery ever run away?
