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The OFFICIAL taking back the Captivate thread

lilo said:
Someone on XDA forums reported that Samsung representative did not confirm that the latest firmware update fixes GPS problem. As to why it takes Samsung so long... as I understand, there is very little Samsung can do. Galaxy S uses the latest GPS chip from Broadcom (BCM4751) which is newer and supposedly better than the one in iPhone 4 (BCM4750) but apparently there is a problem with a drive for this chip. Broadcom is working on it. So there is a chance that eventually we will get GPS working. And according to chip specs it should work better than the one in iPhone 4 (and probably most other phones).
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I don't think Samsung will confirm anything about fixes until they are 100%. However, many are reporting drastic improvements, but most reports seem to be specific to stationary gps locking.


1)Many have noted that the GPS lock is way faster (5-10 seconds vs minutes on the old firmware)

2) Many have noted locking on to more than 8 sat's.

Big deal because a supposed worker of Broadcom in the UK said that the new firmware fix for the gps chip will allow more than 8 sat's to lock. Since no one ever saw more than 8 lock on old firmware, and new locks up to 11/11 in some cases.. could be good.

3)They do say it still has bad gps settings and they have to change them to the google settings from old "fixes". After that, instant improvement and better lock then "fixes on old firmwares."

4)The reports of movement have been better then old fixes, even when they thought the old fix was pretty good.

I want to be optimistic about this. But Tuesday is coming quick(my 30 day end date) and I gotta make a decission based off of some solid concrete proof.

Hopefully results continue over the weekend as previously the gps diminished over the course of days.
 
Since this is the "official" taking it back thread:

I took back the two Captivates today that I purchased on 7/24. The phone & Android both have a lot of potential, but I'm not willing to work through the various software (& possibly hardware) bugs this phone has at present. I won't re-hash them all here, but I'll just say I've experienced just about every problem mentioned in this forum.

To those of you sticking with it, I thank you. Someday this phone (or the successor to this phone) will be a fantastic device, but it won't happen without folks like you that are willing to tough it out and help debug the thing.

But as someone that has worked with technology for over 30 years (I started young :)), I just don't have the patience and time to deal with all the issues & shortcomings. I just want a device that works like I expect it to. And that's not what I got with this phone.

BTW, I did pressure my local AT&T store into waiving the restocking fee. I might have had a little more leverage than most since I was a new customer within my 30 day window and threatened (politely but forcefully) to leave AT&T if they didn't waive it.
 
I, like others in this thread, am not willing to wait past my 30 day return window betting a two year contract against what little Samsung or A&T has told us about the GPS issue. If they'd come out today and said something definite, I'd still have the phone and commitment. But all we've heard are vague statements based on twitter.

My 29th day was today. Went to the store I picked the phone up on launch day and told them I'll check back in a couple months to see if the phone lag and GPS issues have had a software update that addresses them. I honestly hope then I'll be going back to get another phone, other than those issues it was a great phone.

For those sticking with their units past the 30 day point, good luck to you! :)
 
PDAGuy said:
I, like others in this thread, am not willing to wait past my 30 day return window betting a two year contract against what little Samsung or A&T has told us about the GPS issue. If they'd come out today and said something definite, I'd still have the phone and commitment. But all we've heard are vague statements based on twitter.

My 29th day was today. Went to the store I picked the phone up on launch day and told them I'll check back in a couple months to see if the phone lag and GPS issues have had a software update that addresses them. I honestly hope then I'll be going back to get another phone, other than those issues it was a great phone.

For those sticking with their units past the 30 day point, good luck to you! :)
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i agree I returned mine last week I will check back in late sept if there isn't a proper fix then I will jump to vzw for a droid x or incredible probably.
 
I think I posted earlier on this thread (or maybe it was one of the GPS threads), but I had pretty much decided the phone was going back because of the GPS. Love the phone, but I literally had NO GPS (cell tower triangulation worked with "Use Wireless" turned on, but that's it). I played with all the settings in LbsTestMode, nothing seemed to help my situation.

Then, a week ago (8/11, to be exact), out of the blue, it works great. Turn by turn directions, exact location on Google Maps, My Tracks suddenly tracked a walk on the beach I did (and other things).

I'm baffled. The ONLY setting that I changed around that time that I hadn't changed up to that point was Applications/Accuracy, I had always set that to 50 40 or10, but one of the threads said use 100. Maybe this was the magic fix for me, maybe it was a coincidence, I'm really not sure.

But take me of the "I'm returning it" list. It's not perfect, but I've been a Blackberry user for years and ventured to iPhone before coming to Captivate, and I'm sticking with the Captivate afterall. Good phone, happy user.
 
returned my phone for a brand new one today...

huge difference from the first one i had...it is running really really fast even after i dl all the apps and widgets i had before...wifi speed is incredible..no lag...market dl speed is amazing...GPS works aswell!!

i didnt even have to pay the restocking fee either...

i think it was just a bad phone i had before...
 
I returned mine today cuz:

GPS GPS GPS how can one live without GPS once they have it? they cant!
Had to turn off wifi to get bluetooth to work with my ford sync.
Wifi weak signal.
Email client is horrible.
Stuttering music and videos and other apps.

Its back to the iphone 3g for me. :(
 
Evrcl said:
I returned mine today cuz:

GPS GPS GPS how can one live without GPS once they have it? they cant!
Had to turn off wifi to get bluetooth to work with my ford sync.
Wifi weak signal.
Email client is horrible.
Stuttering music and videos and other apps.

Its back to the iphone 3g for me. :(
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You'll be even more bummed next month when Samsung fixes the GPS and gives it a speed boost to boot.

Not sure what your wifi issue might be, but it's certainly not universal. I get strong signal.

You know you can replace the email client with one of several better options, right?

The stuttering is not something I've experienced, but evidence on the forum suggests it's something you had running in the background that was tying up CPU. Also might be something solved by either the speed improvements in the fix from Samsung next month, or the Android 2.2 upgrade which will have a 3X-5X speed improvement over Android 2.1.
 
sremick said:
You'll be even more bummed next month when Samsung fixes the GPS and gives it a speed boost to boot.

Not sure what your wifi issue might be, but it's certainly not universal. I get strong signal.

You know you can replace the email client with one of several better options, right?

The stuttering is not something I've experienced, but evidence on the forum suggests it's something you had running in the background that was tying up CPU. Also might be something solved by either the speed improvements in the fix from Samsung next month, or the Android 2.2 upgrade which will have a 3X-5X speed improvement over Android 2.1.
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Well going back to iphone 3g doesnt mean he cant get captivate when all the fixes are in place. I did the same thing returned mine , and am waiting for samsung to put the fixes in, if they do that i will probably buy the captivate again. As far as wifi signal its not the strongest signal . I had that same problem with both captivated i had. Standing less then 10 feet away from the router and drop a bar or two on wifi.
 
jabooh1 said:
yes... but the only one we can find that works decent with exchange is Touchdown and cost another $20
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If poor Exchange support is your gripe, yell at Microsoft. That's their proprietary baby, and it's a nightmare.

Those software developers not willing to sell their souls and pay huge amounts of money for access to the integration specs are left trying to hack together an interface via reverse-engineering. That's why support sucks.

K-9's IMAP support, however, is superb.
 
sremick said:
If poor Exchange support is your gripe, yell at Microsoft. That's their proprietary baby, and it's a nightmare.

Those software developers not willing to sell their souls and pay huge amounts of money for access to the integration specs are left trying to hack together an interface via reverse-engineering. That's why support sucks.

K-9's IMAP support, however, is superb.
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Apple did it... and I would think they didn't get jack from Microsoft for development.
 
As much as it pains me to say, I returned my Captivate three days ago. It wasn't really because of the GPS though. I still believe they will resolve that. It's because of all the bugs in the Samsung build of Android. I have owned five different Android devices. The Captivate was by far the buggiest and the most frustrating out of them all. I thought I was luck at first and then the random reboots, random shutdowns and random freezes started hitting me. I tried all the lag fixes and the reboots and shutdowns still persisted. I also got pretty fed up with the soft buttons and how unreliable they were. The KIES software is the Windows ME of cell phone companion software. Then, I was late for an important meeting on Tuesday because of the phone shutting itself off while I was sleeping. I needed to get up an hour earlier than I normally do (6am) and didn't wake up in time. This caused me to be 15 minutes late for that meeting and that was the last straw for me.

I am now the proud owner of a SE X10. This phone may still be on 1.6 but the performance is rock solid and I haven't had a single issue as of yet. The GPS performance is Stellar and the PC companion software is outstanding. The phone has physical buttons, a dedicated camera button and an LED flash. I don't really need to flash for taking pictures but it definitely comes in handy as a flashlight. There is no denying that Sony spent a lot more time in R&D and tested their device far more extensively than Samsung. I will miss the SAMOLED but that's about it. I am very glad I switched.
 
NaplesBill said:
As much as it pains me to say, I returned my Captivate three days ago. It wasn't really because of the GPS though. I still believe they will resolve that. It's because of all the bugs in the Samsung build of Android. I have owned five different Android devices. The Captivate was by far the buggiest and the most frustrating out of them all. I thought I was luck at first and then the random reboots, random shutdowns and random freezes started hitting me. I tried all the lag fixes and the reboots and shutdowns still persisted. I also got pretty fed up with the soft buttons and how unreliable they were. The KIES software is the Windows ME of cell phone companion software. Then, I was late for an important meeting on Tuesday because of the phone shutting itself off while I was sleeping. I needed to get up an hour earlier than I normally do (6am) and didn't wake up in time. This caused me to be 15 minutes late for that meeting and that was the last straw for me.

I am now the proud owner of a SE X10. This phone may still be on 1.6 but the performance is rock solid and I haven't had a single issue as of yet. The GPS performance is Stellar and the PC companion software is outstanding. The phone has physical buttons, a dedicated camera button and an LED flash. I don't really need to flash for taking pictures but it definitely comes in handy as a flashlight. There is no denying that Sony spent a lot more time in R&D and tested their device far more extensively than Samsung. I will miss the SAMOLED but that's about it. I am very glad I switched.
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Nice. I was considering the X10, glad to know it's solid. The Captivate was definitely buggy.
 
NaplesBill said:
As much as it pains me to say, I returned my Captivate three days ago. It wasn't really because of the GPS though. I still believe they will resolve that. It's because of all the bugs in the Samsung build of Android. I have owned five different Android devices. The Captivate was by far the buggiest and the most frustrating out of them all. I thought I was luck at first and then the random reboots, random shutdowns and random freezes started hitting me. I tried all the lag fixes and the reboots and shutdowns still persisted. I also got pretty fed up with the soft buttons and how unreliable they were. The KIES software is the Windows ME of cell phone companion software. Then, I was late for an important meeting on Tuesday because of the phone shutting itself off while I was sleeping. I needed to get up an hour earlier than I normally do (6am) and didn't wake up in time. This caused me to be 15 minutes late for that meeting and that was the last straw for me.

I am now the proud owner of a SE X10. This phone may still be on 1.6 but the performance is rock solid and I haven't had a single issue as of yet. The GPS performance is Stellar and the PC companion software is outstanding. The phone has physical buttons, a dedicated camera button and an LED flash. I don't really need to flash for taking pictures but it definitely comes in handy as a flashlight. There is no denying that Sony spent a lot more time in R&D and tested their device far more extensively than Samsung. I will miss the SAMOLED but that's about it. I am very glad I switched.
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Nice. I considered the X10, glad to know it's solid. The Captivate was definitely buggy...
 
I traded mine for a Dell Streak. The Streak is 10X faster! It's hard to believe because the Streak has 1.6 and the Captivate has 2.1. Reasons I switched:

-GPS wasn't working on Captivate
-There were lag issues
-Wasn't big on the Samsung UI

This phone's GPS seems to be working good, I have had zero lag issues with it, and the UI is pretty nice. I have had a problem with a couple of apps with 1.6, but no deal breakers by any means.

The screen is a monster on this thing! I'm very satisfied with this unit so far.
 
llessur said:
I traded mine for a Dell Streak. The Streak is 10X faster! It's hard to believe because the Streak has 1.6 and the Captivate has 2.1. Reasons I switched:

-GPS wasn't working on Captivate
-There were lag issues
-Wasn't big on the Samsung UI

This phone's GPS seems to be working good, I have had zero lag issues with it, and the UI is pretty nice. I have had a problem with a couple of apps with 1.6, but no deal breakers by any means.

The screen is a monster on this thing! I'm very satisfied with this unit so far.
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Two out of your three issues could have been solved without returning the Captivate. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about 1.6 compatibility issues because you would have still been on 2.1.

*shrug*
 
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