Why Not a Samsung ?

[storageman]

I see a lot of people that have broken V's going to the HTC EVO phone. Why not the the Virgin Samsung Galaxy S 2 phone ?

Also is there a home thread for this new Virgin Phone ?

 

[SuperAfnan]

The HTC's price is better. 150 vs 330? No I won't buy the S2 just because it is slightly better. If you root and rom the evo, install custom tweaks etc. you will have a super phone anyway . If the s2 was the same price I would probably go with that but the price difference is too much and it isn't worth it right now.

 

[Phatninja55]

That and the evo has been available on virgin longer than the s2.

 

[SuperAfnan]

That and the evo has been available on virgin longer than the s2.

Yes I forgot to mention that. On the S2 forum there hasn't been any development yet but they got it rooted though.

 

[Phil42]

I had bad problems with my Samsung Galaxy (both the physical hardware and customer service people) and WILL NOT GO BACK. Once burned - twice warned.

In particular the GPS chip was inadequate and failed on a regular basis. At a minimum you need a special access code to reset it through software (something I had to do on a regular basis) and occasionally needed to do a factory reset to get back in operation. This is a documented error on the phone - but they refused to do anything about it. My phone was replaced with a refurbished phone which had the same exact problem.

Eventually I had an additional problem and neither MetroPCS or Samsung would replace the phone because the refurbished phone was out of warranty (even though replacing the original phone with the refurb did nothing to solve my problem and in one way made things worse).

At that point I sent off letters to the customer service at both the carrier and Samsung - and have not heard back from either one.

A friend had an Optimus V and even though it was a far less powerful phone with less memory and no keyboard I decided to get the Optimus V. I have _NEVER_ regretted that decision, even with the limited amount of memory in the phone (the biggest hardware limitation) and the plan I'm on which has less minutes than my previous plan.


Moral of the story - avoid Samsung at all cost. If you think it's great for you then fine, but I've been burned too much. The fact that customer service won't even respond or try to make me happy tells me they've got no interest in myself as a customer in the future which is fine by me, there are a lot of other choices out there.

 

[storageman]

Well this is good news. I know that the price of the Virgin Samsung is higher but didn't think Samsung had major problems as described by Phil42. I meet a lot of people and many of them have Samsung phones and never complain. But anybody can get a bad phone (I had one a long time ago).

So it looks like price and the modification is the real issue with the Virgin Samsung G2 phone !

 

[AndyOpie150]

One other problem I noticed is Samsungs file system seems to act up every now and again.

 

[Phil42]

... didn't think Samsung had major problems as described by Phil42. I meet a lot of people and many of them have Samsung phones and never complain. But anybody can get a bad phone (I had one a long time ago).!

It's a physical problem in the phone - and documented. Look up GPS fix in the Galaxy forums if you don't believe me. You'll only encounter this problem if you use GPS a lot (which I do) and don't want to use the pseudoGPS which uses cell phone towers and open WiFi networks to triangulate your position (which I think is an incredible privacy invasion in addition to making you an unpaid Google gather monitoring post).

It's not "anyone can get a bad phone" because my replacement phone had the _SAME_ exact problem - it's a physical limitation of the phone, just like the reputation Ford Pintos had with exploding gas tanks - a design flaw. More important it's a design flaw which exists in multiple phones, which Samsung is aware of, but doesn't consider important enough to fix.

 

[rcsrich]

It's a physical problem in the phone - and documented. Look up GPS fix in the Galaxy forums if you don't believe me. You'll only encounter this problem if you use GPS a lot (which I do) and don't want to use the pseudoGPS which uses cell phone towers and open WiFi networks to triangulate your position (which I think is an incredible privacy invasion in addition to making you an unpaid Google gather monitoring post).

It's not "anyone can get a bad phone" because my replacement phone had the _SAME_ exact problem - it's a physical limitation of the phone, just like the reputation Ford Pintos had with exploding gas tanks - a design flaw. More important it's a design flaw which exists in multiple phones, which Samsung is aware of, but doesn't consider important enough to fix.

I can understand not wanting to use WIFI networks, but why would you not want to use the cell network to assist the GPS in locating the device? WHat you are describing basically disables the "Assisted GPS" feature of the phone, meaning that if you do not have a direct line of sight between the phone and GPS satellites, you will not be able to get a location. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me...

 

[Phil42]

I can understand not wanting to use WIFI networks, but why would you not want to use the cell network to assist the GPS in locating the device? WHat you are describing basically disables the "Assisted GPS" feature of the phone, meaning that if you do not have a direct line of sight between the phone and GPS satellites, you will not be able to get a location. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me...

I'm not aware of a way to permit the phone to just track using cell towers (which of course it has to do to contact the cell network) but not permit WiFi signal tracking (which provides data to Google).

You're correct that I'm effectively disabling GPS but I don't consider that to be an issue or limitation. I live in a relatively flat area at a medium latitude so it isn't a concern 99% of the time. I always have access to multiple satellites when I'm outdoors, and am rather amazed that most of the time my phone can determine its position when I'm indoors (in my place which is wood construction). Right now I'm receiving between 6 and 10 satellites (4 is a minimum to determine your position in three dimensions) - and that's pretty amazing considering that those signals are coming from low power transmitters 12,000+ miles away.

To go back to my original statement - the GPS Status app has never taken more than a couple of seconds to come up on my Optimus V, but had massive headaches on my Samsung Galaxy - both the original brand-new phone and refurbished replacement.