Posts Tagged ‘Poor wireless reception’

The Samsung Intensity; Love it or Leave it?

And while we’re at it, should we dump the Samsung Smooth in the ocean too! 

Last month, my family and I renewed our contract with Verizon Wireless and were rewarded for our loyalty with shiny, new, updated telephones as part of Verizon’s New Every Two program.  How excited we were when the FedEx man arrived–out with the old and in with the new and all that stuff.  The packages arrived at mom and dad’s house, but they called me at the moment of arrival and I was across the street in no time to begin the necessary charging and programming.  What fun!  I was even late for work on the occasion.  Oops, did I say that.

From the moment I opened my new cherry red Samsung Intensity, I loved it—the look, the features.  It’s the first phone I have ever owned that has a larger screen and a qwerty keyboard with realistically usable-sized keys.  I had spent hours sorting through all of the phone choices before selecting it.  In the past, I have opted for basic, slim, clamshell types with no fancy features or looks.  A phone, after all, by my way of thinking, is a tool and not a fashion statement.  This time, I went for the goods.  I could barely contain my excitement.

How quickly did my jubilation turn to frustration?  Less than two full days after I began using my new jewel, I was talking to my mother on the phone—she chose the Samsung Smooth—and we could barely carry on a conversation for all the breaking up and crackling.  At first, I wanted to blame it on her phone, certain that it, being the less expensive model, would be the culprit, but as the weeks went by without exaggerating I can say that I have never*, in all my years with Verizon, experienced so many dropped calls in such a short period of time nor have I experienced such poor sound quality and reception in areas that have traditionally offered me excellent reception.  With my last Verizon phone, the reception and sound were so good that I forgot I was talking on a wireless phone and even discontinued my home phone service.

Last Tuesday night, just a few days prior to the expiration of our 30-day satisfaction guarantee period, I decided I’d better take action.  First, I called and then marched myself down to a local Verizon Wireless Retail Store to check out our options.  The retail store would have been happy to exchange my phone but they only had in stock the black, not the red (boo hoo), and even if I were willing to take the black, according to the salesperson, I would be charged the $35 restocking fee due to the difference in the sku. What-ev-er!  Next, I called Verizon’s Customer Service.

Three calls, three customer service reps (two very friendly, one semi-rude) and two Verizon customer service surveys later, I was almost resting in the assurance that I had two brand new phones on the way—one Intensity for me and one to replace mom’s inferior Samsung Smooth.  I say almost, because I was experiencing a small, silent lingering doubt that replacements of the same models would be any better than the originals.  And, now, we wait.

Friday after work, I found that the phones had arrived as promised and eagerly tore the packages open.  Disappointment #1:  My phone was black, not the cheery, cherry red of the original.  Disappointment #2:  The phones were certified “like new” rather than new.  It had been my understanding that with the return being within the first 30 days that the phones would have been replaced with NEW.  Oh well, and another what-ev-er!  I recovered from Disappointments #1 and #2 when I found that my “like new” phone worked just fine, ever so much better than the “new” original.  I can always buy a red cover, right?

Ugh!  Disappointment #3 came this morning when I fired up mom’s Smooth and found the sound/reception to be much less than smooth.  In fact, it was so terrible that I called Verizon and told them we would keep the old one and were returning the replacement.  Two Verizon customer service reps later (both pleasant and helpful, thank you), the replacement Smooth that wasn’t so smooth is on it’s way back to Verizon via FedEx and once received Verizon will send out another and hopefully smoother “like new” Smooth.  I wait with bated breath.

*Unless one counts the period of time I spent on the Verizon pay-as-you-go plan with an antiquated Motorola model many moons ago.  That was horrible!