About to give up on the HTC Touch Pro. Help?

[Insoc]

I am wondering when Scrapmaker will be out in front of Sprint Corporate with a sign...

The amount of time and energy you have been spending on this phone is incredible. Move on, get something else, come back when it's better, you will feel better if you do!

As for the OP... Follow your instincts. I have a good working TP. If you liked it, try again, but understand now might (or never, who knows) not be the time to get a TP... See if Sprint will give you a free temp phone till better TPs come in maybe?

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by Insoc

I am wondering when Scrapmaker will be out in front of Sprint Corporate with a sign...

The amount of time and energy you have been spending on this phone is incredible. Move on, get something else, come back when it's better, you will feel better if you do!

As for the OP... Follow your instincts. I have a good working TP. If you liked it, try again, but understand now might (or never, who knows) not be the time to get a TP... See if Sprint will give you a free temp phone till better TPs come in maybe?

Hell I just want the phone to work. I wish I was as lucky as you.

I just wish AT&T had a plan similar to Simply Everything for the iPhone 3G

[lipidfats]

75% return rate? I know you've had bad experiences, scrap, but that sounds a little exaggerated to me... BUT! i could see why you'd feel that way if you've had problems. That poll is kinda vague too. I wish it was more specific, because I'm interested too.. even if mine's working correctly. Like the question about heating up.. combining light and intense use into one vote for heat issues doesn't tell me a thing. If you use it intensely, it's bound to heat up. Also what does heat up mean? Like scorching hot or just noticeably warm but still able to handle. WM users all know that our devices heat up if they're abused. If it heats up with light use then that's a fault. And build quality... My TP keyboard wobbles slightly and back cover quietly creeks if I deliberately bully it. If i use it normally, then I don't experience any problems. May just be me, but with anything expensive, I try not to play rough with it. So I'm wondering how many people who voted on build quality went out of their way to make those "problems" happen and how many noticed on their own. Some of those questions should be separated or specified. It certainly doesn't tell anything about failure/return rates, otherwise other more popular phones would have been considered a complete failure at launch. If people really want to know, the questions need to be revised. It sounds like you're trying to stick it out though, so I hope you get one that works.

DSgamer, I'm still on my first and don't have complaints that would make me ever think about returning. If this phone battled it out with my mogul, it would have knocked it out in the first round.
There are good TouchPros out there. You might want to reconsider whether windows mobile is for you though.

[Baffles]

Originally Posted by DSGamer

Thanks. I think one of the things that amazes me most (I called Sprint and I'm taking the phone in - I bought it pre-owned which makes me wonder too) is that it uses 90MB of Ram. That's astounding. Surely there's a way, without going to a custom ROM, to trim that down. Not because Ram usage is all bad, but because it's indicative to me that the phone is working harder than it should.

Ram usage is no big deal. TF3D uses a lot of ram, but that doesn't mean it is working any harder, just means that it is storing more stuff in ram. My phone doesn't lag even close to as badly as you are describing. Did you ever try a hard reset before returning it?

Originally Posted by DSGamer

So yesterday I took the device back to Sprint. I wanted them to look it over (since it was pre-owned). Perhaps get me another one to see if it was just the device in general or that particular phone. Especially considering data still wasn't working. They wouldn't do anything....

So I returned the phone and had them switch it back to the Palm Centro, which 20 seconds later had data. Ugh.

So last night I went to TMobile and picked up the G1. Very very slick device. Very fast with a unified interface. Integration with GMail, Google Calendars, Google Contacts. It's pretty amazing to be able to add items to my Google Apps Calendar (corporate style GMail) and have it just show up on the G1. It's a great phone, with its own caveat. The problem is now my index finger hurts and I'm realizing that I might really need Voice Commander or whatever that slick software Microsoft bundles with the HTC Pro is. So I have a question.

If I go back to Sprint would I be better off with a new HTC Touch Pro, even if the cost is higher? They told me the one I bought last time was refurbished. When I told the guy in the store that he gave me kind of a "huh?" look. So I'm starting to think the phone was just returned and they thought it was fine. Maybe the guy returned it because it was slow (my main gripe) or maybe he returned it because the data never worked, as with me. Either way the phone could be bad and they never really offered to help get me into a newer phone. I've been a customer for something like 8 years, so I would assume they'd want to keep me.

Is there a high enough failure rate that perhaps the phone itself was the problem and I could get lucky the next time?

You can sync calendar over the air, gmail, etc. I have my Google Apps calendar synced over nuevasync, as well as my contacts. Push mail via nuevasync should be here within the next few weeks they tell me, until then I just use IMAP.

And, I wasn't aware they even had refurbs yet. A refurb, in theory, should be no different than a new device, though. How much did you pay?

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by lipidfats

75% return rate? I know you've had bad experiences, scrap, but that sounds a little exaggerated to me... BUT! i could see why you'd feel that way if you've had problems. That poll is kinda vague too. I wish it was more specific, because I'm interested too.. even if mine's working correctly. Like the question about heating up.. combining light and intense use into one vote for heat issues doesn't tell me a thing. If you use it intensely, it's bound to heat up. Also what does heat up mean? Like scorching hot or just noticeably warm but still able to handle. WM users all know that our devices heat up if they're abused. If it heats up with light use then that's a fault. And build quality... My TP keyboard wobbles slightly and back cover quietly creeks if I deliberately bully it. If i use it normally, then I don't experience any problems. May just be me, but with anything expensive, I try not to play rough with it. So I'm wondering how many people who voted on build quality went out of their way to make those "problems" happen and how many noticed on their own. Some of those questions should be separated or specified. It certainly doesn't tell anything about failure/return rates, otherwise other more popular phones would have been considered a complete failure at launch. If people really want to know, the questions need to be revised. It sounds like you're trying to stick it out though, so I hope you get one that works.

DSgamer, I'm still on my first and don't have complaints that would make me ever think about returning. If this phone battled it out with my mogul, it would have knocked it out in the first round.
There are good TouchPros out there. You might want to reconsider whether windows mobile is for you though.

I can safely say that with my Brother's AT&T Fuze, with the original "diamond" battery cover, it is 100% solid. The battery cover does not squeak or move at all. You can "bully" it all you want and the phone feels like a REAL phone.

I was quoting the 75% from a recent post someone made that sells Touch Pros.

About the poll--it would have been nice to be more detailed, but the forum system would not allow that. It was assumed that the phone heats up (abnormally) during use.

Mine heats up to 130F during a phone call, while NOT charging, and while NOT using bluetooth, with the screen off.

actually--all four had similar results. It shouldn't matter how long you are on the call, no phone should heat up like that.

The reason I am so pissed, and spending so much time on this, trying to figure out if there is a solution, or if I can swap it out for this "white whale" of a Touch Pro, is because there really aren't any good alternatives right now. That is why we are ALL here. Clearly if there was another similar, (even less-performing,) phone out that did not have any of these flaws, people would buy them up like hotcakes.

[gearjunkeez]

Well - I switched back and forth from Palm to WinMo and back a couple times in the very beginning (Treo 650 and ppc6700) I still have a Treo 755p next to my Touch, Mogul and Touch Pro. It is a bit of a learning curve to go from Palm to Windows, but once you get used to it you wont want to go back... ever. I have a Pro that doesnt get hot, battery lasts all day, and I don;t have the lag problems you describe - unless i try to do too many thngs at once. Like try to slide open the keyboard as I hang up the phone and try to swith to my email tab at the same time. Try and get another unit, check the build date on it. Mine is 10/23 and fortunately for me it is working flawlessly.

[ScrapMaker]

Originally Posted by gearjunkeez

Well - I switched back and forth from Palm to WinMo and back a couple times in the very beginning (Treo 650 and ppc6700) I still have a Treo 755p next to my Touch, Mogul and Touch Pro. It is a bit of a learning curve to go from Palm to Windows, but once you get used to it you wont want to go back... ever. I have a Pro that doesnt get hot, battery lasts all day, and I don;t have the lag problems you describe - unless i try to do too many thngs at once. Like try to slide open the keyboard as I hang up the phone and try to swith to my email tab at the same time. Try and get another unit, check the build date on it. Mine is 10/23 and fortunately for me it is working flawlessly.

Oh, I plan to get as many replacements as it takes. I don't see anything coming to ANY other provider that will satisfy me.

I'd say the Fuze, but it has HUGE GPS problems. AT&T found a way to lock GPS to only their Telenav program. I'm sure a way around will be found, but so far, it's not working well. My brother's can ONLY get a lock with Telenav.... weird stuff

[DSGamer]

Is there any way to guarantee/find a newer phone? Assuming the newer builds are actually better? I was reading another thread and the person described almost exactly why I returned my phone.

- Slow
- Edges not responsive
- Dreadful battery life
- Couldn't connect to the internet over WiFi or Sprint EVDO

If there are newer versions of the phone that don't suffer from these problems (at least all of them, but the slowness, I know that one is a fact of life to some extent) I'd be interested. If only because I really am missing voice control right now with the G1.

[Insoc]

I suggest that when you go to the store, you test out the unit you are buying COMPLETELY before you leave the store. I understand you won't catch everything, but this is what I did with my last phone, and I was going to return it again for a louder phone, looked at two more at the store, and found a bad one. Since they only had two at the time, the other one was no better in volume then the one I had, I am still waiting for new phones to arrive.

So, test, test and test before you leave the store. I like how one of the posters suggested looking at the phone on display, see if it suffers any issues that yours did. Demonstrate any problems you find on one phone to another.

Edges not being responsive, that maybe something you have to deal with and may break in with use... All phones seem to be like that, maybe look for one that is only poor on one side. I use note pad to draw lines to test it out.

Battery life on a new battery will be complete crap until the battery is broken in which takes several days. Also as others have stated the phone can do alot which uses alot of power.

Remember to HARD RESET before you do any testing on any phone.

Goodluck, and you too Scrap. Not everything is perfect in our world and life is about compromise. If the phone is not worth it's cost to you, then don't buy it. The amount of energy you spend here could be better spent in a more positive direction!

[DSGamer]

Believe me, that's a big part of my frustration. When I bought the Centro I'd previously had a Palm PDA and a Samsung A920. The phone was reliable and the PDA worked, of course. But as I accumulated devices I wanted to cut down on the devices I had on me. I would rather not, though, spend cycles on this that could be spent hanging out with my wife, playing games, reading books, whatever. I just kind of want a phone that works. I want a comfortable phone with a good keyboard, an accessible calendar, light data and that just works.

Just works is most important. This shouldn't be that hard.