Brutally Honest 1st Impressions - Epic Fail

**schettj** · #1 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:15 PM

Seriously. Ok, so sure, I'm a vet of HTC/WinMo/Sprint, so I unboxed this exquisite corpse of a phone and immediately ran over here to set about fixing it so it's usable.

Hack, regedit, hard reset, etc, etc, tweak tweak tweak, lowlevel tweak for SCI, etc...

Noticed today (literally 4 days into tweaking) I forgot to do the magic disable all the htc dialer crap so I can actually answer the phone before voicemail...

and then it really hit me - this phone, this amazing hardware, so totally sucks - it fails the out of box experience to such spectacular levels that it truly earns the epic fail. I mean, it actually fails to function as a phone out of the box. Huh? Ok, well, does it work as a data device out of the box? Er, yeah, if you use it plugged in with a heatsink glued onto it...

Well my friends, if crapple had released such a turd and NEVER addressed it (vs, in the case of the actually abysmal iPhone 3g OS which has been updated TWICE since release and now, generally speaking, has addressed all usability issues that can be fixed in software with NO "tweaking" needed....) no one would put up with it. NO ONE.

HTC, if you want to play in this space, you really need to learn how to make a phone that works. You should be forced to only use your own products out of the box with no tweaking as your only business critical phones. Yeah, your CDMA phones I mean.

Microsoft, you lazy bums, you don't deserve to play in this space either when 20 guys at apple, or 15 guys at palm can create devices in a few years that surpass your entrenched OS that has done nothing but become LESS usable and stable in the past 4 years.

Anyway, back to tweaking. It's nice hardware, I'm sure eventually it will be as reliable as my mogul was, for silly things like phone calls. I doubt it will ever be as reliable as my apache.

Does anyone disagree? Is anyone running a STOCK UNTWEAKED IN ANY WAY Touch Pro? Honestly, consider that next time you're tempted to laugh at that iPhone toting apple fan boy. Because he's not tweaking his phone, he's just using his phone. Which works.

Now I have to go back to staring at my phone, which might be ringing. I'm not sure, but I think I saw it flicker a bit out of the corner of my eye....

**CozBoogie** · #2 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:18 PM

Hey don't hold back schett...tell us how you really feel!

late,
Coz

**Dr.8820** · #3 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:21 PM

i feel your pain. i started this one a couple days ago....http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread...ight=real+talk

nonstop · #4 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:26 PM

I agree. I realized less than a week into owning this phone that it fails at it's main function, a phone! I'm totally shocked there are not more people posting in these forums about this. I use my phone for work, like many other people, and I have to assume it's important for most people to have their phone ring! If it fails to ring it at least needs to have a timely voicemail notification! Today I realized not only does it send calls directly to voicemail and withhold voicemail notification, but my text messages are unreliable as well!

I'm torn because the phone is beautiful and functions great in every other way compared to past Windows Mobile phones, how did they drop the ball on such a crucial feature? I'm going to start with a phone call to Sprint tomorrow and I hope either through the network on their side, or perhaps a new Touch Pro I can get it to function correctly as a phone.

**InvincibleLiving** · #5 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:26 PM

yeah i echo all you said schettino!

heartisall · #6 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:27 PM

Not really sure why your so dissatisfied with your touch pro, but hey thats why you have 30 days to take it back. Personally even without tweaking my TP surp***** my expectations out of the box. As for winmo, you new that it was on it when you got it and you should be used to it if you had a mogul. If you want an apple get one, I'll be here enjoying my TP and the countless features that I use daily that the iphone can't do.

Mbai2 · #7 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:31 PM

It seems like I'm the only one not having a problem from the looks of this thread. The only tweaks I've done are to disable the SMS sent notification and the tethering fix. My phone rings every time and I get all my text messages quickly. In fact, when my friends send out mass texts to each other, I'm usually the first in the room to receive it. The only complaint I have about the phone is its dismal video playback abilities.

nonstop · #8 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heartisall

Not really sure why your so dissatisfied with your touch pro, but hey thats why you have 30 days to take it back. Personally even without tweaking my TP surp***** my expectations out of the box. As for winmo, you new that it was on it when you got it and you should be used to it if you had a mogul. If you want an apple get one, I'll be here enjoying my TP and the countless features that I use daily that the iphone can't do.

My mogul, for all it's short comings was at least reliable to ring when it was supposed to. So was my PPC-6700 for that matter. 2-3 years between 6700 and 6800 and I've never had reliability issues receiving calls and text messages like I'm experiencing with the Touch Pro.

**schettj** · #9 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by heartisall

Not really sure why your so dissatisfied with your touch pro, but hey thats why you have 30 days to take it back. Personally even without tweaking my TP surp***** my expectations out of the box. As for winmo, you new that it was on it when you got it and you should be used to it if you had a mogul. If you want an apple get one, I'll be here enjoying my TP and the countless features that I use daily that the iphone can't do.

You miss the point of my post, but make my point exactly. Indeed I knew exactly what I was in for, and my whole point is, is this really why we have these things? Seriously? I mean, hell, I like tweaking and hacking as much as the next guy, but at some point there should be a device that actually works out of the box released! It was supposed to be because we needed better CPUs. We got those. More memory. We got that out the wazoo. HVGA screens - how about FULL VGA? YAY! Oh, crap, still can't see the screen outside. Oh well...

You know, it should just work.

The iPhone out of the box can do one thing. It can ring. When you call it. Freaking amazing.

Anyway, I love my touch pro. Really I do. I just think it fails totally as a phone. Smart or otherwise. I'm sure once I flash it with a custom rom and finish these regedits it will be perfect. I just turned off the HTC dialer, now it actually rings when I call it. Not like out of the box. Yay me!

**Dr.8820** · #10 (**permalink**) 01-26-2009, 07:48 PM

these are my feelings exactly. we get these phones which aren't cheap and then we have to hack and tweak the hell out of them just to get them to work. what i posted in #3 i'm serious about. if the next pro i get breaks down, i'm done with winmo.