HTC Technical Customer Service...read

[ToxicToastKatz]

Hey Guys,

I just wanted to pass this along; You can take it for a grain of salt, but I came away impressed.

I decided to make a call to HTC (the number is on their page, if you go to Support and "Hotline" the number is there) to discuss a few of the hardware/software issues that I, as well as others on the board have been experiencing. First off, my wait time was about 3 minutes. Very short, so that was a good start.

I spoke to a representative named Jonathan (a woman). The topics I asked about:

1. Why Gmail messages do not show up in the "People" application under the contact's card who sent the email.
2. Some questions that I had about managing memory and the best way to exit a program.
3. The clock widget displaying incorrect time, and the new issue that appeared with the clock today (possibly brought about by some DST error).
4. What happens when you "Clear Data" from the RAM using the "Manage Application" menu.

I began the conversation, which lasted about 40 minutes, asking about the Gmail issue (#1) as that was my biggest query, but added on the others as the conversation went on. She did not know exactly what I was talking about, as she hadn't heard that complaint before. Instead of just saying, "uhhhh, yea, I don't know what to say" or try to spout off some half-***** solution only to get me off the phone, she actually took the time to look in some of their documentation, and when coming up empty, grabbed a new phone, set it up and tried to replicate the issue. At no point in our conversation did she sound like she was saying stuff just to "get by" or end the call. She actually sounded as if she cared. I was thoroughly impressed, as I've called Sprint a few times on technical issues (and I'm not bashing Sprint at all, because I've called other companies tech groups and gotten similar results) and got the "I'm-really-uncomfortable-because-I-don't-have-an-answer-so-I'm-going-to-make-one-up" routine, but not this time. The other thing that impressed me was that with each issue I mentioned, she in no way played dumb that the issue existing. She knew exactly what I was talking about each time (with the exception of the Gmail issue which she hadn't heard yet).

Granted, I'll admit, MAYBE a little more Beta testing should have went into the hardware/software to prevent so many issues popping up, but they are aware the issues exist and are working to remedy them. She actually told me they've gotten a lot of responses to a LOT of issues with the phone's software and hardware, but she assured me that they are working closely with Sprint's Engineers to address them all. Because there are so many issues, she hinted that they most likely won't be released as "hot-fixes" but most likely as the OS update. She did mention 1.6, so it does sound like it's coming. I didn't even bother asking the timeframe, as I didn't want to ruin the pleasant conversation I was having by forcing her hand to deliver the "BS" response that I would have gotten.

As a summary, some of the issues that she said they are aware of:

1. Clock widget not working properly.
2. Messaging App keeping phone awake.
3. Something with Visual Voicemail.
4. The Gmail issue I've pointed out.
5. The issue with the Calendar not properly placing appointments on the correct day (birthdays a day early, all day events a day early)
6. The 3.5mm headphone jack outputting mono instead of stereo.
7. Dust under the screen.

Pretty much any issue you've seen on this board or any other, they seem to be aware of and are already working on resolutions.

Her answers to my issues:

1. She replicated what I was seeing. She couldn't get Gmail to show up. She identified it as the fact that Gmail had not been integrated into the "People" app. The good thing is that it's not a defective phone, the bad thing is that it's not integrated. She had felt that it should have been integrated, as it IS a GOOGLE phone, but was most likely overlooked during development. She couldn't say for sure, but she had a feeling it would be integrated in a future update.
2. As we've seen displayed 100 times on this board, Android manages memory itself. She did state that using the back arrow to leave programs will perform the same thing as "closing it down", otherwise, it will remain active in the background using memory. With the built in memory management, you'll never completely lock your phone, but it may slow it down. Personally, I've been using the back button to get out of programs for the past 2 days (following intolerable lag on Friday) and my device is as snappy as it was when I first turned it on.
3. They are aware and it will be fixed in an update.
4. FYI, clearing cache would be removing temp files and just kind of cleaning up (housecleaning)....clearing data (both functions found in the "Managing Applications" menu, blows out all info completely. I was going to clear the data on my Mail app (using 34.8mb) and she tried it on her demo device....not a good thing! It wipes all account info and settings from the program.

Again, overall, a very pleasant experience. Sorry for the long post, but I'm hoping this helps some people who are getting frustrated with the device. I hung up the phone with the feeling that HTC is determined to make this device a smashing success.