freezes on startup

[v.bhasin1]

I turn on my phone (it only turns on when connected to the charger otherwise no) and after it has the wait cursor on the windows screen it freezes. It has like a 5 minute delayed reaction to buttons I press and the keyboard backlight does not respond until then later. Also it will not connect to activesync when I connect it to my computer and takes about 10 minutes to connect to Sprint's network. If I leave it idle for 20 minutes hoping it will work the problem out however if I do then it does not turn on unless I reput the charger in. Soft Resets have not resolved the problem. Please advise me on a hard reset, what is the enter/settings key. It is hard to do a hard reset because the phone is not responding to my presses on the power key. Help!!!!
Should I just take it back because it is relatively new?
They might make me pay the stupid $50 deductible so I'm reluctant

P.S. I hate the placement of the Intrepid's powerkey as other have stated (cause it does not function all the time), is there anyway to make the endcall key the power key;so it responds better