Judging by message threads on their Facebook Page and an extensive 37 page chain of messages complaining about lack of consistent Virgin Mobile data coverage it appears the prepaid division of Sprint may be undergoing some sort of catastrophic spectrum meltdown.  The company has recently made a market for themselves with a dirt cheap $25/mo plan marketed to Android and BlackBerry smartphone users which includes unlimited data, text and SMS.

Users on various forums are complaining loudly and constantly about problems getting a consistent data signal and calls to Virgin Mobile customer care seem to all go through the same routine – power the phone down, take the battery out, count to 10, pray, reboot.

Can’t say we didn’t warn you – Virgin Mobile Customer Service Fail

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This morning I spotted this deal on a Samsung Intercept for $159 at Target over at my favorite deal site – Fatwallet. The phone is a pretty good deal for a touch screen Android 3G phone, especially considering it also has a keyboard and that Virgin Mobile offers a Virgin Mobile Beyond Talk $25 per month prepaid (no contract) plan which includes unlimited data, text and 300 voice minutes.

Unfortunately that’s where the happy part of the story begins and where my life lesson on what being a “prepaid customer” really means. In a nutshell it’s a life of being connected to overseas call centers, indifferent representatives — and some highly annoying music on-hold that blares as if they assume the caller must be half deaf.

Virgin Mobile apparently was unable to activate any new customer phones — either online or over the phone.

Ok. I get that computer issues occur. That happens even in the world of post-paid where the customer service representatives speak intelligible English, treat you like a valued customer — and willingly escalate your case to a supervisor when there’s a difficulty.

The issue with Virgin Mobile is that their activation was down at least 8 hours on 2/20/2011 – yet during that time they kept the web based activation site open allowing new customers to waste time entering data only to eventually have the system error out on the final step (I performed this at least 3 times in an attempt to activate my new Samsung Intercept).

Thinking that perhaps it was only an issue with the web — and that good old fashioned phone activation might work (Warning: This phone activation is all a tedious voice activated system)  – I called the 800 activation line — and was prompted through 20 minutes of questions and answers with an automated voice system. Then eventually I was told I’d have to transfer to a live representative.

When the live representative answers – they proceed to ask the SAME EXACT 20 minutes of questions and answers about information needed to setup and activate my new phone.

Guess what happens next?

They abruptly conclude the conversation with “oh, I can’t activate this”.

That’s it. End of the conversation – except to mention that “they’ll need to send it for research”.

I’m now a brand new customer, have spend probably 2 hours total of my own time trying to activate a phone through a system which is obviously broken.

Apparently nobody at Virgin Mobile has a system to know in advance when there is an activation issue which prevents new customers from setting up their phone? Instead a Virgin Mobile overseas operator has to struggle through a 20 minute script only to reach the end of the conversation with an abrupt “Oh I can’t activate this”.

As I explained on the Virgin Mobile Facebook Fan Page (where’s the dislike button?)  – I’m looking behind me as I type to see if Allen Funt is here.

Unbelievable.

Poor Virgin Mobile Customer Service

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I’m out in Salt Lake City for a short conference and while passing some time I wandered over to the local Walmart and found that they had the Powermat for Droid X in stock for $49 (cheaper by $10 than Amazon).

I’ve used Powermat in the past on my iPhone. The concept is that you attach either a new case or back cover to your device. Then you use an included charging mat that when the device is placed on the mat will immediately start to charge your phone.

Powermat has introduced several new charging backs – including models for the HTC EVO 4g, BlackBerry Bold 9700, iPhone 4G and the Droid X. Unfortunately there’s an ugly secret that you won’t learn until you take your Powermat out of its packaging.

Unfortunately what the box won’t tell you — and even the online photos of the product aren’t terribly clear – is that you must replace your back battery cover for your Droid X with a cover that includes a protruding dongle which is ideally suited for snagging on your clothes as you put the Droid X into your pocket.

The promise of the Powermat is that once you’ve installed the custom cover – and use it in conjunction with the supplied charging base – you’ll never need to worry about plugging or unplugging a charging cable connector again.

I’m sure in theory this sounded like a great design. In practice it’s just awkward. Within a few minutes of using my Powermat for the Droid X I could tell the protruding connector would be uncomfortable to hold. I can’t imaging anyone wanting to risk snagging the connector on their pants pocket or jacket when they remove their Droid X to actually make a call or use the phone.

Instead of the awkward connector I’d much rather have seen Powermat produce a replacement battery as they were originally announcing about a year ago. As the Powermat exists now I can’t imagine using any of the replacement backs that also require an additional plug to deliver the charge. So far as I know all the new Powermat models require a protruding charging plug (dongle) with the exception of the iPhone 4 which uses more of a slide in case.
Before buying the Droid X Powermat give some thought to whether the protruding connection will be a problem.

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At least one user on the XDA Developers forum is reporting that their Sprint store is now carrying an extended battery for the Sprint HTC EVO 4G. This 2600 mAh replaces the 1,500 mAh battery that ships standard. Pricing on the extended battery, which includes both a smooth white and black battery door is $54.

Until now those running out of power while using the stock EVO 4G battery (good for about 4 to 6 hours unless you turn the phone off altogether) have had to make due with aftermarket batteries such as this EVO 4G 3,500 mAh Extended Battery from Seidio. Hit the link below for more pictures and firsthand gushing about the new OEM battery  from Sprint.

XDA Developers

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You can run into the Verizon Store and pick up a Droid Docking Station for your new smartphone. The cost will set you back $20. Or score this same model (free Shipping for Amazon Prime) for $15. The $5 decision is yours to make. Though the description indicates it’s not compatible with Droid 2 there are comments about the item indicating that the dock does indeed work with the Droid 2.

Droid Docking Cradle – $15

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You’ve purchased a new Droid device from Verizon. Now what. Do you have questions and aren’t sure where to turn? There’s always the online discussion forums such as Android Forums, however if you feel more comfortable with some one on one classroom training Verizon is rolling out a series of in-store classes scheduled for November through January 2010.

A good number of classes are schedule for after the holidays – making it  a perfect way for anyone on you Droid holiday gift giving list to get a little training about how to use their shiny new smartphone. If you’re a little shy about hanging out in the store with other Droid owners – check out Verizon’s Online Learning.

Verizon Droid Classes – Northeast

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At around 6am EST I noticed that the Froyo Update (aka Android 2.2) was available on my Verizon Droid X. This is about 6 hours ahead of the 12pm EST delivery date that Verizon had been promising.

Some of the things users have found useful in Froyo 2.2:

1. New gallery app
2. Updated camera UI
3. You can rotate to the right now
4. Updated market interface
5. New Swype skin (it’s white now)
6. Updated Gmail app
7. Transitioning between the different home screens is smoother now and opening up the menus to add things like widgets and applications to the home screens is noticeably faster
8. New battery modes for the Battery Manager
9. The wifi icons in the Wi-Fi Settings section are white now
10. Battery usage now tells you a lot more specifics like how much battery a specific app is using and how much battery the Android OS is using.
11. No more dead pixels in camera/camcorder.
12. Wifi issue where wifi was unreliable or slow to connect has been fixed.

Verizon Droid X Support

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According to a post (found here) on the T-Mobile UK forum the HTC Desire now has a Froyo 2.2 update available which will be sent OTA (over the air) directly to phones over the coming weeks.

via Wikipedia – The HTC Desire has a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and It includes an active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) screen and a 5-megapixel camera. More recently HTC has switched to a Sony “Super LCD” display due to a severe supply shortfall of Samsung AMOLED screens.

The SLCD display has similar brightness and viewing angles, a significantly poorer contrast ratio, but is much less susceptible to screen burn-in and improves battery life slightly. The hardware has the potential for high-definition video, a function added with the Android 2.2 update. The Android operating system has the capability to take advantage of the video circuitry onboard the Snapdragon processor, enabling the device to capture and playback video at high-definition 720p on a WVGA screen.

via: Cool Smartphone

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I purchased this Droid X HDMI Multi-Media Desktop Charger at the local Verizon Wireless store for about $38 after corporate discount. By my calculation that’s about $30 too much. The charging stand came with a power cable (my particular version did not have an HDMI cable though I think you can get one bundled if you buy online through Verizon).

The Droid X fits perfectly in the stand. There’s an HDMI port out the back with which you can connect a video source if you’re inclined to watch movies streamed from your smartphone. The problem is that I’m not inclined. All I wanted to use the desktop stand for was to charge and convert my Droid X into a viewable clock at night.  It accomplishes that goal with one major problem that makes me recommend against purchase.

The Droid X stand makes it a three (or four) hand project to insert and remove your smartphone. I’ve toyed with the Droid 2 stand at a client which allows you to plop the D2 in and out one handed. Beautiful. The Droid X stand — not so much. It’s way too difficult to get your phone in and out of this. Skip the purchase — or wait another two months and I think Verizon will be forced to put these clunkers in their bargain bin for $ 5.

Droid X HDMI Charging Stand

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If you’re using the alternate Swype keyboard download which allows you to type by moving your fingers over the keys without lifting then you you should grab the latest update.

Newly improved is:

Added German and Portuguese languages
Added the auto-space suppression short-cut gesture: Swype from the spacebar to backspace
Added the quick language switch short-cut gesture: Swype from the Swype Key to the Q key
Improved the word prediction algorithm to provide better support for additional languages
Improved handling of several gesture collisions, including want/wasn’t, to/too and others
The Android IME no longer sometimes hangs/crashes when Swype scrapes the user’s address book for dictionary entries
Tips and help menus now accessible when a password field is active
Backspace now works in applications which use raw key input instead of an editable text field (e.g. terminal emulator)
The single character “i” is no longer incorrectly auto-capitalized in non-English languages (reported by many of you!)
Tons of other minor bug-fixes, including many device-specific issues

NOTE: Do NOT download this version of SWYPE if your phone (Droid X, etc) came with it pre-installed. This is only for those who are using the downloaded version of Swype beta.

via: Android Central

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