[BallHawk3]

So,

A few months ago I finally got myself a curve. It was kind of a "spur of the moment" thing and I went ahead and upgraded, paying $300 (-$50 MIR) with T-Mobile.

Well, this is my 3rd curve. The first one, within days, would intermittently go to SOS and it would lose reception, strange. Took that thing under my 30days and got it replaced with another curve. This one however had pretty bad housing and had weak reception, I had weaker reception everywhere and had no reception in places that visit that I did have with my 8700g,

Well on my 3rd one and so far, after almost two months it has been fine. The housing was much better than the last but it squeaked like crazy on the side. A few weeks ago I managed to solve the problem of the sqeaking. It was caused by the bottom piece (with the t-mobile logo and my favs logo). It was "misaligned" from the factor which is why one side stuck out more than the other. Well popped it off and re-aligned it. And Viola! Problem solved. Everything worked fine.

Until now. Over time the housing has gotten looser and looser. The gap at the bottom of the phone has been getting bigger and bigger and now the bottom piece with the logo is really loose, it actually rattles when I shake the phone, like its ready to fall off. Its popped off a few times! And turns out that piece is the antenna cover, and under it, the orange thingy is the antenna and its now has some small rips since the antenna cover has popped off a few times.

I'm not truely disapointed. If it wasn't for my blackberry skin, the phone would wall apart. I always use a skin, or pouch (or both) and the thing has never been dropped. But this is madness.

At this point I want to give up, and I hate exchanging devices (makes me look like an irrate customer) and having to update all my bb messenger buddies. I really wish I suffered from the dust under screen everyone is talking about, cause I've never had it.

So my question is, has anyone delt with t-mobile regarding this type of issue. What is there stand on it? WOuld they consider it cosmetic and not covered?? And I really don't want a friggin' reburb device when I just bought this darn thing, and have been a loyal customer since 2002. This is bringing back memories of when I owned a motorola phone (the hell that was). What about dealing with blackberry directly? I honestly rather have them fix it then replace the device. I'm actually thinking about buying new housing and replacing it myself, but i'm paranoid about my antenna now which I'll want to replace (no reception problems yet).

Other than that, I have been soo happy with my curve. Just very disapointed and this kills it.

What to do, what to do. Has anyone has similiar experiences? And what is their outcome. Or maybe some good advice.

[davistld01]

Question: are you more worried about seeming like an "irate customer", or being constantly bothered by the build-quality issues with your Curve?

Providers like T-Mo & ATT have return windows so that their customers can return a phone that is malfunctioning or is having issues...and it's been a savior for me on several occassions. My advice...use it.

And, a thought. I am terribly anal about my mobile devices...and have almost been to the OCD point in the not-so-distant past. I had to learn that no mobile phone in the world will ever be perfect. And, I had to stop picking every phone I had apart...literally and figuratively. Of course, if there are some glaring flaws (like your "logo piece" being so loose that it rattles)...that's one thing, but I had to learn to be satisfied.

I would give it one more return...but examine closely (very closely) the one that you get before you leave the store with it. The sales rep might think you're odd...but that's better than being angry with your phone.

[ptmis350]

a good idea is to start using xanax or clonopin, then you will love your blackberry and realize the mania that is causing issues with your blackberry could be affecting other parts of your life ;)

[BlackBerry1229]

I love my Curve. Had battery issue the first week I got it, but since replacing the battery, no problems. I love my Curve, I love it I tell ya!

[BBGregPearl]

I have had my curve for about 3 weeks now after coming from a pearl and before that A 8700 and etc. Well I'm really thinking about going back to the 8700g. Just an all around better phone I think and a little more stable case wise.

[Willie115]

I was really thinking of switching to a Curve cause my contract is going to end soon, but reading this makes me want to think twice. Friends of mine with the Curve have had a real good experience with it so I'm wondering if this is an all around common problem with the 8300. I don't really hang around the Curve section of the forum, actually been really busy so I haven't even hung around the Pearl forum. What are your thoughts?

[ifonline]

Originally Posted by Willie115

I was really thinking of switching to a Curve cause my contract is going to end soon, but reading this makes me want to think twice. Friends of mine with the Curve have had a real good experience with it so I'm wondering if this is an all around common problem with the 8300. I don't really hang around the Curve section of the forum, actually been really busy so I haven't even hung around the Pearl forum. What are your thoughts?

You're wondering if what is an all around common problem... one person posting about trouble with the design of their Curve?

Mine is fine. Stop sweating the small stuff and get one if you want it. Or don't. Whatever...

[davistld01]

Previously...

8300 - no problems whatsoever
8800 - no problems whatsoever


Currently...

8310 - no problems whatsoever

The BlackBerry is the only smartphone I have ever owned, that I can honestly make those statemenst about. The problems listed by the OP are not common ones...and I still say the majority stem from poor service and coverge. Get the Curve...you will thank me later.

[BallHawk3]

Called T-Mo today and no luck. They kept saying defect defect. And I tried to explain, well this is a defect.

So no luck there, told me to call RIM. I hope I get somewhere. If not, looks like i'm going to have to drop some cash and buy some new housing and fix this.

Actually I have a feeling that a new "antenna cover" would prob fix the problem. Still looking where I can find a T-Mobile Titanium one.

[BallHawk3]

I called RIM the other day and told them the situation. They said that it is completely cover and that my carrier is wrong for not processing it because for the RIM has an agreement with the carrier for them to take care of it in the first year. They said something like this is covered. They went ahead and called T-Mobile for me, and set them in their place.

Got the phone exchanged, did have to pay for the shipping which was $9.99 (something new to me). The lady said that it can be refurbished or brand new, and its a 60% chance it will be brand new. If the device is refurbished, it will state it the rep said. However, brand new phones are brand new, and refurbished phones are tested, and made sure they pass.

I should mention the rep asked details about when I first recieved the phone and wanted to know details about the box. She said it was very strange to what I was telling her and not normal.

So I went ahead and ordered some more screen protectors and awaiting the device.

Hopefully it's a good one, and everything is fine with it.

[eagle]

Good to hear BallHawk.

I too hope it's a good one.

The folks who are happy with the berries likely outnumber the ones who are not. The folks who post here or go to berry forums are but a handful of the actual berry population.

Thanks,
eagle

[BallHawk3]

Ok, so I got my replacement and was excited.

took it out the box, and that thing was friggin solid. WOW. It's almost like everything was glued on. Seemed like it was one of the original blackberries, it had the "WIFI" sticker on the top. I'm guessing its a refurb cause the rubber sides don't look brand new, notice a scratch in the corner too. Not too worried about that, actually I don't care cause everything so far is good, unit is tight and solid. Everything works, all keys work, volume and sound, trackball, cool, but I noticed, screen looks funny It has a "pink hue" to it. Kind of annoying. Pulled the battery, it did nothing. Ok lets wait to load everything first. Plug it into desktop manager (hmm funny) notice it doesnt have newest software. Ok......updated software, done. Still no change to screen. Ok, restored on my stuff onto it (settings and everything). THen went and checked the settings to make sure its the same as the old phone. Still no change to screen. Last test, reception, checked out dBm signal. Its always off by at least 10 than my old one. Uh oh, not a good sign. Call up t-mo, they take me to blackberry (which was no wait oddly). Tell him about the reception problem, he "refreshs" the network. Reception improves drastically, not its identical to my old phone. Then I tell him about the pink hue, he says nothing he can do about it but to send another replacement. ARGGGGGHHHH. So he gets me express delivery at no charged.

Man, am I tired and drain, I will say I was pretty irrate when I first called, only cause i was tired of it.

I guess I might add, I had to pull off my InvisibleShield, and I must say, i'm impressed. Compared to my best skins ever (which was on my first device), I was rough pulling off the invisibleshield and it did not scretch ONE bit! It's still the same size, and it hasn't turned yellow. My best skins ever always turn yellow over time, in fact my curve set was on the phone for 3 days, and their yellow now. The invisibleshield was also a lot harder to put on! Luckily my screen patronous came in the same time as my replacement. I will say its different, you literally cant tell its on, its clear as heck! But its different, I don't like the screen coverage, I wish it was like the invisible shield. And its "stiff" material. Its like a stiff plastic piece that has sticky stuff only on the edges. its pretty much the same thing as the helmet visor inserts that prevent the visor from fogging up that I used on my motorcyle helmets. Those, fall off over time, so i'm sure the same will happen with the screen patronus, matter of fact, they recommend to replace every 2 months.

So InvisibleShield VS Screen Patronus.
Screen patronus is definately clearer
Invisibleshield will stay on a lot longer, and I do believe forever
Different types of material, but I think I prefere invisible shield material and feel, its also tougher
Screen patronus wins in the finger print section. My invisible shield gets nasty
ScreenPatronus much easier to install and nice that I don't have to use liquid! Of course, keep the area dust free!

Not trying to stray people away from the Curve, just giving people my personal experience. And remember, bad news travels 10 times quicker than good news. I just find it very odd after all my years of selling blackberries. They really are great devices and problem free (besides the nextel 7100i and my personal curve!) I've owned and used alot. Although this is technically my 2nd own blackberry (first was 8700g for over a year), I had a sprint/nextel store and we've had quite a few Nextel 7520, and 7100i, sprint 7250, 7130e and 8703e and those I actually used at work (just not as much as my personal) and let customers use it as a demo or when our lines were tied up. Not to mention the countless numbers of blackberries i've sold (which only 2 in my whole lifetime have ever been returned) or ones we encountered. The only one I would ever complain about is the 7100i (that was really crap I think). They are really great, I just don't understand why me of all people and having problems with this curve, I must really have bad luck.

[davistld01]

I sympathize with you...

...but I find it absolutely amazing when I hear such a lengthy report from someone who is so totally dissatisfied with their Curve. I am probably one of the most anal people in the universe when it comes to my mobile phones, and will exchange at the first sign of even a minor glitch...but I have had no problems with any BlackBerry I have owned.

My first, the 8300 was perfect...as was the 8800 I had afterwards, if only for a short time. My new 8310 is issue-free as well. In fact, these are the only AT&T-branded devices that I have ever used that I didn't have to do even one exchange on. Pretty amazing to me...

Like it has been mentioned above...perhaps T-Mobile has had issues with their 8320's and you might want to look elsewhere, possibly for an unlocked/unbranded one direct from RIM. Sorry about your problems!!

[greggebhardt]

Originally Posted by davistld01

I sympathize with you...

...but I find it absolutely amazing when I hear such a lengthy report from someone who is so totally dissatisfied with their Curve. I am probably one of the most anal people in the universe when it comes to my mobile phones, and will exchange at the first sign of even a minor glitch...but I have had no problems with any BlackBerry I have owned.

My first, the 8300 was perfect...as was the 8800 I had afterwards, if only for a short time. My new 8310 is issue-free as well. In fact, these are the only AT&T-branded devices that I have ever used that I didn't have to do even one exchange on. Pretty amazing to me...

Like it has been mentioned above...perhaps T-Mobile has had issues with their 8320's and you might want to look elsewhere, possibly for an unlocked/unbranded one direct from RIM. Sorry about your problems!!

""unlocked/unbranded one direct from RIM""

I have only seen one unbranded RIM device and it belonged to an employee of RIM. I do not think they pass these out to the public.

What?

[davistld01]

Originally Posted by greggebhardt

""unlocked/unbranded one direct from RIM""

I have only seen one unbranded RIM device and it belonged to an employee of RIM. I do not think they pass these out to the public.

What?

Guess I was uninformed in my comment. I was just suggesting that perhaps the T-Mo 8320's had issues by virtue of the provider.

I stand corrected...maybe.

[J]

Got my curve 8300 the day it was released and I;ve not had one single issue. THEE best phone I've owned.

As was mentioned, I've learned and try not to be too anal about the device. Afterall...

I think it is one of thee best purchases to makeif one is in the market for a new/additional phone.

[jleebiker]

I've had a lot of cell phones in the past and tried alot of PDA/phone smartphone combos. I'd have to say, hands down, this current 8310 is by far my FAV device yet. I liked the BB I had before this, but it was a bit big to hold up to my head for a call. It felt clunky. This new one has it right. Very small form factor. Tons of features I WILL ACTUALLY USE! And so far, REALLY reliable. I drop it alot and had a skin for it, but recently switched to the Siedio skin/holster combo. I abuse it and yet it still works great!

I show people what it can do, the apps I've loaded, and how they augment the existing apps and w/o a doubt, people will always swap to the 8310. So far out of a dept of 15, I've converted/convinced 10 of them to get rid of the Treo or upg from an older version of BB.

Hope this helps!

[Alex Alexzander]

You know I have to wonder if the store where you purchased your original Curve even gave you a new one to start with. Perhaps the store kept giving you returns which were not properly looked at before being sold to you.

I had a RIM back in the late 90s and it was the most perfect device I had ever owned. Up until about a year ago, I had owned many different phones, all of them never a problem until I bought a Treo, which was physically fine. It was just a matter of rebooting whenever it wanted to, or not sending emails when I asked it too, politely. So after I had enough of that, I bought a BlackBerry 8800 and again. My expectation of BlackBerry was that it was a perfect device from my memory, and the 8800 proved that tradition was and is still alive and well. It was because of that I decided to stick with RIM on my desire to upgrade phones. I got the 8310 from AT&T and I am even more impressed. Easier to type, yet the phone is slightly smaller. The edges are rubber, and slightly easier to grip. I still have GPS, and I get a camera to boot. So I guess I can upload to Facebook now straight from the phone.

My 8310 has all quality I expect from RIM. And I know what you mean about oddities too. I used to own iPods, but don't anymore. The back side of my Nano is all scratched and yes that bothers me. When I switched to the Zune I appreciated that Microsoft made the back so scratch resistant. I even dragged in over a stone floor to prove how well it is made minutes after getting it out of the box. I wanted to prove a point to a friend of mine. People care about quality. Sure plenty of people go after the flash, bling, whatever you kids call it today, but I still say quality is number 1. When I see poor quality, I tend not to be a repeat customer. When I see good quality, I tend to be a customer for life.

Good quality needs to be an all around effort. Meaning, if someone damages a BlackBerry, returns it, and the store resells it, shame on them. They are there to represent RIM, and should be much more careful when giving you a phone. No body gets 3 bad phones in a row. Clearly something is wrong with the store where you are taking your business. You'd have to buy more than 100 BlackBerry phones in a batch to begin to experience what you have in just 3 consecutive purchases. Seriously, you're dealing with a careless reseller, which is even more evident in that they thought they didn't have to help you. They obviously employ slackers that do not follow through. They should not simply smile at you the customer. They also need to followup when a phone is returned and make sure the examine it regardless of what the customer tells them. Otherwise, you could get a customer return that already was return. The customer may have had issues and simply lied and said they simply didn't like it because they worried about exchanging it. Then the idiots who work there take the customers word that nothing is wrong with the phone and resell it to you, leaving you with a problem that should have never been there in the first place.

Think about this... The phones go through Q and A. After that, they ship. There should be a very small percentage that experience some kind of DOA between that time, and even less that are so poor as to begin to fall apart as yours did. I just find it incredible that you experience 3 poor quality phones in a row.

Consider switching retailers. The one you're dealing with right now is completely suspect.

-Alex

[USNAVY]

I have the dreaded dust under the screen issue. It's because the piece on the right hand side that has the volume control and they hotkey is a little loose. Nothing too bad really. Oh and I've never really had any luck with UMA, but it's probably my router, and I'm too cheap to buy another one since I'm deploying in a few months.

[BallHawk3]

I will say, this device I have right now, the call quality is actually much better than the previous ones I've owned (even though I never complained about it). Just kind of a suprise.

As for the exchange. The first two were at the same store, 3rd was at a different store (which I explained about the weird box) and well the 4th, was done over the phone for an warranty exchanged/advanced exchange, which ended them sending me possibly a refurb phone.

Now that I think about it, all the previous blackberries I've had was never from a carrier, but was given to me directly by RIM (they were still locked/branded) which it never qualified for the warranty through the carrier and I would have to go directly to RIM. So who knows.

I kind of wished I didn't spend the money to upgrade through T-Mobile, I should have just bought one off ebay, or one on here, or outright at one of my old vendors. Funny, cause I haven't upgraded in years and just decieded to use it, and look how it goes. Last time I upgraded was when I got my Motorola V330 (which was through Customer Care). And man, this curve is bringing back memories, I had the V300 before that and man were those phones horrible, that V300 was exchanged like 9 times (arrived DOA, common screen going out problem , audio going out when answering calls). I thnk its funny too I haven't even ran into the dust under screen problem, and UMA works PERFECT. Haha.

As for the Q & A, thats for the recondition phones or the advanced exchanged process, which I am very familiar with being with t-mobile for a very long time, and owning motorola's (bad) and owning a sprint/nextel service center. They all say refurb phones go through inspections before shipped out, but I will tell you from my experience (through t-mobile and my store) either their lying or doing a horrible job. Me personally, I've recieved quite a few phones from T-Mobile's warranty exchange that were DOA, or immediately, no audio or horrid reception, or phone doesn't charge. I've encountered that problem too with the service center. We also have our own stock of recondition phones (that the depot sends us) and of course provide the advance exchange process (same depot). I've always learned to always test every single phone that they send me, cause quite honestly their so called "work" wasn't as good as my store. I would have to say, that prob 1 or 2 out of every 10 phones we recieve from them is immediately bad, and of course we have those that go bad after a few days, weeks, or months (but I can't blame them, they can't see the feature). And my store tested for everything, audio, buttons, reception. It is sad when the device you get has a sticker on the screen saying "Proudly Refurbished and Tested by A Service Technician." But I started to test all the phones we recieved when I got tired of giving customers bad phones, having to call them to the store, give them replacement, see its bad there, then either give them another one or tell them they have to wait for another one to arrive. It's a bummer.