Anyone else pick up an HTV Evo 4G??

Somnipotent

i work on the network side for sprint but i too have dealt with horrid customer service with my very own company in the beginnings (circa 2005, post-nextel merger). needless to say the #1 focus with the company is customer service and reducing churn. hate to say it, but if you can avoid it, go through a big box store like best buy if you're considering buying it. i'd really hate for our sales teams to lose out on their commissions because of the crappy mail-in rebate program, but seriously, it's just another headache.

what sucks, although i'll live, is the fact that employees always get shafted when it comes to hyped phones (instinct, pre, and now evo). i assumed it would be nice to be an ambassador of the phone so i can show people and get them to ask questions and possibly switch carriers. unfortunately not though. i understand that revenue customers come first so it's ok. as long as my sti payment is nice, i could care less.

word of advice for new and existing customers: if you're not getting your way, escalate your call and get through to the retentions department. do yourself a favor and look up the number (try spintusers.com), it will get you an american shores call center who will get you going in no time.

the evo is a superphone no doubt. the iphone 4 is great too, however hindered by the carrier itself. fanboys will stick with at&t regardless of how crappy their service is though.

Mishra

earweed wrote: »

I'd like to check on that. I've had friends over to my house and by where I live the only carrier which gets over 1 bar inside is verizon. If Sprint would do this for me I might consider them as Sprint phones only work outside away from the house(during winter, during summer not at all). I currently have Corr and have to carry phone with me because I get nothing anywhere in my house or yard, At the main highway I get 3 bars and get all my voicemails from missed calls.
My contract with Corr is up next month (finally) and I'll probably switch to Verizon and get a Droid. Although it would be neat to have one of these new 4G phones I don't want to fork over that much cash just to get the newest gadget. My time away from home is either driving, work, family time, or just getting away from everything and I would not use most of the newest and best features available anyway.

Well I called Sprint today to kick start what I just said as a rumor. My house has had poor quality for a year or so now.

I called and talked to tier 1 and told them my service was bad. They asked if I was looking for a way to get my service better... I acknowledge and he said they offer a home wireless set that plugs into your internet connection for $99 and 4 dollars a month.

(being nice.... remember BE NICE) I explained that I was wondering if they would offer it to me for free since it's Sprint's signal that's weak. They immediately sent me off to the other customer service department.

I talked to the lady, she looked up signal in my area. They have 14% dropped calls for my area which she explained was very poor and that she was putting in a service ticket for my area as they like to keep that number at 5%. Then she offered the wireless booster for free for 2 years. That includes initial and monthly cost. She ordered it right on the phone and said shipping is usually 3-5 business days but normally it takes 2 or so.

Real quick and very helpful. I give them an A for the service. No real hassle at all.

zerglings

Hyper-Me wrote: »

The Pre also had about 1/3 of the units available at launch. The Evo sold as many phones on day 1 as the Pre and Instincts first three days combined.

Considering how staunch a competitor the Evo is for the iPhone, and being that its NOT on AT&T and the plans for it are much cheaper I don't think the demand will die off totally.

Our company uses Sprint and all my colleagues say Sprint service sucks big time. Not a single body in our team recommended switching to Sprint. Only two that said good things about Sprint are the ones that has a personal cell phone service with them. *shrugs* Also, the only reason why we have Sprint coverage in our building because Sprint installed some antenna inside the building to boost coverage. Anyway, the iPhone 4th gen might slightly change the Evo's sales.

tpatt100

Like I said earlie I came from Sprint and never had a dropped call but went through hell with their customer service. When my wife and I were buying our 3G iPhones they were helping out lines of customers who were cancelling Sprint or Verizon to switch. Pretty sure the competition learned but no doubt the phone was the major pull.

I paid to get off Sprint because they wante me to extend my contract to do damn near anything which I thought was bullcrap since contacts were usually due to the company subsidizing the phone. Sprint wanted me to extend my contract just to get our area code changed since we moved to another city. It took me an hour with customer service demanding to know where in the contract it says I have to do extend. Finally they escalated me and I was told the same thing. After the fiasco of getting our phones shut off earlier we cancelled

zerglings

Different areas, different experiences - I guess

Nobylspoon

Evo just shipped out today via overnight UPS so I should be getting it on Monday

Fortunatly I know someone who works on the Sprint network and knows the coverage area quite well to make sure I would have a strong signal at home. Already know my WiMax coverage since I have been using Clear for the past few months.

I guess I can sell my Clear modem and portable Clearspot router now...

tiersten

Mishra wrote: »

I acknowledge and he said they offer a home wireless set that plugs into your internet connection for $99 and 4 dollars a month.

I find it amusing that Sprint actually charge you for a box that plugs into your internet connection and uses your bandwidth to improve their crap signal...

earweed

tiersten wrote: »

I find it amusing that Sprint actually charge you for a box that plugs into your internet connection and uses your bandwidth to improve their crap signal...

Wouldn't help me a whole lot either since my internet bandwidth is crap, too.

zerglings

This HTC Evo is really tempting. We have 4G coverage in our area but man from what I heard Android phones don't get the latest and greatest software from Google because of the fact that the hardware becomes incompatible with the OS. Any truth to that?

tiersten

zerglings wrote: »

I heard Android phones don't get the latest and greatest software from Google because of the fact that the hardware becomes incompatible with the OS. Any truth to that?

Google provide the base OS and the various manufacturers then customise that if they wish and release it for their specific phones.

If the manufacturer decides not to release a version for your phone then you can't upgrade. The exception to this is if the phone has been "rooted" and therefore will allow anybody to build a version of Android for that phone and for you to install it.

There isn't a specific Google blessed hardware specification that everybody must follow so no. The hardware doesn't become incompatible with Android.

tpatt100

Finally spent some time with this phone today. Wife's cousin got it. Sprint 3g is lighting fast compared to my Att network that is for sure.

Some things I like on the HTC but my wife doesn't care for it. I am tempted to pay my early cancellation fee and switch since the slow 3g I currently have annoys me

tpatt100

Oh this phone can be used as a mobile access point. Man...

Hyper-Me

zerglings wrote: »

This HTC Evo is really tempting. We have 4G coverage in our area but man from what I heard Android phones don't get the latest and greatest software from Google because of the fact that the hardware becomes incompatible with the OS. Any truth to that?

First sprints network is total junk and now "this phone is tempting." ...??


I don't know where you live, but Sprints service is excellent in my neck of the woods. AT&T's isnt so great here. Verizon is almost always good.

zerglings

tiersten wrote: »

Google provide the base OS and the various manufacturers then customise that if they wish and release it for their specific phones.

If the manufacturer decides not to release a version for your phone then you can't upgrade. The exception to this is if the phone has been "rooted" and therefore will allow anybody to build a version of Android for that phone and for you to install it.

There isn't a specific Google blessed hardware specification that everybody must follow so no. The hardware doesn't become incompatible with Android.

Cool thanks but I don't know if I am willing to mess with that stuff. If I didn't bother jailbreaking my phone then I guess I won't bother getting a root access under Android (I am assuming that rooted means getting root access).

Hyper-Me wrote: »

First sprints network is total junk and now "this phone is tempting." ...??


I don't know where you live, but Sprints service is excellent in my neck of the woods. AT&T's isnt so great here. Verizon is almost always good.

I don't know if you've been reading this thread but I said I like the phone. I've considered getting one but a lot of my colleagues are saying that Sprint network is pretty crappy. All my colleagues are saying that their network coverage sucks and out of all the people that I talked to only two recommended Sprint over AT&T. The phone is still tempting me to switch but I really think I should just staty with AT&T even though it's pretty crappy as well. Though, I find AT&T's network tolerable in my case. I've never had a phone that is non-GSM and I enjoy having the ability of swapping phones whenever I feel like it.

tiersten

zerglings wrote: »

Cool thanks but I don't know if I am willing to mess with that stuff. If I didn't bother jailbreaking my phone then I guess I won't bother getting a root access under Android (I am assuming that rooted means getting root access).

Getting "rooted" for Android phones means unlocking the bootloader generally. Once you've unlocked the bootloader then you can apply whatever firmware image you want. The bootloader has flags which determine whether you're in "secure" mode i.e. no root or not.

The default bootloader in retail Android phones won't let you put an unsigned image on and won't let you have root access. Some of them allow you to just turn these restrictions on/off whilst others are more locked down and don't allow you at all via official methods anyway. All depends on which phone you're talking about.

You can get shell access via the Android SDK tools.

zerglings

tiersten wrote: »

Getting "rooted" for Android phones means unlocking the bootloader generally. Once you've unlocked the bootloader then you can apply whatever firmware image you want. The bootloader has flags which determine whether you're in "secure" mode i.e. no root or not.

The default bootloader in retail Android phones won't let you put an unsigned image on and won't let you have root access. Some of them allow you to just turn these restrictions on/off whilst others are more locked down and don't allow you at all via official methods anyway. All depends on which phone you're talking about.

You can get shell access via the Android SDK tools.

Thanks for the explanation.

Nobylspoon

So I got my Evo but I am not receiving any text messages. I took it to the Sprint store and the guy was able to text me. His reply to why I can't receive from carriers other that Sprint was "Well, the carriers don't really like each other that much". So am I paying for texting that can only be used to talk to other Sprint customers? WTF?

I will call customer service today and hope that they resolve the issue. Fortunatly Sprint has a 30 day trial period. It's a shame because it is a really cool phone

Devilsbane

Mishra wrote: »

I talked to the lady, she looked up signal in my area. They have 14% dropped calls for my area which she explained was very poor and that she was putting in a service ticket for my area as they like to keep that number at 5%. Then she offered the wireless booster for free for 2 years. That includes initial and monthly cost. She ordered it right on the phone and said shipping is usually 3-5 business days but normally it takes 2 or so.

Real quick and very helpful. I give them an A for the service. No real hassle at all.

I like Sprint. I've been with them for about 6 or 7 months now. The plans are the best you can find for the money, I have the everything data family plan which I split with my parents and brother. Unlimited texts and data, and we couldn't use the 1500 minutes if our lives depended on it. Especially because they have free minutes to wireless devices.

The service is pretty good. I would rate it a little under Verizon and a large step up from t-mobile. I had a 2 year contract with each in the past.

Nobylspoon wrote: »

So I got my Evo but I am not receiving any text messages. I took it to the Sprint store and the guy was able to text me. His reply to why I can't receive from carriers other that Sprint was "Well, the carriers don't really like each other that much". So am I paying for texting that can only be used to talk to other Sprint customers? WTF?

Remember that probably 75% of the people that work in their stores are off the street and don't know crap. I know porting between carriers can be a dog fight, but I have never heard of texting being an issue. Like I said above, I've had sprint for 6 or 7 months and have had no issues texting.

Nobylspoon

Nobylspoon wrote: »

So I got my Evo but I am not receiving any text messages. I took it to the Sprint store and the guy was able to text me. His reply to why I can't receive from carriers other that Sprint was "Well, the carriers don't really like each other that much". So am I paying for texting that can only be used to talk to other Sprint customers? WTF?

I will call customer service today and hope that they resolve the issue. Fortunatly Sprint has a 30 day trial period. It's a shame because it is a really cool phone

Looks like they shipped the phone with the wrong routing info. Sprint's tech support was very helpful and took care of the problem very quickly. Looks like I will be keeping my Evo

zerglings

Nobylspoon wrote: »

His reply to why I can't receive from carriers other that Sprint was "Well, the carriers don't really like each other that much". So am I paying for texting that can only be used to talk to other Sprint customers? WTF?

LOL. That's funny. Did you give him a WTF look?

Hyper-Me

Nobylspoon wrote: »

Looks like they shipped the phone with the wrong routing info. Sprint's tech support was very helpful and took care of the problem very quickly. Looks like I will be keeping my Evo

I was gonna say, i dont think it was the Evo's fault lol.

Mine is working pretty well, although I do have the lightleak/raising screen so im gonna swap it for a new one.