Never Ending Problems! Service or Phone?
Written: Apr 14 '05 (Updated Apr 16 '05)
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Pros: Cute, light weight, compact, decent display screen
Cons: Small keypad, SIM Card warn out in 13 months, doesn't work most of the time.
The Bottom Line: Spend a bit more money and get a phone that WORKS more than it doesn't!
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| jsmorris's Full Review: Samsung SGH-X426 |
I’m not sure if my phone is a piece of junk or if it’s AT&T converting to Cingular that’s the problem. Or it might be both…
My teenage daughters desperately wanted flip phones in March 2004 – hey it was the rage and all their friends had them. We were at the point where we needed to trade up and go from digital to GSM service, so I relented and purchased four of these Samsung phones without doing my research. (Last time I will EVER do that again!).
Right off the bat, I had to bring one back because it was too small for my husband to use. He’s not a big guy but he had a very difficult time dialing this phone because the keypad is small. His fingers would press two numbers instead of one – and frustration ensued. So 10 days after the purchase, one of the Samsung phones was traded in for a Nokia.
The Samsung X426 is fairly small with small keys. The sounds range from tinny sounding to decent sounding (and believe me, my girls have tried all of the sounds that came with this phone). It even has the option of being able to download music to use as a ring tone.
The display screen is a decent size and the colors/graphics are very nice. It is a bit difficult to read in the sun – glare makes it almost impossible to see anything. One bad part about the display screen is that it is up against your face during conversations, and if you wear make-up, many times it transfers to the display. Yuck!
The set up is fairly simple, but there are some things that are not easily figured out. My biggest problem was trying to figure out how to open the phone to see who was calling without automatically answering the phone. I read the manual and couldn’t find that feature at all, so I called customer service/technical support. A very nice lady assisted me with this feature. Still don’t know where it’s written in the owner’s manual…
The way the phone is organized is somewhat clunky – some set up items are in SET UP and others are in ORGANIZER. Very confusing and I think they did this so people would be forced to read the manual.
Ok, so I muddled through set up and we had 3 working phones (and a Nokia that doesn’t count for this review). Things went along ok for a while, and then our reception disintegrated to the point that it was unusable most of the time. I was in roam more often than I was not – and I was on the main corridor that showed no reception problems on AT&T’s service map.
I called and called to get answers and no one could help me figure it out other than to say I could possibly need a new phone. Then one day, my boss asked if I’d attend a manager’s meeting at work for him because he had a conflicting appointment. One main topic of conversation was the AT&T tower problem. The company I work for also has AT&T for about 1000 phones that they have in use. Seems that when AT&T was switching towers out, the engineers didn’t realize that the new towers only covered about 2/3rd of the area that the old towers covered, thus creating many pockets of NO SERVICE. Wow, now it made sense… They slowly put towers back in place and reception became better. So it wasn’t my cute little Samsung phone causing the problems after all…
Next problem: My 18-year-old daughter accidentally dropped her phone. The top snapped off of it. Huh? It wasn’t as if she was angry and threw the phone on the ground, it slipped out of her hand. I took it in and was told it had to go to the cell phone graveyard and another phone would need to be purchased. No way to fix it since fiber cables ran from the bottom of the phone to the top part and the cables could not be replaced. Ok, it’s a flip phone, wouldn’t they realize that people would possibly snap them in two??? So it’s definitely NOT DURABLE!
“Would you like another Samsung X426?”
“Um, NO, absolutely NOT.” So we now have a family plan with 2 Nokia phones and 2 Samsung phones.
The next problem my daughter and I seem to be having is again an issue with reception. I’ve called customer service since January and am told that it’s not the service, not the towers, it’s the phones. If we want better reception and want our phones to work, then we need to buy new ones. I’m not a believer that new phones need to be purchased yearly – these are only 13 months old! It seems that our SIM cards in both phones have bit the dust. New ones are on the way… The problem that we are currently experiencing is constantly in a “search for service” mode or when I call out, nothing happens – no ring, no “call can’t be made”, nothing – it’s like the phone is in an endless loop trying to dial the number. How can a phone destroy a SIM Card? If I believe the customer service rep at AT&T then these Samsung phones do destroy them.
So is it the phones that have such a short lifespan or is AT&T having “issues” and blaming the phone? I’m not sure because I can’t get straight answers from AT&T – they say it’s the phone, so that’s what this review is based on – hey, they are supposed to be the experts!
My Samsung currently works part of the time and the majority of the time it does not. The latest issues are frustrating. It’s a cute phone but usability is horrible. Within the next few months, I will be forced to purchase new cell phones so we can USE THEM. (What a novel concept!) And I have no idea what to get – at this point, I’m willing to do just about anything and pay just about anything to get phones that are reliable and work!
UPDATE: Since writing this a couple of days ago, we are now down to 1 Samsung phone. I opened my phone to make a call out, and it fell apart in my hand. No I didn't jerk the phone open, I opened it like I always have and the top unattached from the bottom. Great, just great! So I have now ordered 3 Motorola phones - I'm hoping they are much better than these Samsung phones. I'll know next week!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 50.00
Recommended for: Stylish Trendsetters - Hip and Trendy
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Epinions.com ID:
jsmorris
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Susie Morris
Location: Southern California
Reviews written: 682
Trusted by: 294 members
About Me:
Broken hearts sometimes don't mend...but life goes on.
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