>
First of all, this is a long post. You might want to take breaks. Please note the totally misleading ad to the left.
<———–right there. Ok, now for my story.

I signed up for service with Sprint in July 2007. At that time I got a “Palm Treo 755p.” It was a great phone. It worked great for over two years. I saw that Palm was coming out with a new phone in the summer of 2009, called the “Palm Pre,” and I excitedly waited for this. When it was released, we were in a period where it was difficult making ends meet, I wasn’t getting enough hours at work, etc, so I didn’t buy the phone at the launch. Also, I usually wait a few months before I buy a “new thing” to let other people work out the bugs.

February 2010. My Treo had a few buttons that had stopped working and the phone was acting up. I had a little money, so it was time to get a new phone. I went to Sprint and bought the Palm Pre (which had been on the market for 8 months by this point). I loved it. Kim needed a new phone too, so the next week I took her in and she picked the Pre as well.

September 2010. I started having problems with my Pre over the summer. At first it was little things. Then the problems started mounting and finally I took the phone to the local Sprint store with a printout of all the problems on October 1st. Here is a list of the problems:

1. It clicks. The phone is just sitting there on the desk, making random clicking noises.
2. It clicks during a call, muting the conversation for both parties.
3. The music and video applications pause the music if you touch the phone. Sometimes it does this even if you aren’t touching the phone (press play, it plays for one second and pauses).
4. The screen lights up when the phone is just sitting there.
5. The power button doesn’t work.
6. Parts of the screen become unresponsive to touch commands, requiring a reset.
7. Swiping a card away doesn’t work: it just moves it around.
8. The zoom function gets stuck “on.”
9. The phone is in roaming almost all the time. My wife’s phone is the same phone, and sometimes she has full Sprint signal, but I’m roaming.
10. The Too Many Cards error appears when there are no applications open.
11. At times the phone becomes totally unresponsive for several minutes.

They took one look at the list, and said, “We will order a new Pre for you.” I was happy with this, since I was convinced it was a problem with that specific phone.

November 2010: Kim’s Pre started having problems similar to mine. My new Pre started having problems also. I wrote a letter to Sprint telling them how upset I was with this phone, and requesting a different model. They told me that I could only get a different model if the THIRD Pre went bad. So I took both phones to the repair center, and they replaced both phones. I figured, hey, if this new one works great, then I guess I don’t need a different model. If it breaks, at least I’ll get a different model.

February 25th 2011. My phone bricked twice last week. This is where the phone becomes totally unresponsive, and can only be reset by removing the battery and doing a hard reset. This is a sign that the phone is going bad. Also, the touchscreen has not been working correctly (ignoring me when I select things…you know, acting like I didn’t even push a button), and it is not deleting things that I select for deletion. Kim’s Pre has a few problems as well: the power button stopped working a few weeks ago, her screen is also unresponsive at times, and she says she’s been having a problem with calls as well. I took both phones to the Sprint store at 146th and Hazel Dell, and they told me that the only thing they could do would be to give me a new Pre. I told them that this wasn’t an option, that this would be my fourth Pre, and that I wanted a different model. They told me that since they weren’t a “corporate Sprint store” (it was a franchise, I guess), they were limited in what they could do. I called Sprint customer service and they confirmed, I would need to go to a corporate Sprint store. They said, “I will make an appointment for you for Saturday morning, and they will replace your phone with a different model.”

February 26, 2011. I drove 25 miles to the corporate Sprint store and waited in line for my chance to be “helped.” They told me they wouldn’t give me a new model, but that if I came back in an hour they would have the phones fixed. I left the store and ate lunch. When I returned, they handed me my Pre and told me that they did a hard reset. I know this isn’t going to fix the problems, because I have done that myself. With Kim’s phone they fixed the power button. I took both phones out to my car and used Kim’s phone to call Sprint customer service from the parking lot to ask them why Sprint wasn’t keeping their word. While on the phone with them, Kim’s phone started making a screeching squealing noise whenever I used the headphone jack. The Sprint rep could hear the noise, and she told me to take the phone back into the repair place and have them fix it. I did, after waiting another half hour.

I was on the phone with Sprint customer service for forty minutes, and the only solutions she could provide were: I could renew my contract and get a new phone, or I could keep getting replacement Pre phones. I told her that since Sprint was going back on their promise of a new model, they wouldn’t stand by their phones, and their customer service was horrible, I will be leaving Sprint, and I won’t be coming back. I said, “You’ve just lost a customer.”

So my question “what to do regarding my cell service (stay with Sprint or move to Verizon) has been answered. Right now I’m deciding when to leave. I am 95% certain that I’m going to Verizon, hoping that their coverage issue at my house was resolved during the 4 years I’ve been with Sprint. Fingers crossed.