I am currently on my 3rd 8900 in about 2 months and I have no idea what to do anymore. Hopefully someone on here knows something I (and t-mobile) don't.
I'm not sure what my first 8900 came with but at the recommendation of a friend I upgraded the OS to 4.6.1.217 as soon as I booted it for the first time. From what I remember, my first 8900 was ok for the most part except that I had problems with the headphone jack cutting out so a little over 4 months in I called tmo and they sent me another phone.
My second phone came with 4.6.1.231 and it was awful. Other than the keyboard being so soft that I had trouble typing, the call quality has been the biggest problem. It had the following problems:
- When I make a call, it sits quiet for 30 seconds or more and then gives off a 2-tone sound and says "call failed!"
- When I make a call, it sits quiet for 30 seconds or more and then I hang up and call again and the person answers and said their phone rang, they answered and they heard me on the other end but my side was silent the whole time.
- When I talk to my wife (another tmo 8900), when she talks to me I hear a few words and then the audio cuts out for the next few words and then I hear the next few words and this continues....seems to happen mainly with her.
- When people call me, the phone never rings and the calls go straight to voicemail then it shows a missed call and it shows up in the call log.
- A few days ago my wife called me and she got sent straight to voicemail and for whatever reason nothing even registered in the call log that she called.
- The phone randomly reboots itself. I notice it to happen between 1-4 times a day with no time pattern.
- Not sure if this is normal but due to somewhat crappy signals, I have the network options set to "wifi preferred" because I am usually close to a wireless network. The phone seems to go in and out of UMA constantly even though I am usually sitting within 2-10 feet of the wireless router at home and at work. The call problems are the same when the phone is in UMA or EDGE.
I finally had it when the phone kicked me off a phone call and rebooted itself a few weeks ago so I called tmo and complained and they sent me another 8900. This one also has 4.6.1.231. Within 2 hours of setting it up it rebooted on its own. All the call problems seemed to be the same. I called tmo again and they recommended formatting the memory card in the phone because transferring the card from phone to phone without a format could cause rebooting....still the same. Next they recommended forcing a clean reinstall of the same OS and not restoring anything other than my contacts in case there was something in the full restore that was causing this.....still the same. Next they said the only other thing going from phone to phone was the battery so they sent me a brand new one to try and within a few hours of putting the new battery it rebooted. They said all they can do now is swap the phone again. I gotta give it to tmo customer service....they did plenty for me but unfortunately ran out of ideas too. I read a few posts on here and wonder if I should upgrade to the .250 software....I guess it can't hurt to try.
I know other people with this phone that don't seem to be having any of these problems. My wife's phone works good most of the time (same software version as mine) but occasionally when she makes a call hers also connects to the other person and they can hear her but she hears nothing. I read some message board posts about the 8900 having weaker reception than other phones because the antenna is mounted in the bottom of the phone but other than that I haven't seen many complaints. I usually get 1-2 bars of signal in my house and in my building at work. I also noticed t-mobile's signals are nowhere near as strong as verizon's who I was with for the past 10 years. Almost everywhere I went my verizon phone had a full signal meter and with the BB and tmo, it fluctuates from no bars to a full meter constantly.
I've been using an 8320 for the past few days that someone let me borrow and for the most part it is working better....still not the greatest audio quality (verizon's audio quality was MUCH better but I think that is just CDMA) but it connects every time and no reboots so it seems to definitely be my phone. If anyone has had any of these problems and has any ideas that might help I would greatly appreciate them. I love the phone but paying a lot of money a month for something that is basically a fancy instant messenger is pretty frustrating. Unfortunately, if I can't get this resolved my only other option is to sell the two 8900's, use the money to pay the ETF and go back to verizon. Sorry for the long post but I am having a lot of problems. If you got this far thanks for reading.