[happy4ya]

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.

[wawasteele]

I see your post was several days ago. I hope your problems have been resolved by now. If not, I would call tmo again. When they replace a phone, they send a refurbished one. However, it is my understanding, if they have replaced it 2-3 times (I don't remember how many for sure) they will then replace it with a brand new phone. It sounds like you have just been extremely unlucky with replacements.

And yes, you might try the OS upgrade first. Then if that doesn't work, when you get the replacement phone, make sure it has a current OS before you do much with it.

Wanda

[E-Phone]

Let me understand:
(1) Your first phone (BB 8900) had problems.
(2) Your second BB 8900 is awful with all these problems
(3) Your wife's BB 8900 also has problems
AND
(4) You love Verizons.

You must be a very unlucky person for (1), (2), and (3) to happen. Call TMO to change your phone(s). I am assuming your intention here is not to critisize TMO and advertise Verizon. Or, is it?

Suggestion: Please write a shorter note if you want (more) people to read your note.

[happy4ya]

Originally Posted by E-Phone

Let me understand:
(1) Your first phone (BB 8900) had problems.
(2) Your second BB 8900 is awful with all these problems
(3) Your wife's BB 8900 also has problems
AND
(4) You love Verizons.

(1) My first 8900 had a headphone jack problem but wasn't the greatest for voice calls....I mainly exchanged it because of the headphone jack cutting out
(2) My second 8900 was awful right out of the box with all the problems I mentioned.
(3) My THIRD 8900 had all the same problems as the second one. They had me try a few things that didn't fix it and then they sent me a new battery to try because of the rebooting but that didn't work either so they offered me a FOURTH phone.
(4) My wife has the call issues (dropped calls and one way audio) and probably doesn't notice it as much as me because she doesn't use it much for voice calls.
(5) I had no problems with almost 10 years I was with Verizon but we wanted Blackberries and they were just too expensive for the same services and a LOT more money for tethering. I guess you do get what you pay for because they definitely DO have the network.
(6) TMO CUSTOMER SERVICE HAS BEEN GREAT. I believe they have done everything to try to help me but it seems that they are stumped now and can just offer handset exchanges.

Originally Posted by E-Phone

You must be a very unlucky person for (1), (2), and (3) to happen. Call TMO to change your phone(s). I am assuming your intention here is not to critisize TMO and advertise Verizon. Or, is it?

Yes sometimes I do have that kind of luck. I just figured before I got a fourth phone I'd throw this out and see if anyone else was having any of these problems. I am in no way trying to bash T-Mobile. Sprint has some nice deals and I've heard good things about their service on Long Island including that if they roam it will be on Verizon's network which is pretty much everywhere around here. I could easily sell these 8900's for more than enough to pay the ETF and leave tmo but we love the BB 8900's and I was hoping it was a software issue or something other than "tmo's coverage just stinks....get rid of them" but unfortunately it is looking more and more to be that way.

Originally Posted by E-Phone

Suggestion: Please write a shorter note if you want (more) people to read your note.

I agree and sorry for the long post but I had a lot of problems I wanted to get out there.

Quick update: I am currently running a newer OS (.250) for 4 or 5 days now and the phone is not rebooting anymore but the call problems haven't got any better.

[suprafanatic26]

I do hope that the problems have been resolved, but the only thing that comes to my mind, since you are having the same problems in various different phone(although the same model), is that you could have a bad SIM card..Have you tried popping a new SIM into the device, or getting someone else's SIM to see if the same issues still occur??