iPhone 5 and AT&T

[Mountain Goat]

I' tried to make it short and sweet. This phone has been a pain since day one (November 2012) and has never operated as expected. The SIM card was replaced in December which made the device operate at a pace more closely related to other smart devices. Recently, my service was either very low, like 1 bar, or read "no service" on the phone. I reset it manually, through icloud, synched with my laptop, updated via wifi and all other tricks and advice given to me by both the carrier and manufacturer. Still, this thing is a pile of crap. It works, but no better than a sour blackberry.

The solution Apple came up with is to warranty the phone. Okay, how does that work? One option is to pay $29.95 for them to express ship a new phone to me AND put a hold on my credit card for the market value of the new phone until the old phone is returned. Option two is to ship my phone to them, and they will send me a new one. In the meantime, I'd be left without a phone that I use for both business and personal use. I don't like either option and am not happy with my 2-year agreement.

I should have went with the Samsung SIII

 

[SJB358]

MG, sorry to hear that. I have been using the IPHONE for quite a few years now, with AT&T service. I have had nothing but great luck with them. There is a turd in every bunch I guess.

I will say this, my wife always bought into the smart phones, saying they were less expensive and better than the IPHONE. Maybe at first, but by the time a Smart phone gets viruses, starts downloading crap you have no idea of and just becomes a brick, the Iphone starts to take back over. They are the only phones I don't have to continually restart and update.

 

[Mountain Goat]

SJB,

I understand the occasional turd product, but I expected either AT&T or Apple to be a little more proactive and have better policies in place for such situations as mine.

On a side note, my phone did show the 4G symbol in the upper-left corner for the first time in over a week, and with full bars! That doesn't seem to be a coincidence. Thanks for your input.

 

[SJB358]

No worries buddy. I end up having two phones around most of the time. A Iphone 4 which is my personal and then a 4S which is my work phone. So far, both of them are good phones and pretty decent functionally. Mine is an AT&T and the work is Verizon. I tend to like Verizon more back East but I am not sure which works better in the West.

I am glad they got you sorted out. I have had AT&T for about 12 years now, just cause it is too much of a pain to change, versus them being better at anything!

 

[Dr. Vette]

On our trips out west (Montana, Wyoming) my Verizon coverage has always been better than Dad's AT&T coverage. The only place he beat me was the west side of Yellowstone Lake near the 2009 Arnica burn area ( http://www.inciweb.org/incident/1901/ ). There's a location there that seems like a "hot spot" for AT&T even though you can't see any tower anywhere.