After another horrible day of Nextel service I gave up and went to the Sprint store where they attempted to upgrade the software on my Blackberry 8350i… What was supposed to take a few minutes (45 or so) ended up taking until the end of their business day, and they were going to have it for me at start of business today.
I was at their door at 9 AM to find the nice little tech all apologetic over the fact that the update bombed during the night and that she had started it over…. I figured 45 minutes, maybe an hour… So I waited… And waited.
Turns out the operating system had become corrupt and the trusty old BB was now a brick… She said a phone could be in tomorrow but it looked like Monday. (This was at about 11:30 or so)
If you know me, you know that I am one connected guy, constantly getting and sending emails, direct connects, phone calls, twitter, facebook, foursquare, yada yada yada, and being without my phone for 18+ hours was making me more than antsy! The tech was going to put my SIM card, keyboard and whatever in another old/broken phone and let me use that. But then the phone would be just a phone, until it was put back on our Blackberry Enterprise Server, only to repeat this again when the replacement phone came in.
At this point, I called my wife and we went for option two. We purchased new Samsung Epic 4g Android 2.2 phones, and swung our service over from the Nextel side to the Sprint side. Then worked on getting all the phones going for the techs and myself. I left there at about 2:15 in the afternoon, with a phone in my hand for the first time in almost 24hrs.
Now we are getting these new phones setup and tweaked to suit our needs… They are associated with our Microsoft Exchange Server (I have two Exchange servers and a Google account associated with mine), and using the app that Bradley Durham told us about, TiKL, we now have a replacement for Nextel’s “Direct Connect”, though kinda sketchy…
The specs for the Samsung Epic 4g are quite amazing…
- Android 2.2 OS
- 1Ghz Samsung
- 4″ AMOLED
- 5 Megapixel camera 720p
- 16 GB memory card
- 3g / 4g speeds (Up to 10 Mbps at 4g which is not in Greenville yet)
- WiFi Hotspot for up to 5 devices
- QWERTY Keyboard that slides out
- Claims of 6+ hours talk time
Only time will tell, and I will post a follow-up to this post as we get used to these phones….. As for me, I am back to finding the perfect app for Twitter, Facebook, etc, etc, etc….
If you want to read my original post, go HERE
Have a great weekend!!!
Comments 2
Flash ’em with 2.2 if they don’t have it already, root ’em for wireless tethering.
So far… so good… I personally have had the dreaded “Download Unsuccessful” issue, but the other phones have not. I cleared this up by clearing all data/cache from the Marketplace, Google Talk, Download Manager, etc.
Battery life is limited, but it appears to mostly be due to me playing with the phone constantly and keeping that big, bright display on, as well as downloading lots, using it as a WiFi hotspot, etc.
I will try to post any other thoughts I have on the Sprint Samsung Epic 4g here…