Last few months have been phone switching saga that it would
be worth telling my grandkids when I grow old.
The saga began after I saw the new Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
that my friend Sunil Sharma showed me on a lovely Saturday afternoon. I was
totally impressed with the screen of the phone and the Camera capabilities.
Hence I decided to trade in my lovely loyal note 4 phone. I went to Best Buy to buy S7 edge but Samsung
that day had a launch of their new Note 7 phone.
Note 7 phone was love at first sight. The stunning looks of
its brother S7 edge plus tons of other features including a new sharp Note Pen
that I have got so much used to and have ditched books and pen.
Note 7 worked flawlessly for me but I was forced to return
if for the first recall. So I got S7 edge as a loaner and then finally after 10
days or so the new N7 fixed phone (with black dot). We Indians know the black
dot story…. You know what I mean...
Nazar na lag jaye...
But my joy was very very short-lived, the new phone started
heating up in just less than an hour.. a short ride from Best Buy back to
work.. It was a super-hot cake by the
time I reached office. The phone cooled down a bit once I was at work, but in 3
hours it was dead, the fully charged battery was discharged to less than 5%.
The previous N7 I had lasted to more than 38 hours. So I went to Best Buy next
day morning complaining about the so called “Fixed Phone” but Best Buy managers
as usual even did not want to acknowledge the problem and instead said talk to “Samsung
Rep”. After a quick chat with Samsung rep, the phone was reset and was brought
back to Factory settings and guy asked to me see if it fixes my problem.
Again a drive from Best buy back to home made the phone like
a hot cake... It was so hot that I thought it would burn up my leather car seat
or leave a mark... so I actually stopped the car and placed the phone on napkin
(like a coaster) and drove back home. I called Samsung that reps over there
were more stupid then anyone I have ever talked to. They kept of saying that
phone is fixed phone and kept on checking serial numbers. After talking to 3
different departments in Samsung, the last rep advised me to send the phone in
for a repair.
So next day, I went to Bestbuy again told them that I want
to return the phone but they said that I cannot return the phone as the phone
is passed the 15 day period. I was
aghast as I had just bought the phone a day ago but according to them the phone
was bought a month ago and this recall switch of phone does not count.
After frustrating experience with all these people on
returning my phone, I called my AMEX my credit card company and after answering
few questions, they asked me to called Verizon with them on the phone as the
phone payments were going to Verizon. Verizon’s initial phone rep mentioned
that since the phone was bought at Best buy, they have nothing to do. At that
time, the AMEX rep stepped in and told the Verizon guy that he would like to
speak to some Supervisor. The phone call was promptly transferred to a
Supervisor and Verizon’s supervisor also had the same verbiage as if they are
reading from the some written directives.
Amex rep was very professional and told the Verizon supervisor
that Amex will be filing a bad device case and will be taking legal steps. At
that point Verizon supervisor brought in a real supervisor on phone and the
real supervisor was more than willing to understand the issue and put in a
request to exchange out the device at Verizon store. So we ended a phone call on a happy note,
everyone thanking each other for their services.
In the afternoon, I went down to corporate Verizon Store and
Verizon rep there also had the same verbiage like the phone rep. I was him
politely so see the account notes before giving me run of the mill answer. He
reluctantly pulled up my account and was very surprised to see some notes asking
them to replace the device. Now they did
not have the N7 in stock, so they requested I take a loaner phone till they
have a new N7 for me.
So I wanted the S7 edge as a loaner again but they said I can’t
have that they gave me some Galaxy J3. After 4 days, my “ New fixed fixed N7”
came in… and hence I rushed back to Verizon store to get my N7 back as I missed
so many things that Note series offers.
I stayed in store for an hour to make sure that this N7 was not a hot
cake like the previous one. Finally after an hour of testing everything, I
happily took it home. The phone did not heat up and after 3 hours it was barely
down to 97% on battery.
The phone worked fabulously, the picture were amazing. The battery
life was one of the best seen around. I got around 42 hours on a single charge.
The love for the phone grew as I used it
every day, in spite of people ridiculing me at work for the phone being a
firebomb.
After 3 weeks, someone reported that there was fire incident
on some flight and the phone was reported to be the fixed note 7. After that the downfall of N7 started,
Samsung swiftly decided to shut down the N7 production and announced Global
recall of all the devices.
It became so difficult for me to give up my beloved device.
Some of the problem areas were:
1)
Need a note phone with pen... so have to go to
Note 5 which is 2 year old phone tech.
2)
Nothing on the market that comes close to N7 in
photos, the screen quality, the features.
So finally made a jump back to Apple world, which I had left
since IPhone 4 with a hope that IPhone 7 plus would be a matching contender for
the N7.
