Three Strikes & You're Out...

Maybe it is just me, but I seem to have no luck when it comes to cellphones. After enduring with T-Mobile for far too long, I have to admit that Verizon is not a heck of a lot different.

My current phone is the LG Dare. I've dared to be different, and have to admit defeat. The Dare is a pure touchscreen phone. I have had many problems with it, including unable to unlock the phone, and dialing on its own in a pocket (you wouldn't think one phone could have both problems, but it does).

On top of that, the voice quality is quite lousy. I can generally hear folks, but they can't hear me too often. At times, I felt like I was in one of those Verizon commercials, but they couldn't hear me now! Not good.

Also, despite only a few calls, there are times that I can't make it through 24 hours without charging the phone. This despite supposedly new batteries being swapped in at the store.

Add in stupid menus that make no sense, and that this phone is no longer being sold, and I only got it late summer, and I am most disatisfied. Oh, and don't forget the frequent dropped calls that drove everyone crazy.

I've been to the store a few times before. The first time they changed out the battery, but nothing changed. The last few times they swapped out the phone. While I appreciate the effort, my phone originally had 30 hours on the timer. While they told me these were high quality refurbs, they were worn out and both had over 100 hours on the timer before we started. Why they would work better is beyond me.

Before we got to the end of the 12 month warranty, I wanted to get changed to a different model. Anything else in fact, as long as it didn't say LG on it!

So today I was in the "Big Red" store. I presented my list of complaints. Of course they tried to give me another Dare. I asked nicely if we could try something else. They steered me towards another LG, the Chocolate Touch. While it looked better, I held my ground, and asked for something else. After some open air market negotitations, I was offered a Samsung Rogue. I grabbed at it.

Unfortunately, for some reason, they didn't have one to give me. Why do I think with a new contract one was available in the back? At any rate, they promised to ship me one this week as a swap.

I am glad to dump LG. For the record, the camera on the LG worked well, even if nothing else did. Here's to going Rogue...

Jonas