I have had both good and bad luck over the past few years with Treo phones using Sprint. The last few rounds have been good luck.
I got my first PalmPilot back in 1998 as a gift from my parents. I thought it was pretty cool but found it clunky and a bit tough to always remember to carry it around. One day in 1999 when I was trying to live a more “digital lifestyle” I dropped it into the toilet at my friend Greg’s house by accident. Oops. The early PalmPilot was still under warranty so PalmComputing (via Fry’s) was nice enough to replace it for me. For this and many other reasons I’ve carried around a small pad of paper and a pen in my pocket rather than a PDA since 1997.
In 2002 (or was it 2000? 2001?) I decided that I was going to stop investing in techie gizmos. No more throwing away big $$ on the latest state-of-the-art toys that could be replaced by a $12.99 analog micro-cassette recorder or a $1.29 pocket-notebook. This Treo 300 thing that my dad had been using, however, was different. It combined two, maybe three gizmos into one (almost pocket-sized) unit. It was clunky. The audio quality sucked. It required two hands to operate. It was fragile. I loved it.
I brought the Treo 300 back three times & had it replaced with factory-refurbished models the first two times - always because the battery just didn’t hold a charge for more than 6 hours. The flip-up speaker on second factory-refurbished Treo must have had a stressful life before I got it, because the connection between the main body & the flip-up speaker broke soon after I got it. Not being one to run back crying to the store each time I run into a small problem, I fixed ‘er multiple times by applying black expoxy to put the phone back together. I liked the road-warrior-style of the phone - half silver plastic high-techery and half organic-looking bubbly black expoxy. The final Treo 300 lasted about 5 months before I brought it back to the SprintPCS store because the battery was dying after 3 hours.
It was third time I brought the phone back that they informed me that they couldn’t replace the Treo300 because they no longer had them in stock. Instead, they’d have to give me a factory-refurbished Treo600 - smaller, SDIO expandable, speaker-phone, no flip-cover, color display, and no charge for the upgrade since the Treo300 was still under factory warantee. Soon after getting the Treo600 I consolidated my phone plan with my girlfriend’s so I could get a “family plan” that included “Vision” - a plan Sprint was pushing that includes all-you-can-eat Internet access and unlimited SMS messaging. Let it be known that using the browser on the little screen is painful but that Directory Assistant is an awesome tool for getting phonebook-related info and driving directions while on the go.
Although the factory-refurbished model broke within 2 weeks, the nice people at the Castro SprintPCS store hooked me up with a new phone because there were no factory-refurbished ones available. This was just before the Sprint650 came out. I planned on getting the $4/month (or was it $5/month?) service plan that would replace the phone for any reason if anything happened to it, but missed the 30-day window on signing up for it. Everything’s been great for the past 13 months.
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Everything was great, that is, until I got to New York. All of a sudden my connectivity was very spotty. I’d have a connection for 10 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute or so. Then the connection would drop out and my phone would explain “No Service” while also showing 4 service bars. The display was also a bit flaky and I had to squeeze the sides of the phone in order to see a solid image. None of my friends in the city can reliably get a hold of me via telephone. Because I need to work next week from the city, I signed up for SkypeOut and planned to dial in for conference calls. In the meantime I want to get my phone fixed so I can work plans out for the duration of my NYC trip. So called Sprint’s 800 number and they told me that I had to go to a SprintPCS store. Then I went to the SprintPCS store in Midtown and waited in line only to be told…
That my phone was not repairable, no longer supported by Sprint and I was SOL because she was out of warantee. But they would be happy to offer me a new Sprint650 (more features? better features? slightly.) for *cough* $600. Yikes. That’s a lot of cash for a little phone, but I love this thing and rely on it multiple times every day - as my only watch, as my calendar, as an ssh client, for the SMS messaging, checking email remotely if I have to, to keep track of passwords, to compose songs while on the subway. I decided that spend a little while today trying to fix ‘er myself before shelling out the cash. The nice woman at the Sprint Store was amused and said that she’d see me later.
So, I stopped by a hardware store & bought a torque wrench bit for $1.39 and headed back to my girlfriend’s apartment. After lunch I gently took apart the little phone, delicately cleaned dust that had somehow managed to find its way inside the device and reseated every connection that could be reseated. After squeezing the assembly back in place, I crossed my fingers and checked my messages…
It worked perfectly - both display & mobile reception. And my little exploration in mobile-phone repair saved me a bit more than $597. Pretty cool, eh?
The bar was open, the music and drinks flowing. “Headlining” the event was the band 
