All phones are NOT created equal

About 10 months ago, I purchased a new cell phone from at&t/cingular/at&t. After spending a few days doing research, I finally decided on the Sony Ericsson w300i. It plays mp3s, takes pictures, AND has FM radio (plus it got generally good reviews). I listen to the radio quite a bit, so I really decided on this phone because of that feature. (It's one of the only phones that has it).

When I got the phone I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did it have the features mentioned, but it also had a really loud ring (which is something I wanted, but is nearly impossible to find out about without actually using the phone), and good volume on calls as well.

On the negative side, the layout of the keypad isn't that great, since all of the buttons are flush with each other, so you actually have to look at the phone to send text messages. Which is fine, people shouldn't be texting from their cars anyway.

So, within the first few months of owning this phone, a piece of the crappy headphone adapter broke off, so I was dealing with a connection problem with the headphones. It wasn't enough of a bother for me to go all the way and purchase a new adapter, but it was mildly annoying. Then, about halfway into my super-high-stress-cell-phone-dependent summer job, the phone decides to power off anytime the flip phone is shut. ACK. So I was forced to leave the phone open while I waited to find time to get it replaced (it was still under warranty).

The replacement arrives, and it's a refurbished phone. I was excited to find, however, that it came with a new adapter for the headphones, so at least one problem was solved. :) I don't really care about the status of its having been refurbished, but I expect it to work... Within two days, the same problem as the previous phone occurs. It's CLEARLY a problem with the wiring within the hinge, and it's clear that whoever had this phone before me had the same problem, and it was NOT, in fact, fixed.

So I called AT&T to replace the second phone. It turns out that on your third replacement (on your fourth physical phone) you get to switch brands. Luckily for me, this would only be my third phone, since I'd grown fond of the w300i.

Anyway... right as the operator was telling me that if the phone broke again I'd have to switch to a new brand, he finds out that they are out of w300i's. So I'm not going to be getting the same phone, after all. :( I'm mildly heartbroken, but I sense an opportunity for an upgrade...

The operator says we're going to give you a RAZR. And I said "it can play music and has a camera phone?" and he said "yes, it even plays video." I was confused, because I know the old razrs did not play music. I did a little research and found out that the new RAZR, the v3xx, plays music, BUT it doesn't take regular headphones, AND it doesn't come with headphones. So I was prepared to make a phone call to customer service today when my phone arrived, and couldn't play music out of the box, cause I'd have to shell out $100 for crappy bluetooth headphones...

So, at 12:00, my new phone arrives, and it's a RAZR v3. As in, "the old RAZR that does NOT play music." So I called, and I whined, and they tried to give me a Nokia phone that costs an entire $100 less than my phone. I was like "uh-uh" and I was getting a little frustrated, this being my third phone and all, so I got sent to the "escalation desk." I have this beautiful picture in my mind of a desk floating up and down a magical escalator, but I doubt that's what it means.

Escalation guy seemed to understand my disappointment in the clearly inferior Nokia, and tried to offer me a straight up RAZR v3xx, I was like, NO, it's not comparable to my phone, cause you can't play music on it out of the box. I don't care that it is a "better" phone, I'm not paying $100 for some crappy bluetooth headphones. So he said, "I'll send you some headphones" and I said "awesome possum."

So, the RAZR v3xx does NOT play FM radio (insert frowny face here) but it does play mp3's and it's prettier than my walkman phone, AND it's on a better network, so presumably there will be better call connectivity. (One can hope anyway.) In most people's eyes, this is a situation in which I definitely "won" the customer service war.

But I would call this customer service experience a wash. I'm really disappointed that my phone doesn't have radio. I'm really pissed off that they would rather send me a more expensive refurbished phone than send me a new version of my existing phone (which is currently for sale on their website). Also, because my warranty period expires in November, I'm fairly certain that the new phone will work until exactly the day after my warranty period ends, thereby forcing me to purchase another phone programmed to work for exactly 366 days before crapping out.

It's fairly ingenious: they don't even have to engineer obsolescence in the software, they just have to make something so mechanically inferior that it breaks every few months. Then they send "refurbished" phones over and over again until the customer's warranty period is up.

I'm on to you, AT&T. I know people with the original Nokia 5100s who are still using their phones almost 10 years later, because there was NOTHING you could break on them. Meanwhile, i have a $300 phone that has broken twice in a year. Sure, it has a camera (that I don't use) FM radio (that I do) and a snazzy ringtone, but it doesn't work for a damn. I'm not running to snatch up a Nokia 5100 anytime soon, but I propose that the degradation in quality of the phones produced over the last ten years is linked to the addition of "features." That's all I'm saying.