It will come as no surprise to those who know me that I wore out my Treo 300 in a few months.
For the uninitiated, a Treo300 is a combination cell phone and Palm Pilot (actually they aren’t even called Palm Pilots any more, they are just called Palm
but since that sounds rather dopey we’ll refer to them as Personal Digital Assistant, or PDA). What I really liked about the Treo300 was that it had a built-in keyboard which could be used for typing email, etc.
I bought one around the end of April (2003) after losing my old cell phone (which I never really liked anyway, but didn’t want to lose either!). Now, whenever you buy any piece of electronic equipment, especially something like this, you know that within 6 months there will be something newer/better/faster. I knew that. I knew that the Treo 600 was supposedly coming out “later in the summer” but it was April and I had no cell phone (and, by strange coincidence, neither did Tracey, as she had also lost hers). My PDA was also old and slow, so it was a good time to replace them both.
So I went ahead and bought the Treo300. It was a nifty little device. Having both the PDA and cell phone in one unit is definitely the way to go, as it means that you can carry around one less piece of equipment and have one less to lose (of course if you lose that one you’re really in trouble, but I digress)... I loved being able to look up phone numbers in the Palm and click on them to dial the cell phone. Very cool indeed.
The problem was that the Treo300 was really a PDA that happened to have a cell phone built-in. It looked sorta big a clunky, and it was awkward to use as a phone. Actually a few weeks ago at the movie theatre someone saw it and thought it was one of those really old cell phones because of the width. It also had a flip-screen which I never cared for, except that it was a built-in screen protector... but then I had to worry about the flip getting scratched every bit as much as I would have worried about the screen. The flip also made it thicker that was really comfortable. So it was too wide and too thick.
But hey, there are prices to pay for being on the cutting edge.
All of which was fine until it started acting up a week or so ago while I was using SnapperMail (the best mail app for Palm, by far). At first I thought it was a problem with SnapperMail, so I deleted it and reinstalled it. No change. I emailed the developers, who responded in record time, as usual. They quickly diagnosed the problem: the screen was dying. More specifically, the place where the screen and keyboard came together was starting to fail.
Lovely. This means calling tech support and the insurance people. Ugh. I’d rather chew broken glass.
I tried to ignore it and work around it for a few days, but it drove me nutty (yes, even more than usual). So finally I called Sprint, told them what the problem was, and that I wanted to get the unit replaced. They forwarded me to the insurance department who told me (wait for it) that I did NOT have insurance on the phone after all.
D’oh.
I hung up and emailed the SnapperMail folks back and told them the news. They reminded me that the unit came with a warrantee, regardless of whether I had the replacement insurance. Hrm.
Another phone call to Spring and I tried to explain it to them. I wondered if I was going to have a hard time explaining to them, because although I could still make and receive calls, the phone was not working properly. Fortunately I got someone who understood right away. Unfortunately she told me that I had to go to a Sprint store to have someone official look at it and tell me it was broken. Really unfortunately, the nearest store seemed to be about an hour away.
*Sigh*
Me: So when I drive down there, what happens when they see that it isn’t working?
Sprint: They will replace the unit and give you another one.
Me: They have this in stock?
Sprint: They should.
Me: They won’t.
It wasn’t pessmism, it was realistic. The phone was a rather high end device which not a lot of people would want to buy, and now there was a newer model (the Treo600). If anyone was going to shell out that kind of money, they weren’t going to want the old
version.
Long story short(er), we were down in Charleston, WV earlier this week. Tracey suggested we drive to Huntington to the Sprint store. I really wasn’t looking forward to it, and nearly tried to put it off until another time, but I realized that it was going to have to be done eventually, so might as well get it done.
As anticipated, the store confirmed the problem... and they did not have any of the Treo 300 units in stock. I asked about the display model and the sales rep told me, You really don’t want the display model.
He was right. What I wanted was to get a new phone and get out of there, the sooner the better. I had run in while Tracey circled the parking lot with Ethan asleep in the back of the car.
We had to call the Sprint home office. This involves dialing the number and waiting on hold, hoping that you will get someone knowledgeable. I did and I did, but I didn’t. The woman was convinced that the answer was for the store to order a replacement phone and to have me drive back down and pick it up. Umm... no. I already drove over an hour each way to have it looked at, I won’t be doing that again to pick up a replacement.
More waiting on hold. She came back every 5 minutes to assure me that I hadn’t been forgotten, they just were trying to do things and were not having any luck.
Finally she told me that they could not get me a replacement phone. I resisted the urge to bite the phone in half. I asked her what she suggested that we do, since they had sold me a phone with a one-year warantee and it had worn out in 5 months. She had no suggestions, but simply reiterated that she could not get me a replacement. So I suggested that she credit my account for the amount that I had paid for the phone. Apparently she wasn’t expecting that, because the phone went very quiet until she started falling all over herself saying that she couldn’t possibly do that.
I asked to talk to someone who could do something. She put me on hold. A few minutes later she came back on to say that she had talked to her supervisor (something she had allegedly done before) and they were trying to order me a replacement phone (huh? Didn’t we just go down this road?). So I waited. And waited. Finally she came back on and asked to speak to the sales rep at the store. He again explained to her that they could not order a phone for me unless I was willing to drive back and pick it up (which I wasn’t).
About 35 minutes into this fun-filled festival, she suggested that I might upgrade to the Treo 600. I had actually joked about that earlier to the sales rep, not actually thinking it was a possibility. I told her that would be the best option for me, since it could be sent directly to me and since I had already worn out one Treo300 in 5 months and saw no reason to think I would not wear out another one.
Back on hold.
For another 15 minutes.
She kept chirping back in to say that they were working on it but not having any success.
By this point Ethan has woken up and Tracey has gone to another store in the mall, and now signalled that she was going to the restaurant for dinner. I was wishing I had made the call on my cell phone since I was now stuck in the store and had been standing for about 40-45 minutes. The store was now closing.
At about the 50 minute mark, the woman from Sprint came back on the phone to say that they were unable to order any phone for me, and the only option available was for me to have one sent to the store and pick it up.
The phone I was on had a call timer on it. I went to turn the phone to read it so I could tell her precisely how long I had been on the phone, and to say that furthermore she was mistaken if she thought after all that time I was going to agree to another 2+ hours in the car.
When I went to turn the phone, however, my thumb hit the receiver button, and the call was disconnected.
I resisted the urge to crack myself over the head with the phone receiver.
Instead I called Sprint back from my Treo300 and walked down to the restaurant. I waited on hold while I found Tracey and Ethan at their table. I explained the situation to someone new as I was eating my salad. By the time my dinner came I had found someone knowledgeable and said, Look, my phone isn’t working, they can’t get me a replacement, I don’t want a replacement, they offered me the chance to upgrade, I want to upgrade.
He said sure no problem...
...And put me on hold.
I waited on hold as I finished my dinner and we went to the car and started to drive home. He came on to say that they were working on it and would just take a few more minutes.
What I should have said at that point was, Great! Thanks for your help. Look, we are driving through backwoods West Virginia and I’m no doubt going to lose cell phone service at some point, so here’s my credit card information in case we get cut off.
Instead I waited on hold and watched as the signal strength bars went from 4 .... to 3.... to 2.... to 1... to The signal faded and your call was lost.
D’oh!
So now I had lost the helpful person and had to call back again and explain the whole thing over again and (no doubt) wait on hold some more. Tracey suggested that we find someplace with signal and wait. I told her that we might grow old and die before it was finished.
As soon as my signal returned, I made the call. Now I get a message that my account has been deactivated due to non-payment (meaning that they had put the cost of the new phone on my existing account and sent it over my Sprint credit limit). ARGH. I explained the situation to the billing department person and asked if they could transfer me to Mike
in the Business Department
.
Back on hold.
While waiting, another call came in (thank goodness for call waiting). I answered it.
Mike from the Business Department had called me back.
Now I don’t know how much experience you have with working with folks in tech support, but here is a summary of my experience: they definitely have your phone number, but they never use it. You could have knocked me over with a feather.
He took my credit card information, explained how the process would work, and wished me good night.
That was Wednesday night around 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The replacement phone arrived Friday around noon.
I have only been using the Treo 600 for a few hours, but I will definitely post in a day or so to give my opinion of it. So far I definitely like it better, although the keyboard will take some getting used to.