Sprint Megathread: Dead Man Sprinting

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Sprint Megathread: Dead Man Sprinting

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

yellowjournalism posted:

So I just upgraded to SERO premium over the phone and as my itchy trigger finger hovers over adding the Evo 3D to my cart, I noticed some google hits on it overheating. Is this a minor fluke for some random people or should I hold off?

Also, do I need to wait for my account to actually convert to premium before ordering?

If you chose to immediately switch to SERO Premium, then yeah, you can place your order. If you chose to have it apply starting on the next billing cycle, then you can't.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2011 00:55

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 18:02

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Carnage posted:

wait wait...because of this, i can get out of my contract and still keep my number/service with sprint? or this is specifically if i want to do away with sprint to go with another carrier? someone clarify?

It's specifically for claiming that material changes have been made to your contract, in an effort to get the ETF waived. You only encounter an ETF if you're leaving the carrier. You can't just magically jump from mid-contract to month-to-month.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2011 07:01

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Haji posted:

That's lame because I have a smart phone right now. I have the HTC Touch Pro. I got it right before they shut down SERO. It's a nice little phone, but I have phone envy for my boyfriend's Android.

XDAndroid runs pretty decently on the Touch Pro2 now. I use it as my main OS now instead of WinMo.

Here's the main info thread for it on the Raphael. And here are some important necessary tweaks for your CDMA version of the phone.

td4guy posted:

Just remember that the first boot will be super-slow as you're waiting for a ton of setup that's going on in the background. I initially thought it was the same old buggy Android as before. But seriously just leave your phone alone for 10+ minutes and it will magically improve.

Bluetooth works (except for audio on the TP2. dunno about CDMA TP).
Wifi works great (hacks needed for WEP).

^{(and one or two other issues)}

XDAndroid gets better every month.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2011 09:17

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

iostream.h posted:

Incidentally, you guys talking about Sprint's network being slow should spend some time with T-Mobile's 'throttled' data service.

For the second or third time, I've found myself throttled on Sprint to only 150kbps.

This latest time, this Labor Day weekend, I only used a couple hundred MBs tethering before it started to occur.

I thought Sprint wasn't supposed to do this at all.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2011 15:35

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Matlock posted:

While I'm thinking of it, my phone's battery life has died off severely and likes to overheat frequently lately. I barely get 5 hours with very little use now.

I don't have TEP, it's still under warranty.

What's my options?

It sounds like you have a rogue process gone wild and eating all your CPU and battery. You need to track it down and/or do a hard reset to see if that makes the problem go away. If that doesn't fix it, then yeah, look into a warranty replacement.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2011 16:19

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

MrCodeDude posted:

Is there a documented problem with the Touch Pro 2 randomly turning off? My battery is currently at 50% and it's turned off twice in the past hour. Or it turns off 1/10 incoming phone calls. It also freezes when I'm composing a text and a text comes in.

I wanted to wait until mid-October to see the whole deal with the iPhone 5, but given the recent performance of the TP2, I don't know.

I have TEP. What's the best course of action? Get it replaced under TEP, flip it and then upgrade to the Galaxy S 2?

I'd try a hard reset, followed by a full charge and full discharge of the battery (to hopefully calibrate it). If that doesn't fix it, then yeah, replace it with TEP.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2011 07:03

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Krittick posted:

Side note: any way to get mms working with the GV number instead of the normal Sprint number? Googling says no but I'd love input on this if anyone has found otherwise.

Nope, there's no support for MMS on GV.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2011 00:01

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

I was recently able to receive a TOL on a SERO account, I'm assuming because I already had a SERO line so the call center people didn't have to do the taboo thing of creating a new SERO account.

Anyway, I just discovered that it's totally possible to swap in a Touch Pro2 without any issues on sprint.com. No requirement to upgrade to SERO Premium and be hit with the $10 fee. Cool deal!

# ¿ Oct 3, 2011 00:24

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

No. 9 posted:

Yeah the old SERO 500, I can't see where to add TEP on the services page. I knew I saw people doing this months (maybe even a year or so) ago, though. Just can't really find the old posts (here, Slickdeals, XDA, and PPCGeeks all had knowledge of it).

If for some reason I can't do this, I made a thread to buy a used one in case anyone is looking to get rid of their phone: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3441578

You can't add TEP. That can only be done during the first 30 days that you have the phone on the account (or something like that). Also it was do-able during all of September because they were having a TEP promotion.

This is done specifically to prevent people from simply signing up for insurance after they have an incident.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2011 00:39

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

clockworx posted:

If I have SERO Premium, can I add another SP line easily? I was told I can have up to 4 lines when I transferred it from someone else, but now I've read reports that it's difficult to get a SP line added and most reps will tell you that they can't due to it being an outdated plan.

Good luck. It's practically impossible, as their Employee Care staff are pretty well-educated about not being allowed to do it now. I tried a handful of times, and probably ended up with a negative note on my account or something because the staff started asking questions like "is this the first time you've called about this?"

# ¿ Oct 6, 2011 15:11

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

hoonchops posted:

I have an android phone and I'm using sprint's integrated google voice deal. how much functionality will I lose when I move to the iphone?

The whole point of the integration is that it doesn't matter at all which phone you have. So people with dumbphones can take advantage of the same cool services that smartphone people have been getting with their GV app.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2011 12:44

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

ExcessBLarg! posted:

Aside from TEP replacements, even putting a "new" TP2 on a SERO plan requires $40/mo now anyways.

I actually just discovered last week that I was able to switch from a dumbphone to a TP2 on sprint.com, and it stayed on $30 SERO. No issues at all. I guess they never programmed in the thing to make it say "hey, a plan change is required for this" as it does for Android/WinPho/WebOS/iPhones. Because that's what $40/mo would require - a plan change to SERO Premium.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2011 08:47

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

dundun posted:

With a rooted EVO 4G, how much data can you use with the free Wifi Tether app before Sprint throttles the connection?

Sprint doesn't throttle like T-Mo does. But you may run into network congestion on 3G, depending upon what region you're in.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2011 06:42

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

err posted:

Did you go in to a store or did you order a phone online? Hesitant to do either until I see "SERO Premium" on my account page. Isn't it regarded that most Sprint reps won't know what SERO is?

If you have SERO, then the only Sprint reps you should ever, ever, talk to are the Employee Care people at 1-866-264-1282. They'll take care of any account changes (like to SERO Premium), then transfer you to Sales when you want to order a phone.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2011 06:22

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Abeya Minora posted:

I've read through the past seven pages, and didn't see anything about this topic.

Does anyone know about Sprint's policy towards using GSM cards on unlocked phones that can facilitate world roaming? I managed to pick up an unlocked iPhone 4S from the Apple Store for cheap last night, and I'm curious how it's going to work when I transfer my Premier SERO account over to it. I'm reading conflicting reports on how Sprint is going to deal with unlocked iPhones, and how they are going to lock/unlock the microsim. Anyone have any ideas?

The SIM card slot in Sprint worldphones is only used when visiting other countries. Its GSM radio is incapable of communicating with domestic GSM providers. If my old Touch Pro2 is any indication, you won't need to worry about any sort of unlocking. You can just take it overseas and it works.

edit: Wait, are you sure you even got a Sprint iPhone? I don't expect that Sprint is going to allow it to be activated on their network unless its serial number is in their Sprint database.

td4guy fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Oct 13, 2011

# ¿ Oct 13, 2011 10:44

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

One less thing between you and the server you're streaming from, I guess.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2011 06:47

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

quadratic posted:

Is the EPRP email address (everythingreferral@sprint.com) actually useful for support issues? I spent an hour and a half getting bounced around to different departments when I called the 888-876-8381 number listed on the EPRP page. My situation is a bit complicated, so it's a pain in the rear end having to explain it from the beginning every single time I get transferred.

From the old old Sprint thread OP:

quote:

E-Care is a panacea for all that ails you. ecare@cc.sprintpcs.com

This should really be in the OP here too.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2011 00:38

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

flyboi posted:

My sister is on an OG SERO plan and my mom wants to ditch her landline for a cell phone. Can my sister add my mom to her plan or does that require EPRP?

Your sister has a one in a million chance of finding a representative that'll add another SERO line to the account. They'd be more than happy to add an EPRP line though - no worries there.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2011 06:19

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Abeya Minora posted:

They fixed it on their website, but there was a url coupon exploit that allowed you to purchase it with the ICARUS SUBSIDIZED PHONE version of various iphone 4s, by manually malforming the store identities. Again, it's fixed, and they cancelled a few of my friends orders, but I have currently being prepared for shipment a "iPhone 4S 16GB White Sprint- UNLOCKED".

Here's the URL I used for mine - I'm told it doesnt work at all anymore, but yrmv http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MD378LL/A?select=select&product=MD378LL/A&cppart=UNLOCKED/US

Got any updates on yours? Mine just changed from "processing" to "preparing for shipment".

# ¿ Oct 19, 2011 02:21

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Update for that subsidized iPhone apple.com malformed store ID hack link from a few pages back... It worked! FedEx tracking shows my phone just shipped from Shenzen, CN.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2011 00:23

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

I ordered on the 13th and it shipped on the 22nd (okay, it was the 23rd by then in China). Gonna make some mad eBay dollars.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2011 07:46

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Are you making sure that the store is an actual official Repair Center as listed on Sprint.com, and not just a retail store? Because the latter may just be staffed by idiots.

td4guy fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Oct 25, 2011

# ¿ Oct 25, 2011 01:31

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

that Vai sound posted:

A 2-year contract is the only way to get an iPhone from Sprint? No month to month? In that case I might just get one through Verizon.

No. A 2-year contract is the only way to get any service from Sprint.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2011 04:45

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Update on that hacked-subsidized iPhone from apple.com. I received it, but it didn't say Sprint anywhere on the packing list or the box. I took it to the Apple Store and they scanned the barcode and told me it was Sprint. Hooray! So no worries there. Good luck on your orders, everyone.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2011 20:58

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Shed posted:

Yeah, I definitely agree. It can sometimes take like 3 weeks for the warehouse to state that they received it.

And all the while, they send you automated emails saying that they haven't received it yet.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2011 00:02

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Why do you guys think they didn't have the EVO Design listed as a possible replacement? Too new? To me it sounds more logical than upgrading the customer to the more expensive EVO 3D.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2011 01:06

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Sure, order it. It ought to change to SERO Premium on the website tomorrow. Then you'll be able to activate the phone. Or if not, you can always call Employee Care and they'll take care of you pretty quickly.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2011 02:02

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

CharlesM posted:

Is that all the towers? Or just ones getting upgrades?

Just the ones getting upgrades. The site doesn't even show any towers near me until I zoom out to see neighboring towns ~10mi away.

Vladimir Putin posted:

Question: I am on SERO and I just got my iphone over the mail. Previously 0i was on the $40 smartphone plan, but this would be an upgrade. Should I activate the phone over the internet or do I need to call in to do it?

You can do it over the internet. It's not a plan change. It's just a $10 fee that's added on automatically.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2011 07:35

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

rhombus posted:

I got my EVO 3D and logged into Sprint's site to upgrade. I'm currently on the $40 SERO Premium 500. I figured it would just tell me I needed to add the $10/month data, but it wouldn't let me activate without changing plans completely. Now I am waiting for everythingreferral@sprint.com to add the data to my plan which I am hoping will fix it.

While I'm waiting I've been playing around with the new phone. While the hardware is really snappy and doesn't suffer from the random 10 second freezes that my WinMo phone does, I'm not impressed by Android with Sense. I guess I just need to learn the tricks of the OS and get it customized the way I want it, but those WinMo rom cookers did some great work with the hardware they had available.

You should've just called Employee Care. They'd have gotten you activated and good to go in like 2 minutes.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2011 07:32

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

big mean giraffe posted:

256mb RAM? Jesus that thing must chug like crazy.

The Hero only has 288MB.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2011 01:59

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

http://www.seidioonline.com/htc-evo-3d-multi-function-battery-charger-black-p/bd3-bcsi3hev3d-bk.htm

This looks nice, and I've had good experiences with Seidio products in the past. And it seems specifically designed for the picky EVO 3D/Sensation 4G. Mentioning "specific power requirements" and all.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2011 00:49

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Ozmodiar posted:

Good to know. I would love to throw in a prepaid AT&T SIM when I travel in a few weeks.

Last time I went to the area, I had no service with Sprint, and my parents had no service with Verizon, but my girlfriend had no problems with AT&T.

Not exactly Sprint related...but does anyone know how prepaid data plans work? Is there even such a thing?

You've got that wrong. It's unlocking for use with foreign simcards in foreign countries. Under no circumstances will the phone accept domestic simcards.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2011 21:31

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Not at the moment. See the Jailbreak Thread here on-site.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2011 01:59

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

A quick check on eBay shows 'em going for like $180-200.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2011 08:30

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

jackpot posted:

So I go into the sprint store and tell them "I got a bad battery." Guy takes it to the back and comes back a few minutes later: "Our tests say the battery's fine, but if you leave it with us for a few hours we'll figure out what's wrong." And then he nonchalantly adds "We might have to wipe the phone." I explain to him that I really, really don't want them to wipe the phone - that it's pretty clearly a battery issue (I keep the phone on charge 90% of my day, and the problem only happens when I take it off charge). He says "we'll try not to, but we want to rule everything out." Fine, that makes sense.

So I pick it up two hours later and they say "Our tests show it was a bad battery, we've ordered you a new one." And they'd wiped my phone. Thanks guys

lovely, man. When I took my phone in to be repaired not that long ago, I was specifically asked the following:

"Do you consent to having your phone wiped during our troubleshooting process?"

So then I had to say yes or no (I said yes). Then the printout receipt copy he handed me had a line at the bottom that said something like:

Customer authorizes PDA wipe _____
Which I assume he put an X on the line on his copy for the repair man.

So that's how it's supposed to work.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2011 02:02

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

SneakyCracker posted:

Alright. I've asked this in this thread before, but that was pre-Galaxy Nexus announcement from Google. At that point, I was told to wait a few weeks until we knew what was coming. Now that we all know what it is and that it is completely unknown as to whether or not it will come to Sprint, I'm going to re-ask my question.

Given that I can now get it for $50, would it be worth upgrading to an EVO 3D from an Epic? Now that the Epic has received 2.3.5 officially (and following rooting and applying the GPS fix and a few other minor things) the Epic runs decently well.

So, it is worth it? I mean, I will be with this phone a lot longer now that the Premier yearly upgrade will be going away for me. On one hand, well.. $50 is pretty drat good for what is a proven good phone, but I will have to wait and hope for a ICS upgrade. On the other hand, if I wait, I will be getting something newer that may run ICS native, but will likely be paying as much as 5x more.

Also a big consideration for me - does the EVO 3D have an official OEM vehicle mount? if not, is there a good 3rd party mount that will charge the phone while its mounted? I use my phone for GPS a lot in my work vehicle, so this is a pretty big point for me.

Does it bug you when you get lag when playing around with Google Maps or browsing the web? Does the 800x480 resolution seem a bit small/restrictive? Then upgrade. If you're happy with what you've got, then don't bother.

http://www.proclipusa.com/ has some very nice mounts. But they're pricey. Like $60 for an Epic 4G charging mount and another $30 for a dash mount specific to your vehicle's make and model. I really like mine.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2011 15:06

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Quid posted:

When the online site says until December 07, does that mean I have to order tonight or I also have tomorrow? I'm still on the $30 SERO plan with a Touch Pro2 that has a poo poo battery. I was going to stop in and see if the store near my job can do anything about the battery but if I can check out the 3D in store tomorrow I may upgrade.

Would I have to call the 800 number and upgrade to SERO premium before or after ordering the Evo 3D? When I try to add it to the shopping cart online it says I need to add a $10 premium data something or other. Is that part of the SERO premium thing or will that be an additional $10 bringing the total per month up to $60?

Sorry if it's been asked already but the topic is a bit overwhelming and the SERO and ERT thing keep confusing me. I don't want to mess up while upgrading. It seems like from reading it would just be $50 but I don't see any mention of an extra data plan so I'm a little unsure.

You can probably order it without adjusting your plan, but you definitely won't be able to activate the phone until you call in and change to SERO Premium. You might as well call in and do the switch before ordering, to minimize the chance of anything going awry.

And your bill will end up being $40 SERO Premium 500 + $10 premium data.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2011 07:49

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Yeah but it's 14 days, not 30.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2011 01:57

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Aren't PRL and profile two different things? (preferred roaming list versus user id/password)

# ¿ Dec 8, 2011 08:06

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 18:02

td4guy: Jun 13, 2005; I always hated that guy.

Krime posted:

I've got a SERO account with android and all that jazz that I end up paying around $55 for after taxes.

Can I add my fiance on to my account as an iPhone EPRP? Assuming I can't get another SERO that would be the best thing to do, right?

You can add an EPRP line to your account, no problem. EPRP is only equivalent to a 16.67% discount though, and prevents you from taking advantage of awesome deals at third party stores like Radio Shack and AmazonWireless. So maybe check around to see if you can't get a better discount through your employer or something.

StuntDouble posted:

I've been on basic SERO for the last 3 years and I'm finally ready to upgrade this horrible free dumbphone. I want to upgrade to the $40 a month plan--what's the best phone available in that price bracket? I mostly use my phone for texting and occasional web browsing.

The LG Marquee has the best specs, but is currently showing as Sold Out on Sprint.com. There's also the Windows Phone 7 HTC Arrive if you want a keyboard and nice screen. And the Motorola vertical keyboard "blackberry form factor" phones if you don't care about having a nice big screen.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2011 00:26

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