With the advent of more and more smartphones smacking the ground running, customers receive the benefit of a much wider selection than was available even a year ago, and also occasionally — unfortunately — the tension headache of increased technical flaws. Part of this raw-deal inheritance can be viewed as dues paid by the first generation (generation, in mobile terms, shrunk down to those who purchase a phone within its first trimester) who also make use of the benefits long before the masses. Even the most tech-savvy, who bring gentility and knowledge to their relationship with their phone, can find themselves in queue at their carrier’s retail store, their wait time at the mercy of the crowd, the weather, the associates’ lunch schedules.
The following is a compilation of the most common flows of troubleshooting (the preliminaries most store employees will take in order to resolve your concern) which can easily be accomplished from the comfort of . . . anywhere other than a sandwiched slot in a lengthy line. Also, a few tips on what you can do from that point in order to reduce your wait time and consequential sense of frustration over a device that should be exciting, or, at the very least, productive for you.
First of all, a few basics for any phone, data-first or phone-first: Power the phone off, remove the battery. Simplistic, possibly, and issue-blind, but this can jumpstart the device in cases of freezing, sluggishness, signal loss and more. For GSM phones, remove then reinsert SIM card.
Assess physical damage as an associate would (and, you know, be honest about it). Did anything outside the ordinary happen to your phone? Is the LDC cracked or partially obscured by a black splotch suspiciously mimicking a thumbprint? Was the phone left to fry on the dashboard of a car for a few hours? Is there liquid damage? (A tiny white sticker can be found beneath the battery of most phones. If a tiny RED sticker can be found beneath your battery, this is a yes to the liquid damage.) If any of these can be answered in the affirmative, you have an insurance matter which, in many cases, will not benefit from in-store troubleshooting.
If you have insurance, always contact your carrier before trudging up to the store for a replacement claim — some companies deal with third-party insurance vendors for this and would merely dial a 1-800 number on your behalf and pass the phone receiver to you. The retail store may, though, have a loaner program for those who have trooped through the claims process and come out of it still upright and clutching a claim number. Call the store ahead of time to find out the what-and-how of their program.
If there are no physical injuries to your phone, and if removing and replacing its essential organs has not helped, move one step forward.
Traipsing into the territory of problems common to data phones and not cured by the above: The screen seizes up during browsing, the browser does not connect whatsoever, basic phone functions seem to drop off the face of the earth a couple months (or earlier) into ownership, previously saved items begin self-deleting in a way that smells of cheap, demon-possession horror movies.
Many such issues are related to low memory. With many data phones, the available internal memory is slight and the already-employed internal memory is brimming just to maintain functions of a handheld pulling the shift of a laptop. Several such phones will begin deleting what they interpret to be nonessential functions — such as receiving new text — in the way crew of a sinking ship toss barrels over the side — trying to shed weight to stay afloat. If this is not addressed, the phone can soon, appropriately, capsize.
The expandable memory in many smartphones being released now falls in the 32 GB-plus range; if you’re an avid downloader, saver of pictures and audio clips or (especially) if you compose or edit word documents and/or view and edit spreadsheets, view powerpoint presentations, etc. — a 4 GB-plus SD card is ideal for healthy phone function.
SD card insertion, in most phones, automatically prompts future extra-curricular items to store there; you may need to manually switch over items already logged to your phone’s internal memory.
For no browser connection, take a looksee at your network settings, make sure your carrier or a known partner is displayed there. Many phones display the option to “search for network now.” Give it a whirl.
Battery life draws sighs similar to those drawn by internal memory in smartphones. General rule of thumb — you should get a year’s worth of decent service out of one, so long as your data use isn’t (slippery term) “excessive”. Check into an extended-life version. For a couple days in a row, let the phone drain down until it’s yelping for assistance, plug it up, wait until you get an indication that it’s fully charged, leave it a couple hours beyond this point.
Though this example bears three asterisks as often found in “results not typical” diet pictures, one PDA technician related to me that he went from approximately four to eight hours of consistent usage on his phone by doing this.
Software updates: With the rapidly evolving and competitive platforms out there, you’ll receive plenty of these. And they’re more than extraneous pluses — they’ve been known to improve overall picture of wellness, and to be the nexus of problems if not allowed to properly install. To receive these, just power the phone off and back on once a day.
Master resets: Often work when other measures don’t. While best performed at the guidance of someone versed in resets to yours specific device, there are preparatory steps you can take to make sure your information isn’t lost in the process. Before going in to the store or calling tech support, save your contacts. In GSM phones, go to phonebook settings to make sure your numbers are stored to SIM rather than to the phone itself. For CDMA (and GSM, in many cases), your carrier may well have a “mobile back-up” option which allows you to upload your contacts on their site and download them later as needed. Save all pictures, ringtones, games, etc. to memory card (not done yet? But we talked about this!)
If all else fails, and you’d still prefer to remain extralocal to a bustling retail environment, call customer care from home (on a phone, as the oft-read script goes, other than the one experiencing the difficulty). Say, interrupting the automated talk if need be, “_________ (your brand of data device) technical support”. If this gets your nowhere, or throws the recording into a confused, unhearing loop, press ‘0’ until you get to someone who can readily transfer you to ___________ technical support.
Or, wait for a moment at your retail store when there are three cars in the parking lot and three visible associates through the glass. Even better if one can be seen dreamily polishing the door. They are bored. They will welcome you.
In either scenario, if the problem has escalated beyond the point of home-repair, you’ll be able to tell the first person you speak to all of the troubleshooting you’ve done independently. The response you’ll likely hear is, “Great. Sounds like you’ve already saved yourself a lot of time.”
