Mountain View Cellphones

11/29/2009 by MountainViewCellphones.com

We have recently seen the rare occurrance of the Sprint HTC Hero going into digital roaming and not coming out of roaming. This is a big problem because all the standard trouble shooting with the network requires the phone to have good communication with the Sprint network. Alas, it doesn’t in roaming mode.

The solution to this problem is fortunately, easy. Bring the phone to your local Sprint Service Center or here to us in Mountain View, CA, and instruct them you need a PRL update. A PRL Update will update the preferred roaming list for the phone and get you reset in the correct area.

If this alone does not work, once the new PRL is installed, you may want to reset the phone completely with a ##RTN#. Again, you local service center can do this for you.

After one or both of these activities you should be able to have your phone back in operation.

2/13/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com

The LG LX-160, “Free Phone,” is exactly what you get.  Although you do save money upfront, you really don’t get a phone that serves the purpose of lasting a long time.  This phone was not well built and we deal with the problems constantly.

 Key failure points:

1.  The charging port.  It’s poorly designed and starts to give out if you put any type of pressure on it.  This leads to a downward spiral of charging port abuse as customers try to push, jam, wiggle the charging port to charge, causing more damage.  At some point, the whole assembly is ripped from the motherboard and the phone is worthless.

2.   Keypad sticks or fails.  We’ve seen this a few times where the phone will not recognize a certain key.  It could be due to a failure on the keypad dome or by excessive pressure on the keys once a slow response starts.  Again, the cycle of abuse to make the electronics work.

3.  Searching for service.  The antenna/chipset is busted, kaput, DOA, etc…

So, if you have an LX-160, be gentle with it.  It’s not a rugged phone and if you use it infrequently, then it will work ok.  However, if you are a constant phone user and you wanted to save a few bucks up front on your purchase, you won’t be satisfied with the durability of this unit.  Buy another unit with better design and parts.  The mid-range Samsung M-520 or Sanyo Eclipse would better fit your use.  Buyers need to take some personal responsibility for their purchases and tell the sales person at the store how they use their phone and what they need.

Remember, the cheapest O-rings blow up space shuttles.  In the cell phone world, you often do get what you paid.  There are differences in prices for a reason.

2/2/2009 by www.mountainviewcellphones.com

We are expanding our service and repair business to start repairing more models of Smartphones.  We are first starting with a simple Blackberry Trackball repair for $35.00 and in less than 30 minutes (parts and labor).  www.phonemechanics.com

 We look forward to helping your business or personal needs.  Either mail or drop by your phone and we will repair your trackball issues quickly and efficiently. 

 We are working on getting a more formal site up and running that will be a large jump in service and convenience for customers nationwide for repairing their phones.  We will keep the world up to date on our progress and improvements to our service. 

Sprint’s One Touch is the first carrier attempt (that I know about) to put a standard GUI interface on all of the Carrier’s phone in addition to the manufacturer’s GUI.

This is a great standardization and a good way for Sprint to have a more seamless experience for customers with any Sprint handset.

For now, the One Touch is a carousel of items at the bottom of the screen that can be programmed to quickly do the 10-20 things you do all the time with your device.  You can program the carousel tiles to access a particular site (rather than taking 2-3 steps to find the web app, open the browser, and then pick your favorite).  Not only will with work with web sites, but it will work with specific phone features, IM Mom, email Bob, calling home, applications like facebook, etc…

This is unique to Sprint and allows Sprint customers to be able to get the best phone they want and still be able to do what they want with a push of a button.  Secondly, it helps the carrier provide a difference versus other carriers by making their products easier to use.  Ease of use will be key to driving Sprint’s data centric strategy going forward.  As phones can do so much more, it’s critical Sprint to focus on making the features easy to use or people just won’t adopt it.  Sure you have the 20% tech crowd that will go thru much trouble to adopt the coolest features, but the other 80% of the population will try once or twice and then just give up.

A great move for the carrier.

Lastly, we have tested One Touch internally and it works great.  It’s simple and easy to use and does allow you to customize your phone experience to what you like quickly and to improve the experience quickly.

The turnaround is working.

By: www.mountainviewcellphones.com  9/14/08

When you get a new phone or upgrade with Sprint, you will be asked whether you want Total Equipment Protection with the phone.  As a service center, we of course promote this because we want users to be protected in their investment, but the reality is, we really don’t understand the risk profile of each customer.

First, let’s understand the economics of Sprint’s insurance or service and repair program.  Sprint has divided the service criteria into four quadrants for walk in customers.  These prices are for walk in customers without insurance.  On the X axis, we have damage classifications as “Normal Wear and Tear” and “Physical Damage.”  On the Y axis, we have “Phone and Mobile Broadband Cards” and “PDA” devices.  My little diagram is below for clarity. 

Normal Wear and Tear                    Physical Damage

Phone & MBC           $35                                                 $99

PDA                            $55                                                 $119

Normal Wear and Tear on devices is considered anything outside of physical damage.  Physical damage is considered cracked or broken screen or housing, cracked or separated flip or hinge assemblies, cracked or bleeding LCD, cracked or broken lenses, and/or a broken charging port.  In other words, any significant repair is going to cost you $99 or $119 dollars.

However, not included in this chart is that basic software problems with the phone that can be fixed free of charge.  These use to be $15 service charges but are now free for all Sprint customers.       

I would highly recommend you get the insurance if you are a “high” risk profile.  How do you know you are high risk.  Here are some questions to ask yourself.

1.  Have dogs or other animals that like to play with things you touch?

2.  Have little children that take things and drop/throw them or put them in their mouth?

3.  Are active outdoors and have the phone on you while outdoors?

4.  Are you in a profession requiring you to use the phone while outdoors or on the road?  (Sales, construction, mobile technicians, mobile nursing etc…)

5.  Have you destroyed many phones in the past?  (Left in pocket and went thru washing machine?)

6.  Are you prone to losing items?  (Frequently leave your personal belongings on airplanes, restaurants, client sites, etc…)

7.  Are you a heavy phone user?  Use more than 2000 minutes per month?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, then I would consider you as “high” risk.  

If you are high risk, then it makes the greatest sense for you to get the Equipment Replacement Program for the Physical Damage coverage or the Total Equipment Protection program.  This is assuming an incident happens to you and you are able to redeem the benefits you have pre-paid for.  However, the advantage here is that you the consumer know more about how you treat your phone than the carrier.     

For physical damage, the cost with the Equipment Replacement Program is $4/month + $50/deductible.  Assuming the replacement cost of a new phone is about $280 the first year, you would save about $226-$184 for the year.  Your savings for the 2nd year, if an incident happened would be $102-$68 versus a 1 year upgrade eligible phone.  After this point, it becomes a better value proposition to buy a new phone with the upgrade credits provided in the 2nd year.

The Total Equipment Protection program would yield a benefit of $223-$148 in the first year and $43-$7 in the second year.

For a phone that costs more than $280 in value for replacement and you are in a high risk category, it almost always makes sense to get either protection program.  All PDA and smartphones fall in this category.       

If you were hesitant about spending $7/month, get the $4/month Equipment Replacement program as these are the incidents that cost the most money and pay for walk-in service as needed.    

By: www.mountainviewcellphones.com  5/22/08, updated 2/2/2009.

One of the common failure points of the new Blackberries are the track balls.  If too much pressured is applied to them, they will break.  There is an interesting system of sensors and rollers that keep the mouse moving (up, down, left, right) and when pressing the button, executes a command.  If pressed to hard the ball will actually break the sensor under it and it will cease to operate.  Barring this extreme damage, sticky or balls that roll only in one or two directions are generally caused by the rollers getting dirty and not rolling anymore.

I don’t know what people put on their thumbs or get on their thumbs and then transfer to their Blackberries, but we see this problem many times in our service center.  For certain, how you fix this problem is to clean the rollers and the track ball. 

Our fix is to disassemble the device carefully, clean the rollers with some rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs, and then waiting for the alcohol to dry before reassembly.  This has worked many times and has been a great solution for a simple problem.  The newer Blackberries have several different parts to disassemble so be patient not to break the pieces.  Just ensure you get the screws out with torque screw drivers before prying the plastic apart with guitar picks or another plastic tool.

You can also pop the trackball out from the keyboard but be careful.  The plastic prongs that hold the chrome bezel in place are fragile and if broken will render the trackball assembly useless. 

Of course, you can always bring your Blackberry to our service center and we can do this for you.  The charge is only $15.00 for the cleaning and you can leave it with us and go get lunch and then come back and get the phone when you are done.  If there is damage to the trackball assembly, we can sell you a track ball for $15.99 or we can repair the whole thing for $35.00 (parts and labor).  We can do this for most Blackberries (Curve, Pearl, World Edition, 8800s, 8100s, 8300s).

By MountainViewCellphones.com, 3/30/2008

As a service center, we have the privilege to witness some of the many ways that people destroy their wireless communications. We are also witness to the great acts that people put on to avoid telling the truth about how their phones were broken. I find it extremely fascinating that the same broken phone situation will effect every person in a unique way. One person will be professional, calm and composed, and another will be a hysterical chimpanzee, same problem, different reactions.

The first rule of thumb is that the world does go on without a cell phone or wireless phone. Cell phones were not commercially available to the public until the 1980’s and 1990’s. It was not until the 21st Century that prices came down far enough that mass adoption was possible. So, there you have it, 2000 years of living and going on about business without a cell phone…it’s possible although a little more inconvenient. The world did not end because of a lack of wireless communications. So, if your phone breaks, don’t react to it like the end of the world…it’s not.

Read the rest of this entry »

These two free applications will help your experience with HTC devices for Windows Mobile 6.0.  These applications give you the ability to close applications in the background with a simple click on the front screen.  Tap the X and close all background and running applications. 

This is a common problem for freezing of the handset and non-responsiveness.  Read the rest of this entry »

If you have liquid damage on your phone, please bring it to us or another service professional ASAP.  The chances of successfully saving the unit increase dramatically if the phone is brought to us within 24 hours.  Fast action can save you hundreds of dollars.   

Sometimes the phone may work again and you believe it’s ok, but the reality is very different.  Read the rest of this entry »

Although the Internet is a great way to purchase products and have them delivered to your doorstep, it does still lack major advantageous of buying from a competent and understanding store location.

Here are a few reasons why you want to buy in our store.

1. Competent and professional staff. Read the rest of this entry »