I attempted to purchase a replacement Samsung Galaxy S D-700 smartphone from SPlusDirect.com on 08 DEC. The company sent a message on the 9th stating that they had found a part that was damaged during shipping and were quick to give me a refund. They were very nice in their e-mail.
Today, I purchased a refurbished unit of the same make and model from ParagonR3 via Amazon.com. ParagonR3 is an electronics recycle. And a copy of the order confirmation was made. I chose standard shipping, which stated that I should expect it in 3 - 7 business days. The order is coming from Massachusetts. Having ordered things for my computer repair business from around the country many times, I predict that the unit will arrive on the 16th.
Some people are going to look at this and wonder why would I use such an "antiquated" smartphone? The biggest reason is that my unit, which hit the market in 2009, is still the latest model on Sprint's network with a pull out qwerty keyboard. I've become a bit of a typist with it. Another thing is that this replacement only cost me $70. My insurance deductible would have been $100, and I'd have to pay about $400 out of pocket to purchase a new model smartphone... I don't have the money to do that and I need something now because it fits in my pocket, contains my task list, notes and day planner which are integral to my life. And without such a device, I would have to carry a bag with a paper day planner everywhere I go.
So why aren't there any newer smartphones with a pull out keyboard? The best answer that I got was that keyboard consumes a lot of power. And I can confirm that when I went to from the Palm Pre to the Galaxy S. In terms of power, in this case, I compare it to fuel, that switch was like going from the Honda Accord to the Cadillac Fleetwood.
On trips, I'm very power contentious. Most of the time, I carry it in the "airplane mode" that shuts off the wi-fi, bluetooth, internet, voice and text message hardware while leaving the rest of computer on. If I'm using my Bluetooth headset, well that just means that I have to do something similar, but I'll have to shut down as much hardware as I can manually because airplane mode will uniformally shut the Bluetooth as well :-(.
During on-board music playback when non-essential services have been shut off, my D-700 can run for about 8 hours if I play more albums and let the screen go black. But on my bicycle, I have a smartphone mount. And its here that I use my unit for GPS turn-by-turn navigation, odometer, and Pandora internet radio when available. That means that for the entire time those services are running, my screen must also remain on for hours. And that means that every piece of hardware on the smartphone is being used to its maximum potential simultaneously. At this rate, I'll be lucky to get 2 hours of battery life out of the D-700. So, I have 2 extra spares, and the batteries are usually marked A, B & C. A & B are usually newer batteries and have longer life. Battery C is usually the oldest. It's also the weakest because of how many times it's previously been exposed to a recharge.
When the third battery gets down to about 20% charge, that's about the point where I usually power the smartphone off to save it for something else. Emergency calls can be made on 10%. The extra ten are for other contingencies, like making a call or text to someone else, or having to use Google Maps to plot some other course if I need to leave my current route early.
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