Way to go, Handspring

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I have this organizer/phone that consists of a really nifty organizer with a phone plugged into it. For almost a year, the organizer has worked flawlessy, despite a huge number of cracks, gouges in the screen, and chipped off pieces. The phone, on the other hand, has been “less than optimal.” The voice quality and reception is fine on the phone. The interaction between organizer applications and the phone is absolutely wonderful. The workmanship of the phone device is atrocious. You see, I have gone through FOUR of the phone modules, so far.

It turns out that the design is a little flawed. I opened the third phone module after it broke to see if I could determine the cause and possible fix it if it was a loose connection or something. It was a loose connection AND something. The phone is composed of a large circuit board and a tiny one, connected together with a little plastic header. The only thing holding the two pieces together is the friction of the header and luck. As soon as your luck gives out, the friction will do likewise. This renders the secondary board (holding the headphone jack, the ringer, and the vibrate mechanism) absolutely useless. In fact, the secondary board probably vibrates itself away from the primary board after x-thousand rings or something. Bad design.

But I digress. Back to the subject. Way to go, Handspring! I called them yesterday about the hardware problems with my organizer (no previous problems since buying it), and the guy said it would be 3-5 days. “Can you put a rush on that? This plugs into a VisorPhone and is my primary cell phone.” “No, sorry.” Well, today (less than 20 hours later), I receive a shipment from Airborne Express. Same day shipping. Rock!

Posted in: Dear Diary

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