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Old 15-10-2010, 12:43
infracom
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: NE London via Crystal Palace
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Don’t laugh about this old phone but until recently I’ve been using an HTC – branded XDA Orbit by O2. Old but it did the job.

I got the original Orbit in 2007 on contract and although a bit fiddly it worked fine and I was quite pleased – remember this was before the iPhone took off.

After 18 months or so the phone stopped responding to the touch screen. I replaced it with another identical Orbit model, rather long in the tooth by now but I was used to it and I happened to have an unused Orbit available. All was OK. Then a couple of weeks ago it started cutting out and rebooting just after taking a call, then more frequently as to be completely unreliable. It’s finally packed up I thought, I am SIM only with O2 so as an emergency measure I put the O2 SIM in an old Nokia I have had lying around for years and use only rarely with a very old Virgin mobile SIM - an emergency phone for visitor use. I put the Virgin SIM card in the Orbit and it seemed to work, a couple of reboots but then OK for days. Mmm I thought, maybe the SIM was not seated properly and that was the problem. So I swapped the SIMs, O2 SIM back into the Orbit, and the reboots started happening again. Put the Virgin SIM back and all was OK. So what is going on? The things I thought of are:
1. The connection with the O2 SIM is not good and that’s the problem, although I cannot see why it has just started.
2. It’s to do with speed of the SIM. The Virgin SIM is much slower than the O2 SIM, but again I cannot see why it has just started.
But my conclusion is that an HTC phone, or at last an Orbit, does not like to be used for more than about 18 months! As most phones get replaced after a year maybe 18 month lifetime is common with HTC phones

Oh, and the phone I am using temporarily? An ancient Nokia 7650, the original Nokia camera phone from about 2002. I was an early adopter of camera phones in those days. Unfortunately it can no longer sync with any PC running software later than Windows XP, but I’ll use it until I decide what other phone to get. Unfortunately most of the well-featured Androids seem to be made by HTC.
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Old 15-10-2010, 16:42
chaos77
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Things seem to be changing faster in the mobile phone world these days, "budget" brands are now springing up with decent models, the ZTE that orang have branded "San Fransisco" is well featured for £99. And certainly has a couple of threads on this forum buzzing. Is it really worth shelling out for long contracts, or paying silly money for the latest phones if they are going to be "outfeatured" in a matter of months? personally i don't think so. £99 pound seems fair to me if it's usefulness is going to be outlived by it's age! just my opinion -
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Old 15-10-2010, 18:16
infracom
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Is it really worth shelling out for long contracts, or paying silly money for the latest phones if they are going to be "outfeatured" in a matter of months? personally i don't think so.
I agree with you. I'm on a business contract and most of these seem to be 24 months, or 30 days SIM only. I'm quite happy with O2 so will be looking for a SIM free phone. I like the look of a Desire or Legend but:
1. They are HTC
2. They cost a fortune and will be obsolete in a few months
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Old 24-10-2010, 10:03
infracom
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Update on this. I googled and came across several reports of people getting reboots. Some blamed batteries or battery contacts. The battery contacts seemed perfect but the battery in my Orbit was over three years old. It showed a 100% charge and kept its charge so I assumed it was OK. But I happened to have a totally unused battery that I bought a few months ago to use as an emergency spare for a camping trip. It had never been used after it was charged. I put this in the phone yesterday and so far I have had no reboots whatsoever although I’ve used the phone for several fairly long calls and WiFi. Doing more googling I discovered that with age the internal resistance of a Li-On battery can increase a great deal. This does not affect the ability to hold a charge but it does mean the voltage can drop greatly under load. So maybe that was the cause of the reboots. I was about to buy a Desire as a replacement but maybe I’ll hold off a bit longer.
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