Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Stay away from the AT&T Tilt phone

Why? Because it's extremely fragile. I got one a couple of weeks ago (sponsored by my company, otherwise I wouldn't have shelled out $399) and after just 2 days I found the screen cracked in 2 places. It's true I carried it in my jacket's pocket while driving, and it probably jammed against my leg or something, but I've done that with other phones and didn't have this issue.

Of course, calls to the store, AT&T warranty and the manufacturer were all fruitless. The store won't accept it back because it's not in 'like new' state, and AT&T's warranty doesn't cover cracks in the screen. My best option at this point is to send it to the manufacturer for repairs, which will run me another $190. For now, I'm just using it as is, but I just want to tell whoever bothers to read this that I'm not happy -- not with the Tilt, and not with AT&T's customer service. There. Take that, AT&T.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow. thanks for the information. Even if I thought you were maybe to abusive with your phone the information about repair and cost would be enough to keep me from purchasing one. I was reading post because I planned on going out tomorrow to buy one. Now you leave me with no other choice than to buy an IPhone. I hesitated because I am sure a new model may be in the works and I would hate to end up with a paperweight.

Armand

Anonymous said...

Love the Tilt. For less money than the iPhone, you get a video camera, built-in GPS, MMS messaging, and more. Haven't had any experience that leads me to believe it's unusually fragile. You can insure the phone with safeware.com.

Andrew Holley said...

same exact thing happened to me.
the phone was in my pocket for 5 minutes. pulled it out and screen was cracked. didn't do anything that would've caused damage to any other phone.

Anonymous said...

I also have a useless Tilt screen went out with in 4 weeks. ATT&T will do nothing, DONT WASTE YOUT MONY ON THE TILT! Unless you really baby it, it can not witdhstand what would be considered normal cell phone use.

HRY said...

I must be lucky. I've dropped it 5 times, being the butter finger I am, and it's withstood all! No screen scratches, though some dents in the case from the falls. Works great, still.

Unknown said...

I bought a Tilt a week ago and found this thread while Googling to find others experiences with it toughness. I am TOUGH on my cell phones. It lives in my pocket, whether I'm driving, moshing, wrestling with my daughters, etc. So do my keys, changes, pens, the random frog, and other assorted objects.

The problem is that love the Tilt . . . I guess I will have to hope for the best. I read the above about insuring the phone. Great idea! I thought, until I got my quote:

- price of Tilt with rebate ($299)

- annual insurance premium from safeware.com ($200)

- deductible ($200)

So if I insure the this phone over the life of my two year contract, I will have paid $400 to insure a $299 device. If I have even a single incident, I will have spend $600 to insure a $299 device. If I have one incident per year, I will have spent $800 to insure my $299 device.

Niiiiiiice!

Anonymous said...

I've had the Tilt for 7 or 8 months. Got it the week they came out. Heavy use for business and have dropped it a couple of times. I have had no problems. I find it hard to believe anyone would purchase this product and just stick it in their pocket w/ keys,change, etc and sit on it and expect it not to have problems. The Tilt is a business phone/mobile computer w/ more power than my first laptop. Treat it like it's a $300 piece of equipment, which it is, and it will give you more than you have ever received from a pocket pc phone in the past.
Bobby

Anonymous said...

I HATE THE TILT! I bought my 16-year old son this overpriced phone (not to mention the added mothly price for the data plan) and 2 days later he bumped the screen with his elbow and that was it! I got no help from AT&T to repair or return it. The phone still looks brand new, except for the hairline scratch in the screen! I have been waiting for the price to repair it to go down. I can get it repaired now for about another $150. DO NOT waste your $$ on this phone!

Anonymous said...

Not trying to spam here but I think I can help other people out who come across this thread and have a broken Titl. I actually repair these phones for a pretty reasonable price: $90 and that includes everything except shipping (which is under $6). From everything I've seen, that's a pretty good deal. You can check us out here.

Unknown said...

Love the Tilt. Dropped it countless times with no issues. It took slamming it in one of my car doors to break the screen. Im lost but I shall be found again ;)

Unknown said...

The Tilt is a great pda/phone but any device with a large screen can break. The iPhone is also a great device. However, the LCD screen on the iPhone is larger and is much more expensive to repair than the Tilt. The Tilt screen can be replaced for around $100. I have a "mail-in" repair service for the Tilt which can be found at www.greatgizmos.net or by searching on eBay. The service is fast and professional.

Anonymous said...

LOVE MY TILT!!!!! I play tennis a lot so my tilt is not only attached to my belt but when on the court attached to my tennis bag. Dropped it a couple of times and I do not baby my phone - I have never had a problem with it being scratched or damaged. I would recommend this phone to anyone - I also downloaded Splash Shopper, Slash ID and Stock Monitor

Anonymous said...

I have had the Tilt since I received it as my Valentine's gift from my husband. Needless to say, I have had no problems with my phone and I'm more in love with it with each new thing that I'm able to do with it. You certainly weren't protecting it by carrying it in your jacket pocket and maybe because you didn't shell out the money for it. I have a beautiful case for it and it looks brand new 9 months later!

But a Tilt, it's well worth it and is an awesome phone!

Anonymous said...

I have had my Tilt for about 4 months now and love it. It is definitely one of the best phones on the market. However, I keep it in a case on my belt and it still came up with a broken screen today. I'm not sure how it happened, but am determined to get it fixed.

Anonymous said...

The Tilt is a complete piece of crap. AT&T replaced mine after 4 months, because it just stopped working. Then my replacement phone after 7 months only takes and receives calls about 20% of the time. Email works oh maybe once every 2 days. The phone is garbage. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON IT! So far AT&T won't replace the remplacement phone. Ugh . . . $350.00 out.

Anonymous said...

Ha ha. If you had car and you didn't press a brake, it's not your fault, it's car's fault right. Stupidity. This is one of the best Windows phone and it's a smartphone, not like iPhone dumbphone. So, you need to learn how to work with it, but after that you'll have small laptop in your pocket. Get a protective cover, and you'll never have problems with it. Great QWERTY keyboard for all finger sizes.

Anonymous said...

my screen has broken like 2 times i nthe past 4 days just by putting it in an empty pocket then id just break. its crap and to shell out $190 to fix it every week its worthless... dont waste the money..

Anonymous said...

I purchased the ATT Tilt about 10 months ago. I've dropped the phone several times without any real problem. The last time I dropped it, a tiny piece broke off right under the power button, where the phone opens to the keypad. However, I went to bed Saturday night and woke up Sunday and found my screen to be cracked with ink splotches on the inside of the screen, so it's very obviously cracked, so ATT won't honor the warrenty and HTC wants almost $200 just to replace the screen! That's almost half of what the phone costs brand new. I did buy my phone refurbised, to save money, and I upgraded with ATT for another 2 years, received an online discount, and didn't have to pay the upgrade fee, so I wound up only paying about $50 for the phone, so if I were to pay HTC to fix the screen, it would be costing me four times what I paid for the phone. Through this, I found out that the insurance on the phone hadn't been dropped but that ATT doesn't allow the Tilt to have insurance because of the manufactorer, HTC, which tells me that HTC knows that this phone is defective and if insurance were allowed then HTC would be losing a lot of money on this phone, so instead they offer to fix it but with a whole lot of trouble first, and I can't be without my phone for a month because I'm trying to get a job right now. I find it quite scandalous of ATT and HTC. ATT customer service can only say "Oh yes, I can imagine how upset you are but there's nothing we can do. Thank you for being a valued customer of ATT and by the way, I must let you know that you do have a past due amount of $250 due by March 1 and then $400 due again on March 28th for your monthly bill" and after all that money that we pay to that darn company, you'd think that they would do something, anything! I admit I've dropped my phone a couple times, from maybe 2 feet, and it's never done any type of damage as the screen cracking! Nothing happened to my phone between Saturday night and Sunday morning. It didn't get wet, no body touched it, it didn't get dropped, etc. nothing happened to it! All that happened was that it sat on my coffee table overnight and magically had the screen cracked overnight. Warrenty doesn't cover a phone with physical damage, which I just can't get ATT to explain to me how it can be physical damage if nothing physical happened to it...it just broke for no good reason, no reason at all! I'm so mad about this! On top of that, I've got all my phone numbers saved to the phone because it gave more options of information to save and so now I've got none of my contact numbers saved to my sim card and there are some numbers that I really need! Does anyone know how to fix that problem? Can I copy my phone to my computer? Is there anyway to save my phonebook without being able to see my phone screen???

Anonymous said...

Love the tilt. I have had the tilt since its release. I am very hard on phones and have had a few other smart phones that aren't nearly as durable as this one. I have dropped it several times without any damage. I have broken the screen once dropped a tool on it in the garage. It cost $50 for a new screen and replaced it myself. Easy and inexpensive. The phone also worked with a broken screen before i replaced it. The screen remains viewable when cracked and navigation and text can be done without use of the touchscreen.

Anonymous said...

I've had my phone since Aug 08. My only problem is that I lost the stylus, both of them. My phone has been dropped lots and thankfully no problems (yet). Does anyone know where to purchase additional stylus' that will fit the phone?

Anonymous said...

I've had two Tilts that I have dropped and never had a problem other than the back cover popping off. I mentioned that I've had two...
The first one was in my jacket pocket when I was clearing snow off my car. A snowball landed in my pocket and I did not realize it until it was too late. AT&T would not honor the warranty since I'd gotten it wet (there's an indicator under the battery that should be white, but was pink. I bought another one so I have one for spare parts.
Do not get these wet!

Joe Anerson said...

I threw my tilt at the ground in a fit of rage and it still works perfectly.maybe the manufacturers of the screen are to blame? my only complaint about the tilt are the tiny touch buttons and the fact that there's no physical volume control, and the hold button. no problems with the screen though.

Anonymous said...

I've had my Tilt phone since Nov 2007. Up to now I never had any major issues with it., but recently it just dies after the first call. I let it charge all night on off mode and in the morning when I make my first call it just shots down sometimes even during the call! I'm not sure if its the battery since when I turn it on the battery icon shows fully charged! does any one have the same problem???

Princess Mousie said...

I have a hand-me-down Tilt, originally owned by a friend. It's been going strong since the end of 2007 despite MANY drops to the floor, into mop buckets, and onto hot cooktops (we're restaurant workers). Neither my friend nor myself have treated this phone with any more care than any other phone, and have had no problems. Last week, I dropped it and one of the four locking clips on the back cover cracked. I guess it's time after surviving all those falls and crunches. The replacement will cost me about $20. Not bad, I'd say!

Anonymous said...

i have had my tilt for over 2 years now. i've found it to be one of the most durable touch screen phones that i've had in years...

i went snowboarding last winter and i fell quite a few times (with my phone in my pocket)...the phone obviously did quite alright given the circumstances and the pressure due to the fall. i did walk away with a 2 small cracks on the screen, but no biggy.

i've dropped this phone numerous times just to stupidity.

regardless, the phone still works quite well even after all of the abuse i've put it through.

Anonymous said...

For those who had a bad experience I am sorry. Maybe it it different batches of phones. My husband and I have had these phones for 2 years now. He works in a salvage yard tearing up cars all day and I work in a body shop. I am not babyish to my phone and I love it. Recently my husband dropped his phone into the water and so we had to persue another phone. Initially I gave him mine and went with a samsung impression. HATE IT. I am on ebay now looking to buy another Tilt and will sell the impression I hate.

Modifying EC2 security groups via AWS Lambda functions

One task that comes up again and again is adding, removing or updating source CIDR blocks in various security groups in an EC2 infrastructur...