In February of this year, I upgraded my Verizon Wireless phone to the Motorola Droid. I loved the phone. Android was a new and awesome operating system experience for me. There are apps available on android for almost anything, and it is very much more open than the whole iPhone experience. Not to mention, Verizon has 3G coverage in my area where as that carrier that carries that “other” popular smart phone does not.
However, something odd was happening to the phone. I started noticing it a few months after I got the phone, but around July, it started to get to the point that I couldn’t stand it anymore. The physical keyboard, one of my favorite parts of the phone, was starting to come unglued from the base of the phone. See the pic:

As you can see, there are keys, specifically the D and F keys, that are coming off the keyboard completely. This made it to where I could not use the physical keyboard on the device. (An odd side note, in the month or so that I had decided to go exclusively touch screen, I got much more accurate on the touch screen keyboard. However, I still like the physical keyboard better.) I decided to contact Verizon. This defect should be covered under the manufacturer’s warranty.

My first attempt was via email. Here’s the message I sent:

I upgraded to the Motorola Droid a few months ago. Already, it seems that the keys on the physical keyboard are coming unglued from the keypad itself. It is like the adhesive isn’t holding like it should. I do a lot of texting, but I would not expect this to be something that should happen. Also, I’ve been using headphones with the phone a lot, and it seems as if the headphone jack is shorting out. I have to move the plug of the headphones a certain way to get the full stereo sound, and there is sometimes static. I’ve tried different headphones, so I know it is the phone’s jack, not the headphones, causing the problem. I would like to get a replacement if possible. Both of these issues seem like something that should be covered under the manufacturer’s warranty. Please advise as to how I should go about this. Thanks.

The response I got was this:

Dear Lucas Qualls,

Thank you for contacting our Verizon Wireless website. We are sorry to learn that you are having difficulty with your Motorola Droid due to the keypad coming unglued and with the headphone jack not working. We are happy to assist you with your issue.

First, we sincerely apologize for the delayed response. Due to an extremely high volume of customer email inquiries, the response time has been longer than expected.

To assist you, we will provide information on replacing a device by explaining what the warranty covers and what the insurance option would cover. This information will help you to replace your device.

The one-year warranty that comes with your device will cover the device if the device becomes defective. We regret that this warranty does not cover physical damage to the device. While issues with the headphone jack can be considered a defect, a physically damaged keypad that is coming unglued would not be covered by this warranty. Physical damage would be covered by the insurance option that is available when your purchase a new device. Additionally, we are not aware of any known issues regarding the keypad becoming unglued. Because insurance is not on your account, please consider the following options:

1. Contact Motorola at 1-800-331-6456 or at their www.motorola.com/mdirect/hellomoto/html/hellomoto.htm website for further assistance

2. Contact Verizon Wireless at 1-800-922-0204 for options on purchasing another device

We hope you find this information helpful and that our level of service rates a “10″ with you. More information on the Droid devices can be found at the following website:

http://support.vzw.com/clc/features/data_services/android_os.html

Other troubleshooting tips and helpful product information can be found at www.verizonwireless.com/data. It has been a pleasure assisting you today. We make it our personal goal to resolve all of your concerns. We sincerely hope that you feel we have done that today. Should you feel your current concerns are not fully resolved, please reply back to this email or call us at 1-800-922-0204 and we will happily address them for you. We appreciate your business and thank you for choosing Verizon Wireless.

Sincerely,

Bernard

Verizon Wireless

Data Technical Support

Seriously? They’re going to tell me that the keys coming unglued like that is my fault? Sure, I text a lot. But a smartphone is MADE to be used for just that. My response follows.

I didn’t damage the keypad! The only thing I’ve done is used it normally. I’ve read on several forums online of people having this same issue and people that have gotten their droid replaced under warranty because of this. Your response does not rate a 10 with me. It rates a negative 10. The keyboard on my phone should not be coming apart like this just from normal use, especially since I’ve only had the phone for 6 months. Please elevate this email to a supervisor.

Note: From the time I sent the first message until the time I got a response was approximately 2 days. From the time I sent the above message until the time I got a response was approximately 2 hours. So they were taking me a little bit more seriously by now.

Dear Lucas Qualls,

Thank you again for contacting our Verizon Wireless website. We apologize you have experienced problems with the keyboard on the Motorola Droid after six months of use. We are happy to assist you with evaluating the Motorola Droid.

We regret you have rated our service less than a ten with satisfaction. We understand your frustration with having to purchase replacement equipment due to the Motorola Droid having problems with the keyboard. Based on the information provided, the keys on the keyboard are coming unglued from the keypad. As you have stated, a lot of Text Messaging can cause wear and tear on the equipment.

We want to ensure the correct decision is made for the Motorola Droid on replacement. Since we are not able to identify the flaw in craftsmanship that you have stated, we ask that you visit a Verizon Wireless store location for evaluation. Please use the link below to find the nearest store in your location to have a technician review your device:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/storelocator/index.jsp

We hope you find this information helpful and that our level of service rates a “10″ with you. Troubleshooting tips and helpful Motorola Droid information can be found at http://www.verizonwireless.com/data as well. Having you visit a store location is the only way to ensure that we have investigated all possible factors that may contribute to the issues you are having. We appreciate your business and thank you for choosing Verizon Wireless.

Sincerely,

Gaylan

Verizon Wireless

Data Technical Support

First of all, they regret that I didn’t rate their service a 10? They told me they weren’t going to replace my phone. Why would they expect that to get a positive response from me? But, they told me what I had feared – that I was going to have to take the phone into an actual retail store. It has been my experience in the past, when going into the retail corporate stores of any cell phone provider, if you aren’t planning on buying something that day, they don’t really seem that interested in helping you. I know they work on commission, but this really seems to leave a bad taste in a lot of customers’ mouths, including mine. A few weeks passed, because I really was not looking forward to going into the Verizon store.

I decided to try one more thing before actually going into the store. I tried calling Customer Service. I talked to the guy, who was very nice, and explained to him what was going on. He stated immediately that the keyboard problem shouldn’t be happening. He was ready to ship me a replacement then. He put me on hold to “check their stock” of Droids, and when he got back on the phone, he changed his story. He told me the same thing the email people told me – take it into the store because that might be considered physical damage. I was a little bit pissed at this point. I was ready to go as far as it took to get my phone replaced, because I know that just a few months of texting shouldn’t cause the problems my phone was having.

The experience in the actual VZW store was much MUCH better than I expected. I went in on Wednesday, August 4th around 12:30pm. I expected that there would be a large line of people since it was lunch time, but surprisingly, I was #1 on the check in list. My name was called almost immediately. I talked to a very friendly, helpful, and nice gentleman there by the name of Chad. I describe him as all those things because I expected to get the run around, to be accused of doing all kinds of bad things to my phone, and the whole conversation with him lasted maybe 5 minutes. He looked at the phone, said “Wow, I’ve never seen that before. Lets take a look at your account.” So he took me over to his desk, pulled up my account, saw that I was under warranty, and set up for a refurb phone to be shipped out to me in two days via FedEx.

Here’s where the problems started again. I got that refurb phone in on Friday, August 6th. The two day shipping was spot on. But the phone was not. From the very beginning, any time I opened the slider on it to use the physical keyboard, there were problems. I assume there was a short somewhere in the slider mechanism, because it got continually worse. Eventually, it got to the point where if I opened the slider, the phone froze and I had to do a battery pull. When I woke up Saturday morning, the phone was turned off. I tried to turn it back on, and all that would come up was a blank screen. Needless to say, I took this phone back to the Verizon store. This time, I wasn’t as lucky on the wait time. I was 6th in line, and I had to wait about 30 minutes to talk to someone. (As I was walking around, checking out the phones, I’m pretty sure I fixed a problem that one of their display laptops was having. I also plugged in a lot of chargers to the displays that people had left unplugged. I guess that’s just the geek in me.) As luck would have it, I got Chad again. He already knew my story, so when I showed him the phone, he said “Man, You are having some bad luck with phones!” I was like…yeah. So he set up for another refurb to be shipped to me. He was going to give me one in the store but they didn’t have any in stock. Warranty replacements have to come from their refurbished stock, apparently, and can’t be taken out of their new stock. That kinda sucks, but whatever.

I was very surprised to get the new replacement in on Monday, August 9th. I assumed that since the whole thing was set up on a Saturday, that it wouldn’t even ship out until Monday and I wouldn’t get it until Wednesday. I’ve used the new one for over 24 hours now with no noticeable problems. I am hoping very much so that this phone will last me the remaining 13 months in my contract until I can get another upgrade. Don’t get my wrong, I love the Droid phone, and the Android operating system. Just, having one phone go bad in a few months, and then getting a replacement that was basically DOA, I’m worried about the stability of this model.
Following are some pics of the new one, and a side by side shot showing what the keyboard should look like versus what the old one looks like.

The new phone, complete with its flat keyboard:

Another view of the flat keyboard:

view this full size to see how the old keyboard (on the right) is bubbled versus the flatness of the new one (on the left).