Dodgy phone? New one on a new tarriff?

[Anonymous]

Basically, I got a new contract in October along with a Galaxy S2. However, ever since then I've had trouble with the phone (random crashes to an inressponsive state) and nothing I have tried will fix it. 

In fact, I'm pretty sure some of the stuff I tried will have broken any kind of warranty on the device (unless I roll it all back).

In any case, my question is - if I upgrade my tarriff to a higher one - as I understand is possible midway through a contract - can I still get a new phone? I see you can get an S3 Mini for £26 a month for £20 up front, and I do rather fancy it. Is that possible?

Or should I try to get support for my device somehow? It just seems fundamentally broken.

[Liquid · Accepted solution]

You might be able to have the phone repaired.

Depends on what tarif you have really. Some contracts allow you to upgrade your tariff(as in minutes/data/sms) but not the phone at a set period others will let you upgrade the phone half way through.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. I went into the store before and asked about it. Was told to try removing apps to see if one of those was causing it. Running fresh didn't help. Also reckon I may have voided the warranty now in any case due to my meddling. I'll pop into the store when I get a chance.

[Liquid]

If its only software meddling then blanking it and starting afresh should be fine(doubt they'll delve too far into it to get out of paying)

No hardware meddling right?:/

it does sound software related however some hardware faults could give a non responsive display. 

Do you know which contract your on?

[Anonymous]

It's not a display issue as such really - rather the phone getting into an unresponsive state when idle. It's known as the 'sleep of death' issue on other forums where I've looked into troubleshooting (wiping Dalvik cache, clearing cache partition and fixing permissions in recovery - all the standard stuff). Flashing other ROMs and system Kernels hasn't helped as I hoped, but this is what I'm pretty sure would void my warranty.

Currently on a £21.50 per month 24 month contract. Not sure of the particulars.

[Liquid]

Simplicity contract?

Arrgh yes I think you could be right there. Well flash back to the normal one and hope they don't pick up on it(they don't tend to be the brightest sparks:))

[anticpated]

The thing is, Android uses a counter which records how many times a firmware has been changed. As long as you stick to approved firmware you should be fine. Another thing to try is, Fix Permissions which somehow magically fixes stuff like all the application indices and superuser account thingymabobs..

[Liquid]

I didn't know that. Thanks anticipated. I presume that the counter could be changed?

[Anonymous]

Well the problem was happening on the firmware that came with the device - which is why I reflashed in the first place.

So it looks like I'll need to find a copy of the o2 firmware some place, along with a way to reset the firmware (I know this one's possible at least)

Unless I can upgrade my contract and get a new phone. Don't mind paying a bit extra each month.

In fact, I could probably cover it by recycling my current S2 handset.

[MI5]

Get a jig off ebay... It will reset the counter then flash standard O2 f/w off sammobile with odin and no one will ever know