Verizon Wireless: Be Less Useless. Really.

I haven’t written in a while because I haven’t had enough time recently to write a meaningful post. But I absolutely had to get this off my chest.

After some deliberation about what phone to get after my contract with AT&T expired at the end of September, I settled on a Droid X. I didn’t want to stick with AT&T’s network, and by most accounts, the Droid X is one of the best Android phones out there.

I have to agree, the Droid X is pretty sweet. But so far, its battery life hasn’t come close to my expectations based on reviews I’ve read.

For example, this past weekend, I charged my phone fully for the first time. Great. But the next day, I had had my phone for only twelve hours when I checked and the battery life had shriveled to 20%. This was after less than one hour of total web usage (no music, no video), data sync for a Twitter and Facebook app set at half-hour intervals, and NO CALLS. Zip.

Now at this point, I’ve done all of the research I can on the Droid X’s battery life and what’s going on, and from what I can tell I’m not the only Droid X customer who is confused. Google “Droid X battery life problems” and you’ll come across pages and pages of complaints, questions, and general confusion about why certain DX batteries are severely underperforming.

After reading through some tips and suggestions, I tweaked my settings, and today I had a better performance: at the end of the day, I’m at 30% after using the phone a bit more for music and video. But honestly, why should I have to dim the brightness on my screen to as low as possible to enjoy it for longer – what’s the point of having a brightness adjuster at all, then?

That’s not my biggest gripe, though, as you might be able to tell from the title of my post. My biggest disappointment is with Verizon Wireless. I’ve heard anecdotes about their terrible overall attitude with customers before, but I thought little of them.

Before I launch into my personal story, one thing immediately struck me as odd: for a company that lives and breathes mobile, whose users are highly and increasingly more engaged with social media, it really sucks at social media marketing. And by marketing, I don’t just mean clever YouTube ads or Facebook pages – I mean responding to and having discussions with bloggers and others who are on the scores of Android and Droid forums I found online.

Take a look again at the Google search results for “Droid X battery life problems” and you’ll not only see that the top results are Android and Droid forums (in which Verizon Wireless representation is conspicuously low), but that the one result that is officially Verizon’s – a discussion topic on its Facebook page – wasn’t even responded to by Verizon itself.

This is pretty disconcerting. The fact that Verizon makes little attempt to address its core audience and userbase online is pretty embarrassing, actually.

Ok, so now my part of the story: fed up with the battery issues, I tweeted to the Verizon Wireless account my issue with the battery life and linked them to a Facebook discussion I started on their page. This is the conversation that ensued (along with my commentary):

Me: @VZWSupport having issues with my battery for DX. Please look at my post here on VZW FB page: http://goo.gl/W2IM. Can you help?

Verizon: @danieljlee Are you charging your phone by usb or with the outlet charger & do you have the phone powered off while charging?*SR

Reasonable so far, besides the fact that it took them three hours to get back to me.

Me: @VZWSupport charging by outlet charger and phone is on while charging (should that second part matter though?)

Verizon: @danieljlee Yes charging the phone being powered off helps the battery to last longer. *SR

Keep the phone off while charging? On a phone whose alarm doesn’t work if the phone is off? Are you kidding me? I need to wake up to get to work in the morning.

Me: @VZWSupport That can’t be the only thing though, battery barely lasts me 12 hours with 1hr of web use. Also I charge ovrnight and need alarm

Verizon: @danieljlee Do you have task killer app running on your device? *SR

Me: @VZWSupport no I read that it was actually bad for battery life…

Verizon: @danieljlee The Task Killer closes out applications not being used. The Droid has upto 480 mins 220 standby time.

Courtsey of VerizonSucksAss.com

Yes, that is what a task killer does. I’m not illiterate. I can read its description in the app store, and I can read about it online. However, if you did some research, you’d find that Android handles multitasking quite well on its own and that actually killing apps when they’re not doing much in the background in the first place uses more battery life. Also, don’t just parrot me stock Droid X sales information. I wasn’t asking about standby time, either. Jesus.

Me: @VZWSupport Plz don’t tweet me DX stats I can find in the manual. Most forums agree task killers are useless. Can you suggest anything else

Verizon: @danieljlee I called Motorola advised average battery life is around 8 hours recommended Task Killer also to save on battery life.

First, did Motorola really recommend the task killer? I find that hard to believe – makes me think that the rep you spoke to doesn’t understand the Android OS. Second, average battery life is NOT 8 hours – you can find post after post on forums about people who are able to use their phones for a couple of days at a time with WAY more usage than I can even cram in a day.

Verizon, I’m not asking for replacement phone here. I just want an honest answer: either tell me that the battery life is less than what is advertised and let me move on (i.e. adjust my expectations so I don’t think something’s wrong with my phone), or really help me figure out if and what is actually wrong with the battery on the phone. The extended battery for the Droid X is only $50 – hell, if I know that my battery’s the problem, I’ll buy a new one tomorrow. I just want to know.

I’m going to continue the conversation with Verizon on Twitter to see how far I can get before I get too frustrated to reply any more. In the meantime, I’m giving my battery one more day before either taking it into the store to get a replacement battery and/or ordering the extended battery online.

P.S. Oh yeah. Also, no one has responded to my Facebook post (referenced above) on their page about my issues with the battery life. Great job, Verizon.

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