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curses to Kyocera

April 19th, 2006 | tech, general

I’m currently shoping for a new mobile phone. Unlike some people I know, I’m not satisfied with simply getting whatever phone comes free when getting a service plan. My service provider doesn’t have the greatest selection of phones to pick from, but the service is the best (if not only) in my area, so I’ll find something.

At this time it’s between the famous Razr and the Kyocera Slider Remix. After mail-in rebates the Razr is cheaper, which is a plus, but the Slider isn’t horribly out of range either after it’s mail-in rebate. One of the Slider’s main claims to fame is it’s ability to play mp3s. This would be a nice feature in at this time, but I’m still mulling over getting a big 60 gig mp3 player to put all my music on. After I get that the ability to play mp3s on my mobile will be, for the most part, useless.

These days I love comparing products almost more than actually buying them. I can’t get enough info and I can never buy anything without looking at the company’s website first. First visit was to Motorola’s site. The actual page for the Razr isn’t very helpful because it only lists things everyone already knew. The Razr pages also were boring compared to newer phones like the SLVR and my favorite phone ever, the PEBL (if T-Mobile were here, I’d switch in a heartbeat to get you PEBL). Oh well…next up? Kyocera.

I sort of already liked Kyocera as a company. They are the shirt sponsor for Reading FC, so they support U.K. football/soccer (so does Samsung, but they sponsor Chelsea…booo). I also found it funny that as big as Kyocera is, PDF had never heard of them. Anyways, overall Kyocera has a nice site. It nicely lists out each phone’s features and specs. I checked out the Slider Remix, was impressed, then clicked ‘view all phones’. Here’s when my troubles began.

Kyocera has a few phones on their site listed as ‘coming soon’. Among these phones is the K822. I believe this is the nicest looking Kyocera phone on the site, and given that I like the company, I’m interested in getting it. Immediately I wanted to know what service providers would be carrying the phone and how ’soon’ was soon. So I clicked the ‘ask us’ link, found the proper dept, typed in my info and question, and hit submit. I got an auto-reply saying I would have an answer within 1 business day. This was late Thursday night/early Friday morning. I have yet to get a reply.

I gave them Monday because some workplaces counted it as a holiday. I gave them Tuesday because I thought they might be backed up from the extended weekend. Now business hours have passed on Wednesday and I’m bummed. I thought we were at the point where companies took online questions seriously. Sure a couple years ago getting a reply was a 50-50 chance. But now almost all companies have designated departments for online service. You’d think Kyocera, a company making tech products no less, would surely answer an online question since they even said they’d reply within one business day. I don’t care if they even reply and say “We don’t know yet, but thanks for your interest.” because it will at least be a reply.

Maybe I’ve just been on a lucky streak and now the luck has run dry. As I said in previous posts, Compaq was having some problems with SP2 installation. So I emailed Microsoft tech support and within 24 hours I had some suggestions on how to fix the problem. Everything’s good now. Then there’s my FIFA 06 game. For some reason a few sub-menus come up blank. I can still navigate the menus, but I can’t see what I’m selecting. I emailed EA support and got a reply, again within 24 hours. That problem still isn’t fixed because I can’t understand what they exactly want me to try doing, but at least it’s a reply. I’ll have to take some time and figure it out sometime. Even various car companies reply to all my annoying questions and/or comments in a timely fashion. But I guess the luck ran out with the Kyocera support dept.

Why am I so ticked off? I’m not. It’s just that: 1. I was having good luck with companies replying to questions and 2. I have nothing better to write about. So, if anyone from Kyocera is reading this, yes I’m still interested in the K822. Oh, and could you accept my application to test Kyocera products…I didn’t get a reply from that either. Thanks.

2 Comments

  1. matches
    April 20th, 2006 at 12:17 am

    I guess the issue is that it’s not a critical tech-support problem, and so they figure they can take their time? But I know what you mean. It sucks when you feel forgotten about, and when a company makes you feel that way as a customer, it’s pretty tough to keep (or start) supporting them.

    I’ve heard really good things about the RAZR from everyone I know who has it, and it really seems like a nice phone. I don’t know why, but I’ve never had a very good opinion of Kyocera. It might have been the whole Virgin Mobile + MTV thing.

  2. majafa
    April 20th, 2006 at 3:07 am

    Yeah, I try to look past the Virgin + MTV part of Kyocera. and I’m still not sure how much i’d like a slider style tele. And let’s face it, I be wanting to have my new phone before the K822 is released.

    I really like RAZR and that’s probably what I’ll end up with. I have a Moto now (it’s quite old), but has been good. PDF hates RAZR as he says the keypad is uneven, bumpy, and odd (or something like that).

    Honestly I think that one black tech Samsung looks best (besides PEBL), but 1. I don’t have Sprint, and 2. the whole Chelsea FC/Samsung shirt sponsor thing.

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