Sprint’s activation service hammered during the HTC EVO 4G launch. Some customers left waiting for hours.
Yes, today was the day many of us have been eagerly awaiting – HTC EVO 4G launch day. Sprint and Radio Shack stores even opened early for the occasion. One problem however – Sprint’s activation service was hammered, resulting in long wait times for many EVO 4G preorder customers.
I experienced this in person at the local Radio Shack store in Cupertino, CA. Although the store opened at 6am, the first phones were not activated until around 8:30am. Even then, activations crawled along, with Radio Shack reps waiting frustratingly for several minutes to progress through each page in the new phone activation process. According to the Radio Shack representative I spoke with, less then ten activations had been processed in the district by 9am, three hours after the Radio Shack stores opened.
It appears that this problem has subsided somewhat during the day, and activations are now going through at a steady pace. Still, this was a major frustration for many prospective HTC EVO 4G owners who made the trek to Radio Shack and Sprint stores early in the morning.
Another major fail today was the availability of HTC EVO 4G accessories. Although Radio Shack gave EVO 4G preorder customers a $20 credit towards accessories, there were no cases or covers designed for the EVO 4G available.
The only accessories on hand today were generic mini USB chargers and screen protectors that could be manually cut to fit the EVO 4G screen. My Radio Shack representative said that it will be at least a couple of weeks before EVO 4G cases are actually available. However, that doesn’t do much good for customers with the $20 activation credit, since this credit must be used when the EVO 4G is activated.
To their credit though, the Radio Shack representatives at my local branch were helpful and positive. This was a problem with Sprint’s activation service, not Radio Shack’s systems or employees.
Drop us a line and share your EVO 4G experiences with us.
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Tags: 12 Responses to “Sprint’s activation service hammered during the HTC EVO 4G launch. Some customers left waiting for hours.”
I picked mine up at Best Buy… They did appointments for Preorders (not sure how Radio Shack handled preorders) My appointment was at 10:30 (they opened at 10) I was out the door at 11:15… The best buy lady who was taking care of my activation actually called their 800 number and sat on hold for 37 minutes to get me up and running. My local best buy store had car chargers, several different cases just for the EVO and the Zagg Invishield covers just for the EVO….. But nothing else. The car kit specifically for the EVO isn’t due out until July same with the HDMI docking station.. Kind of a bummer that a brand new device had little in the way of options as far as accessories go. I got the Zagg shield and installed it and last week I ordered an extended life battery pack (1800 mah vs the stock 1500 so it still fits under the stock hood) plus with the battery pack I ordered a charger that charges JUST THE BATTERY with out the use of the phone so I always got power for the phone…..
Great info, sounds like you had a much better experience than I. Let us know how that 1800 mAh battery works out – been using the EVO for just a few hours now and it looks like that battery will be a must have upgrade. Excellent idea with the separate charger as well.
@japa…. Thanks….
My battery life with the stock 1500 battery was pretty good today. I walked out of Best Buy around 11:15 with my EVO and the battery meter was at about 58%… Well being a new device I played with it pretty good… 50+ minutes of talk time, 12 miles on the GPS from Best Buy back home to see how it worked, numerous text messages, web surfing, Facebook and using the Speedtest.net app to check connection speeds in different places. Well at around 7pm the phone dropped below 20% and turned red asking to be charged… that is nearly 8 hours of battery life with pretty decent/hard use on what was at best a 1/2 charged battery….. My typical use will be less than what I put it through today (or this weekend) setting it up and testing out all the functions…. the larger battery should just make it better overall.. We’ll see……
Those stats are encouraging Robbie317. One of the first things I did was test the hotspot feature with a bunch of friends, and as expected that killed the battery pretty quickly. I was charging the phone intermittently throughout the day, so I don’t have a good idea of how long it will last on a full charge, but we’ll see this weekend.
On a separate note, I picked up the ‘Platinum’ case from Seidio at Best Buy and I am pretty pleased with it. I just wish there was better protection for that big camera lens.
I went to the Sprint store also, and they had several snap on cases and silicone cases, but at 3:30pm on the west coast all their systems were down, so no one was able to buy anything at all. They said it may take a couple hours to fix the problem, so I didn’t stick around. They confirmed the July release of the docks, as well – too bad.
@japa
Yeah I ended up just putting a Zagg Invishield on my EVO. I was disappointed that both the car kit and desk top dock won’t be out until July. That is kind of crappy. I travel for a living and use a Garmin GPS…. Kind of hoping that a combination of using the phone for GPS (which is only about 10% of the time any way) plus having it plugged up to a charger while in the car will also extend the battery life more. I powered the phone off and charged it up yesterday. Took it off the charger at 10 pm last night after it turned green. Lost 10% battery life between 10pm and 7:30am which isn’t bad on stand buy I guess. 10 hours up time and only 1 hour awake time right now. Will be interesting to see how she handles the day. Taking the kids to the park and will snap some pictures and video plus as always some web surfing while they play and upload a few random pictures to facebook just to put some strain on the battery and see how she last.. All this on the plane stock battery…. Be interesting to compare notes with others to see how their battery last with different type of usage. The problem with the “REVIEWS” is 99% of the time a person doing a review is putting it through it’s paces and not typical every day usage from the typical every day consumer…
Robbie317… Where did you find a 1800 mah battery at????
http://www.fommy.com/view-full-page.asp?skuno=88359
Here is one.
Robbie317 – Went through about 50% of my battery today in six hours. Either way, these batteries need to go through a few cycles before they’ll reach their full potential.
Interestingly, I happened onto 4G coverage in the Mountain View/Sunnyvale area in California’s Bay Area. 4G isn’t supposed to be rolled out here until later this year – although Google is HQ’ed near here so maybe Sprint has already deployed a few towers? In any case, I got about 2.3mbps down and only 200kpbs up on 4G, according to the Speedtest app. 3G gets me about 900 – 1000 kpbs down and 400kbps up. Not sure why the upload speed on 4G is so slow.
I was only on 4G for about half an hour, but it took an estimated 10% off my battery. These were informal tests, though. Hard to tell what the actual 4G drain on my battery will be in a non controlled envioronment.
@Monstermike…
Two different options a 1750 mah from Seidio (Just Google Seidio and click on EVO) or Amzer has an 1800 mah (Google Amzer EVO battery)… The 1750 runs you $49.99 and the 1800 runs $54.99…
I actually ordered the 1750 mah from Seidio…. I looked at both online last week and after I made this post I had to go look back at exactly which one I ordered (it’s due to arrive Monday)
@japa…
I turned my EVO off and threw it on the charger last night and when the light turned green around 11 at night I turned it back on and unplugged it. it’s now 9:00 and the phone has been up and running for 22 hours and my battery life is at 40% still. Pretty decent usage, I need to log down what I have been doing because I have no hard data LOL…. But I know I took about 20 pictures today and uploaded about 10 to Facebook and e-mailed 4 or 5 of them to my parents. Surfed the web a little while watching my kids play and while at McDonalds while they played in the play place their at lunch. talked on the phone for maybe 20 minutes total today. sent out a 8 or 9 e-mails read another dozen or so e-mails and finally today paired the EVO to my home Wi-Fi network…. My oldest daughter played with it in the car and was watching You Tube for a good 30 minutes and I again used Google Navigation for about 9 miles from the park back home… So the stock battery isn’t too bad… being 9pm and 22 hours since I pulled it off the charger and still 40% battery life that isn’t bad at all. I am pleasantly pleased… Probably don’t NEED the spare battery since I have a USB plug in my car and I can easily get a spare USB cable for the car… I had a spare Apple USB that I kept in my glove box for my iPhone or iPod touch so I can do the same with this monster.. I honestly don’t like how the rear battery cover comes off.. The way it snaps on and off scares me if that is done too often.. Afraid it will break sooner or later and you will need a new cover.. I will probably go with the larger battery pack as my main and keep the stock battery as an emergency back up..
@japa
Oh yeah I am mildly upset… I ordered the spare battery and a charger that you plug into the wall that also has a USB slot so you can charge your spare battery AND your phone at the same time… Well they shipped the battery but the charger went on back order and isn’t due until the 15th of June..
Also a little disappointed the car dock and desk top dock are BOTH not due until “Late July” with a phone launch this big you would have thought they would have planned better…. Maybe they just wanted to get the phone out before Apple makes their big announcement on Monday and said to hell with accessories for now…
Ah that’s too bad, and external charger is a great accessory for the EVO. I agree with your comment about accessories – the few cases Sprint had available were all pretty poor. Best Buy has a decent case fro Seido that also comes with a holster. I’ve been using that one for now.
@japa
I am just using the Zagg Skin. Got the spare battery today. Going to charge it up overnight and see how it does. I am getting pretty good battery life from what others have written. I got 26 hours day one, 24 hours on day 2 and as of right now I took it off the charger at 7:30 and 12 hours later I am at 70% battery remaining.