Instead of relying on the horror stories and hearsay of others, Laptop Magazine decided that they wanted to test out the customer service of the big four American cellular carriers for themselves. So they set out on a trip across New York City, the phone lines, and the interwebs in an effort to gauge the parts of the carriers’ customer service departments that customers will interact with the most. In their surveying, Laptop Magazine visited two New York City stores for each carrier, called customer service once during the midday and once during the post-work ‘rush hour,’ and then got onto the carrier’s website to seek help. All the while they were attempting to solve problems with a BlackBerry from that carrier: setting up email, tethering, and internet radio.

So how did the carriers rank? Laptop Magazine has fairly extensive notes on each customer service experience they had, but what we find most interesting are the final results. The grades for the individual evaluations varied between a C- (AT&T phone support) and multiple A-, the overall grades ended up closely paralleling that spread. T-Mobile took the customer service crown with a composite score of A-, while Sprint and Verizon had to settle for sharing the second place medal after both solid B’s. Poor AT&T, however, was levied with a aggregate C+, dragged down by scores of B- and below.

Thanks to Kevin for the tip!

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Before we begin, let us preface this with the usual "Take this rumor with a rather large dosage of salt". One of our forum members has recently spoken with a Sprint CSR (hence the salt dosage), and while configuring his Airrave they got to chatting. According to lady on the line, a memo was sent out that indicates an impending firmware update to our beloved Pre.

The information given was relatively vague, but she did specify "Improved Text Messaging Features", apparently in the way of message forwarding as well as group texting, along with "Improved Battery Life", which we’ll take to mean they’ve refined the memory and power usage a bit further. She also hinted that "in the near future"(take that how you will), Palm would be implementing Video Recording as well as custom reminder functions (you know, so you can have your Pre tell you to get back to work).

Separately, another user has let us know that he heard about an update in a call with Palm technical support that ended up being elevated to L2 representatives. He was told that an update will be on the way as well – and according to the Palm rep, it will land by the end of the week. Two weeks seems optimistic, and just a few days even more so, but we certainly hope it is the truth. Palm and Sprint claim to be listening to user feedback, and a quick turn around on firmware updates would prove they’re walking the walk. Let us know what you think in the comments, total bunk or shred of truth?

Thanks to jp700p in our forums for the tip!

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It didn’t take long for the first cracked screen report to surface, with our first confirmed crack being photographed and posted on our forums at 7:52pm on 6/7/09 (that’s the day after launch).

It first appeared to be an isolated incident, but it quickly became apparent that this is not a unique problem. A fair number of individuals are reporting screen cracks originating from the center button, and then spider-webbing up the device. Thankfully, Sprint seems to be on the ball with the problem, and most folks are reporting replacement devices being handed out without having to go through the TEP or paying any deductible.

This is certainly not a good sign, with devices barely out of the box already showing some pretty severe durability issues. These are also not devices that are being dropped, and most folks are reporting just pulling the device out of their pocket only to see the massive crack. If you’ve encountered a cracked screen of your own, or know someone who has, please let us know in the comments! If this turns out to be a widespread problem, it could spell very serious trouble for Palm and Sprint alike.

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Well, it couldn’t all be good news in these turbulent times. Sprint/Nextel has posted their fourth quarter earnings, and the news isn’t fantastic. They’ve lost another 1.3 million subscribers and a net loss of $1.6 billion for the quarter. There is a silver lining to all this though; these numbers are actually better than what investors were expecting, and Sprint’s stock rose 24 percent to $3.45 a share (as of this writing). There is also a fair amount of optimism regarding the upcoming Pre release, and that it may be the EpiPen to Sprint’s customer allergy.

The big thing here, is that Sprint needs to narrow down WHY they’re losing so many customers. Is it lack of phones? Bad customer service? Bad network? All of the above? What do you all think? Any Sprint users out there, what are your experiences recently? As a Sprint user myself, I can say that the service has had its ups and downs, but lately things seem to have been improving  with quality of service and customer focus.

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