Sanyo Taho -- problems??

[kingtj]

I wasn't able to find almost any discussion here about the Sanyo Taho (ruggedized flip phone offered by Sprint)....

Back in January, we bought about 14 of these for the shop workers and truck drivers at my workplace (switching everyone over from Nextel to Sprint) and I thought they'd be a good transitional phone from the Nextel flip phones they were all used to having.

Unfortunately, they're giving us endless grief. The Taho has great battery life and a decent sounding speaker, and seems to get decent enough reception. But we've had all sorts of complaints about it powering itself off randomly, for no good reason (battery can be fully charged when it happens, and seems to even happen sometimes to a phone that's plugged into a car or wall charger). Whenever it does this, you can't get it to turn back on with the power button. The battery has to be removed and put back in first.

I tried to exchange one at my local Sprint store last week, only to find out now that although they received a new Taho to swap me with, the tech felt I'd have the same problem with the replacement because "they all do that". He said Sanyo is supposed to release a software update to fix it but it's not out yet.

Meanwhile, Sprint it still mailing out marketing literature talking about the Taho and still selling a known defective phone to new customers! What gives?!

[Andy Grupp]

Ya know, I've seen this issue pop up a few times with customers reporting it. We've had great luck with the Taho, I even picked one up on my personal line.

I didn't have it happen until just this weekend. I was in the photo gallery on the phone and it just went blank. Power button wouldn't bring it up, about 15-20 seconds later it came back up, resynced with the network and all.

So far we're on the initial software release for it, haven't heard a thing about a new software update in the pipeline.

It's a known issue at this time - interestingly enough it's the only known issue for this phone. Still relatively reliable compared to some other phones (which will remain nameless..)

[JC_Lookout]

Has anyone experienced this problem with any Sanyo cell phone. I have owned both a Taho and a Vero and both often go right to 'voice mail' after only one ring without the cell phone ever ringing once. I have had Sprint technicians check the first Taho phone I purchased and both said it was a 'bad phone'. They could not determine what was causing this problem. I was given another NEW Taho phone and it happened again. I then returned that phone and bought a Vero and that too has this software problem. I called Sanyo and they said I would have to mail them the phone to allow them to check it. Unfortunately the problem is intermittent and that is the 'real problem' since you never know when this is going to happen.

[kingtj]

Been a while since I visited this forum, but just to follow up on my own original post .... Sanyo did finally release updated firmware for the Taho phones, which Sprint let me download as an over-the-air update. Seems to have fixed all the "random phone shutdown or reboot" issues.

Only real complaint I still have with the Taho is the "feature" that allows automatic redialing of the last party you called by double-tapping on the side button on the phone. This makes it way too easy to "butt dial" people unintentionally when the phone is in your pocket. There should at least be a menu option to turn this function on/off or reconfigure the button used for it! As far as I can tell though, there's not.

Now, as for JC_Lookout's specific question:

I'm pretty sure the problem you're describing is due to reception issues, and not specifically a defective phone. I occasionally get the same thing with my Sprint phone (an HTC Evo 4G) when I'm at work, but signal strength isn't that good where my work is located. That, combined with the fact our building tends to block some of the cellular signals, leads to phones randomly not ringing when calls come in.

I could see how the problem *could* be a defective phone, but if the issue continues just as regularly with a replacement phone (especially with a different make/model), it sure sounds like a weak signal problem to me.

Has anyone experienced this problem with any Sanyo cell phone. I have owned both a Taho and a Vero and both often go right to 'voice mail' after only one ring without the cell phone ever ringing once. I have had Sprint technicians check the first Taho phone I purchased and both said it was a 'bad phone'. They could not determine what was causing this problem. I was given another NEW Taho phone and it happened again. I then returned that phone and bought a Vero and that too has this software problem. I called Sanyo and they said I would have to mail them the phone to allow them to check it. Unfortunately the problem is intermittent and that is the 'real problem' since you never know when this is going to happen.

[JC_Lookout]

I wish it were as simple as a bad service area, but it stays in this mode no matter where the phone is until for UNKNOWN reasons it often goes back to working correctly. I am on my third phone made by Sanyo and it does the same thing. I have finally discontinued using any Sanyo type cellular phone and I have reactivated my old Samsung phone. I spoke AGAIN with Sprint and I finally found a customer representative who stated that he has heard of this problem from other people owning phones made by Sanyo.