A Warning to ALL GALAXY S4 ACTIVE USERS!!!!

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By , Member on 29th July 2013, 03:19 AM

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10th November 2013, 11:56 PM |#91

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Kalletal

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First when I read OP I got nervous but after reading 10 pages, I am happy with my active, again.
It's been sold to me as a 100% waterproof mobile, but hey, it takes two sites, one who is pretending and one who wants to believe.
Now, I hope to make it trough the next 23 months of my contract without trouble...

Quote:

Originally Posted by wamsille

The only guarantees in life are death and taxes.

'nuff said.

Sent from my GT-I9295 using xda app-developers app

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11th November 2013, 09:29 PM |#92

Senior Member

Hurricane Country

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Like anything you buy today, some will have a good experience with the product, some bad. For me, I'm a believer. Not only should I have lost my phone forever considering the circumstances, but after being in the ocean for over 40 minutes and beyond 3 feet of depth it should not be working. Thankfully, it still is. Read about it here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=2510961

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10th January 2014, 02:53 AM |#93

Junior Member

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not rugged

Active should be water resistant, at least until the seals wear off or the cover breaks. Mine was washed several times in tap water with soap and did some uderwater pool pictures as well - no damage.

Impact resistance is another story however. This phone is not rugged at all and cannot take any harsh handling. After few drops from pocket on the ground it started to experience reboots and no call audio. Warranty was denied beacuse of excessive mechanical strain and service quoted 460€ for repair - almost same as new one. The thin "metal" frame with screws of Active started to sheathe very soon and looks it's some soft material. Expected it to withstand much more.

Well, this is my 2nd similar experience with their service. I'll never buy Samsung again.

.

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10th January 2014, 03:27 PM |#94

Senior Member

Dauphin Island, AL

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Samsung never said anything about resistance to anything other than water. Sorry to hear about the large repair bill, but chances are that the same thing might have happened with most newer phones. Consumers want small phones with large displays and an ever increasing number of features. If you open up the cases, you will see that every bit of space is used. So when a phone is dropped, there is no space to absorb the impact. The shock is transferred to the next component (LCD, pcb, etc.). That is why a case it's so important.

I used to use OtterBox cases, but since the Active is water resistant, I could use a smaller case that doesn't get stuck in my pocket. I still would not consider using any phone without a case. Everyone I know that does that had a phone with crushed corners and/or a broken display.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

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11th January 2014, 03:51 AM |#95

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OP mentions that the USB-socket is leaking. If so that's a serious design flaw. With a proper construction the socket itself should be waterproof. The flimsy cover should only be to keep conductive fluids from shortening the interface. Actually, the internals of any phone should have been vacuum-sealed at the factory. That would not only make the guts waterproof, but also resistant to moisture. Its a sad fact that most phones, including the so-called waterproof ones, contain components which are not recommended for use in environments with more than 80% humidity. That makes these gadgets not really fit for our world at all.

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11th January 2014, 05:15 AM |#96

Junior Member

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s4 active

Just purchased the s4 active the other day, waiting for it to arrive in the mail. After reading the post on this site, I m feeling a bit stupid that i didn't look into this before buying the phone. Sounds like it will require some maintenance, regarding the rubber seals - to stop them from drying up.
I'm interested to play with the usb flap, sounds a bit dodgy.
As for the warranty not covering water damage, i think it would be a disaster for Samsung if it did cover water damage because they would be handing out endless amounts of replacement phones, you could practically scam a new phone a year.

cheers for the info

---------- Post added at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 PM ----------

anyone ever seen this product before(H2OFF spray made by Nanoprotech)??? might be useful in safe guarding the usb port.

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16th January 2014, 01:54 AM |#97

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Took it in the pool today, seemed fine.
Got out, when trying to turn on the screen, the backlight would just come on but no LCD. This lasts for literally approximately 10 seconds before the LCD decides to work again. Weird, but weirder crap has happened. Chalked it up to the GPE ROM just being wonky.

See little water intrusion marks indicating water got between the LCD and digitizer(apparently this happens, even with normal use, based on posts I've read). Has happened to me and others with no problems previously. There WAS a thread on this where somebody did some nice, intelligent sounding research. Can't find it at the moment. Not concerned, continue using device.

Get home from work today, notice there's a lot more water marks on the LCD than before(these are like the actual stains you get from water damage -- the big blotches just all over the screen).

Open back cover. Water. Everywhere. Battery LDI literally like brick red. LDI on the actual device is miraculously totally fine.

This is the second Active I'm going to have to replace. On the first one the mic stopped working because, you guessed it, it became water damaged! Just the mic, nothing else. This one literally came to me, back from AT&T(I guess refurbished?) with a mic that doesn't work on speakerphone. Regular calls work but not speakerphone. I lived with it because I didn't want to return yet another device(for nearly the same exact reason) and have to restore all my settings again.

I originally advocated for this phone and chalked the fairly common failures up to user error. But now that I've gone through two of these things I can see that Samsung/AT&T intended this as more of a "test" device and weren't serious about the claims that they've made about it. I'm gonna have to go cry to the corporate overlords tomorrow in hopes of maybe just getting a regular S4 or something.

Edit: Should add that even though water got in, the device wasn't flooded in itself, but instead the indentation in the back that the battery goes into. The device still works like it did before it decided to not be water-resistant.

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16th January 2014, 04:07 PM |#98

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Quote:

Originally Posted by daledenton

This phone is not truly waterproof/resistant!!!!!
Samsung should not be able to get away with calling this phone water resistant or water proof, and they should especially not include an Aqua Camera mode.

Also the warranty DOES NOT, I REPEAT, DOES NOT COVER WATER!!!!

They also shouldn't sell the regular S4 as a phone at all. I got mine, new out of the box.. Used it in everyday life for less than a month. Then one day I put it on a table, no I didn't throw it or hammer on it or anything. I just put it down on the table and the screen cracked from the inside. Guess what, when I called the retailer I was informed that Samsung don't warrant the screen??? I had to pay $420 to get it replaced. Then when I got it back after about 2 weeks I used it in everyday life for about a month and one time when I picked it up from my pocket it was cracked again. This time to it was cracked from the inside. And I have copter screen protection and hard case on it. I couldn't afford another $420 so I got my self a S4 active instead. At least the screen copes with everyday life on this one.

No I haven't gone swimming with it or anything but at least it doesn't get damaged by rain and regular washing off.
Samsung really need to start addressing these kind of issues and refund/repair what was wrongly sold or they will start losing allot of customers i think. It's so sad since I loved my standard S4, but now I have grown to really like my S4 active.

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20th January 2014, 06:17 PM |#99

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Just a heads up to everyone. I've had to call in for warranty repair of the little rubber door. It detached over the weekend... The material is ridiculously thin, maybe .5mm thickness.

AT&T says its an unwarrantable problem. Manager got involved and stated the same. So I've now been passed off to Samsung for resolution. Their systems are down at the moment but I'll come back and update after I speak with them. Phone has about 6 months of usage with 2-3 charges per day at the extreme.

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4th February 2014, 06:38 AM |#100

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Quote:

Originally Posted by toxicpaulution

All I gotta say is the best way to get away with saying it is water resistance/proof would be making it like the Nexus 4 and no removable back. Make it wireless charging. Come with a wireless charger. Sd card slot and sim slot on the top or sides. Make it completely blocked off with no ports but a headphone hack the way they did making it water proof. That's the only way they can be certain its water resistant. Otherwise you have these issues.

Sent from my SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2

whoops. reply went on the wrong thread......

---------- Post added at 06:38 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:34 AM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by scott14719

The bottom line is that Samsung doesn't warranty the phone against water damage and therefor should Never sell it as such. If they can not stand behind an advertised function of their own product, they should not sell it. It doesn't matter if people abuse the phone in water or exceed the recommended specs (depth and length of time in water) because there is no way they can differentiate between people that stay within the specs and those that don't.

That's like saying a car should be warranty repaired for all road hazards.

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10th July 2014, 10:27 PM |#101

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Horrible AT&T Rep

Quote:

Originally Posted by daledenton

This phone is not truly waterproof/resistant!!!!!

First off I want to start this off buy saying a few things. I work for AT&T so before anyone says its from improper usage remember I had to watch training videos on how to properly use it. Also, before anyone says well, you aren't really supposed to be using it in the water, you are wrong. The first thing we are trained on is how to properly close the back cover and how to show the customers Aqua mode to take pictures underwater. We actively use this as a main selling point, this is per Samsung.

Here is my story. I bought the Active on Thursday. The first thing I did with it was ensure the back was closed and made a video in my fish tank so I could show customers how it works underwater, and how good aqua mode is. That worked out perfectly except the video was a little dark, so I figured I would retake it.

In this time I had a customer swap out the phone they bought because it were defective, the bottom buttons stopped working on it. She was very vague when the water question came up but I thought nothing of it.

Now cue today. It was sunny outside so I thought it was the perfect time to reshoot the fish tank video. I ensured the back was secure, yes, including pressing down on the back where the AT&T logo is. I then submerged the phone in the tank while taking the video. Almost instantly the phone screen went black and said dock mode was enabled so I took the phone out of the water and everything went back to normal. I double checked the USB rubber to be sure. I just chalked it up to the phone doing crazy things in the water. I have read almost everywhere that the phone will say headphones are plugged in, etc. So I thought this was normal. I then put it back in and took a minute long video. Everything was fine. I even played back the video and it was fully working.

This is where everything went wrong. About 2 minutes later the phone started tweaking out, Google now opened on its own and the buttons were really sensitive. Then the buttons completely stopped working other than the power button and that's when I freaked out. I opened the battery cover and there it was, everything was soaked. but luckily none of the water damage indicators were colored. I then opened the USB door and it was like a fountain, so that's where the breach happened. The flimsy, rubber USB door. I did not tell a soul what happened and went back to work and swapped it for a regular Galaxy S4.

So please listen to my warning. There are way too many people getting this phone damaged, including me, a fully trained AT&T employee who took the proper precautions before doing anything.

Samsung should not be able to get away with calling this phone water resistant or water proof, and they should especially not include an Aqua Camera mode.

Also the warranty DOES NOT, I REPEAT, DOES NOT COVER WATER!!!!

You should probably be fired com AT&T for smashing their product, not to mention lying. I also work for AT&T and have the s4 active. I take mine swimming all the time.

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