[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note I717] Dr. Evo:
I've been delaying taking my phone into Best Buy to have it replaced. Lots of issues going on that I think stem from having dropped. One thing I will say... the Note is one TOUGH phone! So much for cheap, plastic Samsung phones.

I was walking down a busy city street one day, and I had to whip my phone out to send a quick text. Due to the slippery backing of the Note, the phone just slipped through my hands and into the air. I was unable to prevent what happened next. From a distance of perhaps 3 or 3.5ft, my Note smashed into a hard concrete sidewalk, cartwheeled about three times, and settled on the ground face down. I was just sure my phone was not only f-ed up, but the screen was shattered to pieces. Imagine my surprise when I picked the phone up, and the screen was flawless. A tiny piece of plastic sort of broke off in the extreme upper right corner of the phone where it curves on the edges, but other than that... the phone was flawless on the front. The back was even more amazing... not one scratch on the back cover. The only damage was on three of the four rounded sides of the phone, where the Note made contact with the ground when it cartwheeled. It's scratched on three of the sides, but that's it. The rest of the phone was flawless.

But, ever since then, I've been having on-going problems with the phone. It randomly reboots and even completely shuts its self off, all of the time. I missed a very important doctors appointment two Monday's ago, because even though my Note had a full battery when I took it off the charger a few hours before I awoke that morning... the Note somehow turned its self off. It didn't restart... it simply shutdown and stayed off. I woke up way after I was supposed to, and that's when I found out the Note had turned its self off. The next Monday, it did the same damn thing! Turned its self off overnight. Luckily, I coincidentally had awoken naturally, just around the time the alarm on the Note should have gone off. I was pissed.

Another issue is the reboots. I've noticed that once my battery gets down to around 25-26%, my Note will go into a very strange, endless reboot cycle. It will reboot its self and then go to the home screen. It will take several minutes for the screen to fully load all of the home screen icons and wallpaper, and just when it seems like the phone is fully functional... it will reboot its self and the cycle repeats. I have to charge the phone significantly before it will finally stop the chaotic reboot sequence.

One of the three gold prongs inside of the battery case that's supposed to contact with the gold plates on the top of the Note's battery, is almost completely broken off. Sometimes the phone will not power on because it won't read the battery. And the back cover is pretty much done for. Most of the attachments that keep the battery cover secured to the back of the phone, have broken off.

And, performance-wise, the Note is really good at times, but other times it makes you want to throw it at a wall. The lag becomes unbearable and you can't use the phone at all, because it will eventually start to freeze at every command. The only way to fix the issue is to do a battery pull.

I do have the Black Tie Protection, but I've heard various responses as to whether or not BB will simply give me a new Note or give me a bunch of B.S. which may involve getting a refurbished phone if they do decide to exchange it. I would like to demand BB replace the Note, due to the fake they screwed me over on my first Note which turned out to be defective. BB kept giving me the run-around and excuses as to why they couldn't and wouldn't replace my Note. Mind you, I was still within the 30-day trial period. When I finally had to resort to calling AT&T about the issue, AT&T was extremely upset with BB for not honoring their 30-day, no questions asked policy. AT&T had to grant me an exception, and replace the phone for me at an AT&T Store, even though I originally bought the Note from BB. So, BB can consider this fulfilling their obligation, by giving me a new Note when I finally can take it in. I just don't want a bunch of B.S. and excuses. I've never used my Black Tie Protection before or on any other phones to know how it works.