[Galaxy S I9000 General] Khar00f:
Good day fellas, been reading this forum for quite some time, had the X10 when it first came out and thumbled on the xda forum and since then been reading threads everyday.

Nice place I must say, now on to my point.

first a few corrections.

there are 2 types of Bell stores (Coporate and Franchises) as with most big stores.

I work at a Bell store (franchise), there's a big diff. between both.

I can say from my own experience, franchise stores very rarely will sell new and popular phones full retail. Reason being is that they don't make any money off full retail sales.

There is no Bell msg/e-mail or whatever that says such phone must be sold solely on contract.

Franchise stores do it because they can.

For example at the store where I work, we are under strict policy that no iPhone is to leave the store without a service plan, we refuse to sell it to the client if he doesn't buy the service plan. But again there are exceptions... such as.. if the client is renewing his contract, then there is no exception, buy it or leave it. But if the client is a new customer signing new contract, then if he really doesn't want it, exceptions can be made.

Simply put, we won't sell a iPhone4 without a contract/renew nor without a Apple Care (Yes i know it's a *****). But they are a business and into making money, as a franchise they are completely independent from Bell corporation, we only sell their products and the money made comes from accessories, warranties, contracts etc...

Now this is at the Bell store where I work, every franchise deal with phones differently. Especially highly demanded phones. Once the iphone starts becoming more regular then

Same thing with SGS but a little more leaneant, meaning we're not supposed to sell it without contract/renewal and service plan is not mandatory either.

Many clients come and complain sometimes but it doesn't matter. And we tell the client straight up if he asks why or how come, it's NOT a Bell policy, it's a store policy,

All this to say diff stores have diff. rules on new products. Bell has nothing to do with it. And when you a big franchise you have tendency to get away with more then smaller franchise stores. (If i'm not mistaking we are the biggest Bell store in Quebec, interms of profit). We're already awaiting our 4th iphone4 batch since release.

Once a customer service agent from Bell called and threatened me with an official complaint directly with Bell HQ, because I wouldn't sell an iphone to a client that didn't want the warranty. Told him to go right ahead, needless to say, it didn't do anything and the client just went elsewhere.

I sold my X10 about 3 weeks after I bought it due to it's shortcomings, figured I'd recoup some of my losses before it's too late. So i swapped the phone straight up againt an iphone 3gs 32GB new (figured i'd have more resale value downt he line then the X10) and figured i'd use it until something worthy on android comes out (was looking for a 4" + screen). I was very close to buying the Evo4G but since it was CDMA only, I didn't want to be limited with the carriers. Alos i don't touch Moto phones with a 10 foot pole, and then the SGS came along. Sold my 3gs 3 days ago for 400$ and bought the SGS same day. never looked back.

Great phone, now in relation to this thread and the download mode, I was curious about the download mode, and so obviously tried it on mine. Low and behold it worked first try (this is the 2nd batch we got so far, we don't get that many per batch though). For any1 asking about the serial of this one (althought it seems that it's not serial related)

Mine is an R8YZ

10.08

and download mode works any which way tried, warm, cold, battery off, kept on. so maybe the hardware issue is fixed with the newer batches.

and if you want to go to a store to swap and won't let you swap beause they don't consider it deffective, tell them the download mode is a phone features that allows you to recover in the event that an update goes wrong and you're phone won't boot. Make it sound like it's a fundamental feature and not some hack necessity.

And remember one thing, don't get all pissy at the sales guy if at first he says no, try to make him understand, and show him that you are knowledgeable and not some kid throwing a tantrum for nothing. And play it smart, tell him you came yesterday and spoke with a rep guy who told you try a couple of things, and now you're back cause it still doesn't work.

Usually you souldn't have to go to these extremes, but some sales rep's are idiots period. try to gauge the sales rep before you speak to him about your problem, before telling them you have that phone, ask them to play with the demo unit a bit and while you have it test the download mode. so this way if it works on the demo, you have a hard fact to show him in comparison to yours that doesn't.

Anyways just my 2 cents, hope it helps some of you.