Dopod 838 Pro heads back to the factory

4 months ago I got myself a Dopod 838 Pro as I liked the idea of having wifi, 3G, Bluetooth and best of all, a QWERTY keyboard in a small device. As much as I like the phone, I have an awful time with battery life. On the stock battery, I was getting around 9 hours from a full 1300mAh battery.

This is not exactly useful as when I’m out and about, it’s usually longer than 9 hours. So, after trying an extended 3000mAh battery and only getting 14 hours usage, I’ve talked to the folks at Dopod (now HTC) about the possibility that the phone is faulty.

Thankfully, HTC agrees that I should get better battery life and have got me to send the phone to Phonetec. This is where I get annoyed. The phone has been there for 3 working days so far and hasn’t even been booked in yet. The 3-4 day turnaround I was promised is looking very unlikely. Stay tuned for more.