My Replacement Phone - A Positive Verizon Tale

My old phone, a Motorola Droid DX2 is long in the tooth. Very long.
As a birthday gift I was given the opportunity to acquire an updated phone. A Samsung S4 Mini. It too is not brand new in terms of technology but it is a quantum leap beyond the DX2.

I order the phone - a refurb. It arrives in two business days.
I go through the activation process, it ends with, "You have successfully activated your new phone."
At this point you are to, "Turn off your old phone now."
I removed the battery. (Um, this is not shutting down the phone, ya dope)

After a while I noticed the new phone stayed with the charging screen and nothing else - no phone properties whatsoever.

A quick live chat session with Verizon support which then led to a call to Verizon Wireless customer support on the old phone. While I am talking to the CS agent I realized my error in the shut down process - since I had not shut the phone down it was active and the new phone was just a flashlight at this point.
I saw the red Verizon screen bloom on the new phone. I ended the call and then properly shut the old phone down. The new phone continued the process and a setup wizard appeared.

It works and I am pleased. But the battery goes from 100% to 30% in a couple of hours.
Hmmm...
The next day I go to turn the phone on and it fails to power up. I do the three finger dance to boot into safe or developers mode...nothing. It's dead.

I pulled the battery, waited and then replaced the battery and plug the phone into the charger. The phone boots. This scene is repeated twenty times or more during the day...every time I try to turn the phone on.
After farting around all day trying one thing after another that I found online  I decided to call Verizon again.
Two hours later...yeah, I am frustrated like a librarian in an E-Book store, I got a sympathetic supervisor to replace my flaky phone with a new one, not a refurb. There are a few hoops in between, but they are the price of business these days.

New phone arrived on Saturday. I have had practice with the activation procedure...so now it goes smooth as silk. I put the battery into the phone and wait for it to charge and then prepare to use it until it reaches 20% or so before charging it again.
(Li-Ion batteries can be damaged if discharged too much too often or if plugged into a charger all the time)
It's Sunday - I rode my bike for two hours, used the phone. Ate lunch, used the phone. In other words I used it moderately. And yet I am at 72%?

As a friend pointed out, this is how it is supposed to work.
Gawd, I am grateful. For both the gift and the working technology.