Various problems with iPhone 3G

Question

I got my iPhone on September 17th. Since then, I have had the following problems:
1) Dropped calls
2) Delays in getting/sending text messages - sometimes they come all at once, sometimes they wait an hour to be delivered
3) It crackles when I hold the phone up to my ear; on speaker, it sounds clear as a whistle
4) I ripped some videos to my iPhone. Two of them lost sound after about 10 seconds. I restarted them and they played no sound at all. Left it alone for a night, the next day it happened again. After a while, the sound returned.
5) Sometimes the screen doesn't adjust when I view a web page and turn the phone sideways.
6) My apps randomly stop working. I click on them, they open briefly to where the screen goes black but the date bar stays on the top. They don't load - they quit. After a while, they start working again.
7) The other day, the battery died after 7 hours. I was using 3G and using data about a total of 1.5 hours that day. The phone's battery died at 2:30 that day. I had charged the phone all night through the MacBook's USB port, so it had a fully charged battery.
8) At times, the phone says "No Service" when I'm standing in a spot that has had service at other times.
9) Today, during a call, the screen went black and I couldn't respond to the phone prompts. I couldn't turn off the phone, I couldn't return to the home screen, I couldn't tap the screen to awaken it. After 4 minutes, it let me operate it again.
I charge it nightly through the MacBook Pro. I have iTunes 8 and the most current software for the iPhone. I went to AT&T and told them my problems. They basically said they couldn't do anything and encouraged me to call Apple and see about getting a new phone. I have family that has the iPhone 3G and they have had none of these problems. Oh, and the problems persisted AFTER I did a Restore on the phone 2 nights ago. What are the chances I can get Apple to send me a new phone or that I could stop by the store and exchange this one for a new one?
Message was edited by: atsjen

Answer 1

You're welcome.
Oh, and is there a way I can back up my contacts so I don't have to reenter them?
In regards to contact information and calendar events, the iPhone is designed to be synced with the supported application or applications on your computer. If you don't want to lose your iPhone contacts that are not available with the Address Book - having to manually reenter these on your iPhone again, you need to sync your iPhone with the Address Book on your Mac.
You can make use of an Address Book Group for your Address Book contacts that you want available on your iPhone only. Select this option under the Info tab for your iPhone sync preferences - selecting the designated Address Book Group only for the contacts that you want available on your iPhone only. All contacts (currently in the Address Book on your Mac and the contacts that are currently available in your iPhone's address book that you manually entered on your iPhone) will be available in the Address Book on your Mac, but you can designate which Address Book contacts are available on your iPhone only by making use of an Address Book Group and selecting only that Group to be available with your iPhone's address book.