AirCard 771S/Netgear Zing battery issues

I have the netgear zing 771S and the cradle for it. I've found the Zing only lasts about one year until it starts to report false battery failures. It starts off with the device being plugged in and reporting "no battery". When this happens, it freezes the data connection and the screen cannot be touched to rememdy situation. Pulling the battery out and putting it back in clears it up but the problem will eventually return again. Once charged up and unplugged, the device will also display "low battery" at some point, even though the battery is not low. Same thing, freezes data connection and pulling the battery out and putting it back in clears up the issue. Once booted up, the battery always reports good charge. I too have bought replacement batteries thinking it was the actual batteries' fault, but this is not the case. The last time this happened, almost exactly a year ago to date from last device failure, sprint replaced it at a $75 charge. Unfortuantely, this is now an End of Life device with sprint so I had to "upgrade" to their pocket wifi. The pocket wifi gets half the signal as the zing on the same band, even if the zing is out of cradle. I really wish Netgear would step in and back these devices when they fail. it is NOT a sprint firmware upgrade. I haven't seen one of those go through my Zings in a very long time. You can google search and find others that have posted the same issues with the device.