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I hate Verizon. I dont know why some people continue to use them. I cant think of anything they have that I want or that some other carrier does better.

And so you guys know... I sold phones retail for over a year... Tmobile, ATT, Sprint and Verizon, and I can testify that more Verizons that I sold (only cuz I couldn't sell the customer on something else) came back unhappy!

Anways... I thought i'd share just cuz there are probably tons of peple who are looking for the v710 to connect to thier TL and dont realize it does almost nothing else bluetooth is supposed to do. I guess If they dont mind living with Verizons crap and thats all they want bluetooth for...

 

verizon phones SUCK....
but I'll tell you this much.....
their service is the BEST

 

What good is the best service in the world if you dont have a phone that can carry it worth crap? haha.

and when you even say best... I would beg to differ. I realize that the needs of every mobile user is different, and thats why there are competing companies offering different things.
By best if you mean MOST... Its true. Verizon has more square acrage than any other carrier.
By by any other means... they suck. Thier phones, thier data transfer, thier customer service, rates are not even comparable. A Digital GSM vs ANY CDMA is going to be better. I know there is the new WCDMA and thats good, but Verizon doens't implement it that I know of. If you need the few acres that aren't covered by another carrier is the only excuse

And I dealt a lot with thier customer service and I HATED doing it.

 

My 710 has been awesome with my TL. I'm waiting for the firmware update, but the MID issue (no battery strength, etc) is basically a non-issue to me... The thing "texts" just as good as any phone I've had... CHECK. I've dropped it several times and it still works. CHECK. Works in my TL. CHECK. Coverage everywhere under the sun. CHECK... Better than my last Verizon phone... CHECK. Hmm....

It takes mediocre pics at best... Who cares, I've got a Canon S50 for that. Who the hell buys a PHONE to take good pictures with!?! That camera is for taking pics of convenience (the plate of the guy that just rear ended you), and it's fine for that. Maybe you're pissed the phone doesn't make toast too... (I hear AT&T has one that does...)

My battery life has been great even with BT. (2-3 days easy) A cell phone battery will last 1 year. It's as simple as that. After a year, get a new battery and move on with your life... You change your oil don't you? So why do people expect a battery to last forever?

The internet on the phone. My friends AT&T phone has it... Really keen. You know when he uses it? To show other people his phone has the internet on it. ROFL. It's a technology demo for friends... Very useful... Are you so far away from a PC for long periods of time that you must know what Matt Drudge has to say every hour on the hour? LOL

I will say Verizon's customer service is definately lacking social skills. I've had good ones, I've had bad ones... I'd suspect you'll get the same most places. (Some Acura dealers blow, some rock... Does that make Acura good or bad?)

And at least here in Pgh... Verizon coverage and call quality is bounds better than the competition. Of my friends, I'm the only V-man, and I always have signal where there's is iffy here or there.

As for $ and cost... I get a mad discount cause the wife works for a testing company that gets, well... a mad discount. Before that though, I had V for many years paying full price and was happy with the product I had. (cause that $5 a month I'd save going to AT&T would make or break me...)

The 710 is fine for what it is. Problems? Sure... Show me the perfect phone. I too wish V had more phones to choose from but I wish there was that 2 door TL I've seen pics of as well... C'est la vie. That update should be out soon... I can't wait till I can see the battery meter in the MID so I can sleep at night again.

 

Verizon's coverage is the best, at least thats what I was told. Verizon's customer service has alot to be desired. In fact, I bought my 05TL two weeks ago. Since then I have been on a mission to buy a blue tooth phone. I called Verizon to upgrade to there one and only Bluetooth phone, and they said that wasn't possible for another 6 months, since I was on a 2 year contract. I said "I'll extend my contract to get a deal on your BT motorola", and she said that there wasn't anyway she could do that and the phone would be $500! I thought, are you high! I told her she was forcing me to go to another carrier, and she smugly said, "it'll cost you $175 plus worse coverage." Basically I said screw verizon, and got T-Mobile. I got a Nokia 6600, which I think is an awesome phone, although I have no diagnostic stuff either. Here is the kicker, my new plan cost's me $20 less a month, I have 100 more anytime minutes, and my coverage is better at my house, and the same as it was at work. How did I lose? Verizon is going down the path that every big company has in the past, forgetting about the customer and tunnel visioning on profits. I asked her also why they would disable some of the features of the BT phone they have, and her response was, "I think we are going to charge extra for them later."! Screw verizon. By the way, I only had to sign a 1 year contract to get a $350 phone for $100, and now if I want to change phones, I buy one of Ebay and just change out the SIM card, how hard is that!

 

[QUOTE=worst_guy_ever]Here is the kicker, my new plan cost's me $20 less a month, I have 100 more anytime minutes, and my coverage is better at my house, and the same as it was at work.[QUOTE]

$20 a month? What V plan did you have?! Mine is the standard schmuck $35 a month jobber... T-Mobile is only $15ish??? That is a great deal, I'll give you that...

Awesome for having the cajones to eat the $175 and move on though... At least you put up or shut up!!! For that, your perspective is appreciated... I don't mind "discussing" with people like you...

 

That is incorrect. GSM is highly retarded technology compared to CDMA. "Digital GSM" means nothing, GSM is digital by definition and it is inferior to CDMA.

Unfortunately, CDMA is a proprietary technology, owned and monopolized by Qualcomm and, lately, Texas Instruments. That is why CDMA market is smaller and cellphone manufacturers put the latest and coolest bells and whistles in primitive, but widely spread GSM devices.

That actually explains why Verizon (along with Sprint) have a better service - they use more advanced technology. I realized I had to give up bluetooth and other gizmos when I went with Verizon, but at least I can TALK&LISTEN, which is what I do on the phone 99% of the time.

 

Darkwraith,
Yeah I have some friends like that, lol. Its funny. The best part of the better data transfer through GSM is using it as a modem. I do have some friends who have a laptop that they connect to through thier phones when needed.

But it sounds to me like your happy that they disconnected all the bluetooth features cuz you still get all you want out of it. I guess if your bluetooth works for ya cuz of that then

I'd agree with you about the batteries and cameras, hardly any even new phones have cameras worth taking pictures with... although nicer ones are coming out all the time in phones.

I would have to say verizon is the worst still customer service. I dealt with all of them a lot... most times each one every day... and even being a dealer (you'd think they'd be a little more understanding!!) i'd get crap from Verizon at least half the time. I dreaded calling them. I have to say T-mobile has by far the best customer service... and I'd talk to the exact same people customers did when they called (except the 1800 number I call would let them know before they answer im a dealer) I did hear a few bad cases but they are definetly the exception not the rule. Just a very nice, simple, fast system they had set up. I never did deal with cingular though (I quit before merge w/ att took affect on the customer service number for dealers to call). ATT and Sprint are alright I guess.

worst_guy_ever,

When you say verizons coverage is the best... it is area wise. But I had customers who said they were dropping signals at LAX or other high high traffic places. I guess every carrier has thier deadzones but I dunno...

I just sold the 6600, i loved that phone... a little on the bulky side but you get used to it... and it does ANYTHING.

Oh and about buying a phone on ebay and switching sim cards... that really is the best part!!! It's all i did when I sold my 6600. Sim cards are the best part of the technology. 95 percent of the world uses GSM frequencies... and THAT is why there are more bells and whistles on them... not because CDMA "is a proprietary technology, owned and monopolized by Qualcomm and, lately, Texas Instruments"

I mean think about it... if you were motorola... would you put the new technolgoy on a phone only 5 percent of the market can use? eventually.. but your going to develop that technolgoy to be used on a much much larger market.

softtower. CDMA is definetly an inferior technolgy. It has evolved much and the newest CDMA's including WCDMA are better than GSM. But not good ol CDMA. And Verizon and Sprint are still using CDMA's that are not 3G CDMAs... so they arne't as good as available GSM. (assuming you have the same signal strength, yada yada).

When I say A Digital GSM I just meant its Digital... not that there is a non Digital GSM network. The reason that they have better coverage is because CDMA was a technolgoy introduced in the 1970's in the days of brick car phones... and they started building towers like mad. GSM is a younger technolgy that needs new towers built... which GSM carriers are doing a lot of. Here alone in Utah coverage for GSM has gone up over 300% in the last two years. (granted its probably growing more than new york or somehwere everything is at least preliminarly covered)

And travel ANYWHERE outside of the US and you are going to get slim to no coverage on a Verizon or any other CDMA phone. All of Europe, alot of Africa, and I think most of the carriers in South America are GSM. Tmobile actually has (as of august) the most contracts with international providers to provide coverage internationally.

And the bottom line is.... I STILL hate Verizon and thier customer serivce

 

Darth,
I don't know the name of the plans, but with Verizon I would get 500 anytime minutes, unlimited nights and weekends, no roam no long distance charges for 59.99, that included insurance and taxes. My new plan is with T-mobile is 600 minutes, everthing else the same, for 39.99. I guess its not $20 difference, cuz i'm paying 3.99 for insurance thru Tmobile and then taxes, but I think its still at least $12, and a year at that rate would almost pay for my $175 dollars. Plus, I just "happened" to break my phone right before all this happened, so I have a brand new Motorola phone that I'm giving the dealer that I bought the new 6600 from, and he is giving me another 50 dollars of the price of the phone. Can't beat that. It wouldn't have mattered about the $175. I can't stand dealing with a company that doesn't realize that continued customer support is better than sqeezing them for extra now. I'll never understand that thinking.

 

I enjoyed your post, EleVatE, however I think you're confusing CDMA with TDMA. CDMA is actually even older - it's roots are deep into WWII, and still superior to GSM. All advantages of GSM are purely economic, but from an engineering perspective CDMA is just better: few towers are needed, better signal protection, higher basic transfer rates, lower power consumption, etc, etc etc. Didn't you ever notice the static ALL GSM phones have, regardless of the brand, service area and provider? I believe if you search enough on Google you'll see the difference in approach: GSM vs CDMA.

Problems of CDMA are, again, is just a poor marketing: Sprint&Verizon probably have the worst set of phones to offer, they didn't introduce "cool" and cheap things like SIM-cards, and Qualcomm has been very greedy, which didn't help their stock though....