POLL: V710 or 650 Verizon

Re: POLL: V10 or 650 Verizon

Continue to have second hand thoughts... and third... and fourth. Verizon is not your friend. I would avoid them if you can, depending on coverage.

 

not familiar with the the T5 so cant say. despite what you hear or read, the V710 will not have full file transfer functionality. so keep that in mind. it is highly unlikely that Verizon will allow that any time soon.

im sure you are probably familiar with the lawsuit verizon is in with the state of Ca over BT functionality. dont expect much out of that no matter what the ruling.

but for me, the only thing i would look at when choosing wireless carriers is the coverage and quality of service. hardware is a fleeting and changing thing. verizon introduces an average of 2-3 new phones a month so if you dont like what they have to offer, then wait a while.

things to consider, verizon broadbandcoverage is 2nd to none. consider that cingular spped is 330 kps they are 2nd fastest when
Verizon is at 2Mbps currently with a new product rollout set for late this year or early 2006 that will more than double that speed. but the current EV-DO standard will cover 150 million people by the end of the year making its coverage much larger than anyone elses.

sure T-Mobile has the cheapest service, but smallest footprint. (verizon and cingular is the same price at $80 for laptop service or 45 for PDA's)

Sprint offers unlimited access to Wifi hotspots for a small sub charge which helps to extend its coverage but its speed is barely greater the 1XRTT speed.

so all services has pluses and minuses and if portable internet access is not a requirement for you then the choices become even less distinctive

if you want to look at opinions, T-Mobile won for best customer service, but verizon still provides the best and most reliable cellphone coverage and despite claims to the contrary, sprint covers the most people albeit poorly in some cases.

the latest count

Sprint 291 million
Verizon 289 million
Cingular/ATT 279 million
T-mobile 265 million

unfortunately, you only have a very limited amount of time to determine whether the coverage and quality of service is acceptable to you before being locked into contract. pre-pay service might be an option

good luck with your decision...

 

I am looking into pre-pay. Unfortunately, you have less phones to choose from. It seems only one, the Motorola V220 is prepaid compatable but please correct me if I am wrong about that. Even when a carrier lists the motorola V550 for their monthly plan, prepaid doesn't offer that phone, and I checked on the website of T-Mobile and Cingular.

I've heard that T-Mobile and Cingular are merging, anyone else hear that?

T-Mobile has a prepay plan of 1000 minutes for $100 good for a year.
Cingular has 10 cents a minute, but charges an extra $1 for each day you use the phone. They also have a 25 cents a minute without a day charge, but after 5 minutes, you made that up.
Mobile to mobile on Cingular is free, and my female friend is currently Cingular. With a bluetooth cingular, I could talk to her while I drive to her house!

 

i would not recomend pre-pay because you will only be offered a very limited selection. none in the high tier price range.

although many are supposedly the same model, i question that they are the same since pre-pay doesnt qualify for any discounts since most wireless phone companies give discounts based on the length of the contract. since prepay has no contract they charge a different price for the phones and i have heard many reports that pre-pay phones are of lower quality. (may or may not be true as there is no hard evidence of this)

another option that is possible is to pick up a phone at e-bay or some similiar outlet. (highly recommend that you verify that the phone can be activated first as if the ESN of the phone is reported stolen, it will not be activated on any account.) and use it for a pre-pay account.

if you have existing service with verizon and you have reached your ETF (early termination fee) date you may take your existing handset and convert to pre-pay service. that is true for any handset they offer except PDA's (they require some sort of internet access package on the service) verizon currently has 18 models to choose from. in the pre-pay line there is only 3 choices (all cheapies) to choose from.

another caveat. if say you have a moto v710 and go from post pay to pre pay account (verizon calls em "free-ups") and continue to use your v-710 which is perfectly ok. that phone breaks and you decide you want to replace it. you will only have the choice of what is available in pre pay. now if you want to activate a different kind of phone on pre pay like a v710, you can buy one at retail (which runs 299.99)

 

I don't want to pay $40 a month for a decent set of features. Sure, I could find a plan for $30 or even $20, but then there's limitations there too, plus I have to pay that even if I don't use it much that month.

 

Love my T-Mobile and V710. T-Mobile service is actually better than AT&T and Verizon in my house. Also, the V710 works very well with the BT functions of the Prius.

+, I love Catherine Zeta Jones!

 

i second the Catherine vote!!

 

The V710 was supposed to be a "superphone" (don't they claim that about all the new models, though?). Motorola build a great phone. Then, Verizon effectively turned it into a braindead piece of garbage, first by disabling BT functionality and then offering a monster software upgrade that only partially resolved the problem.

Motorola should sue Verizon for defamation of character. Selection is probably all about coverage, but if I were buying a new phone right now, I'd buy the Razr from Cingular.

 

We are happy with Sprint and our Treo 650. The only issues I'm aware of are that if you don't disable call waiting, an on-going call is dropped on the Prius when a new call initiates the call waiting notification on the Treo. Also, the signal strength does not show on the MFD. Don't know if there are additional Verison specific issues.