I believe I’ve mentioned that my Verizon contract is almost finished, and I’m now able to choose another phone. In exchange, of course, for signing a fresh two-year deal with my cellular overlords.
And this has triggered much research, and reading of internet reviews. I want to move up to a smartphone, and would really like the Motorola Droid. But the thing is so expensive (my cost: $199), it’s hard to accept. Especially when you factor in the so-called “data pack” needed to run that monster.
It’s an unjustifiable proposition, in my opinion.
So, I’ve been reading about the less-costly HTC Droid. I could get it for $79, and the reviews are almost unanimously positive.
The only downside? I do a lot of texting, and the HTC has a virtual keyboard. Meaning it has a cartoon likeness of a keyboard, as opposed to a real one. And I don’t like the sound of that, not one tiny bit.
As is the tradition, I’ve been agonizing about all this boolshit. I keep vacillating between what I really want, and the more sensible option.
I say to myself: “What’s a hundred twenty bucks in the grand scheme of things? Just cut out Milky Ways from the vending machines at work, and you’ll pay for it in no time.”
Then I counter: “Are you freaking insane? What do you need a two hundred dollar phone for? Who do you think you are, someone important?” I’m not very nice to myself, if you want to know the truth.
All these internal conversations were starting to drive me crazier, and I decided to make a final decision on Saturday. I would go to the Verizon Store, I announced to myself, and play around with that virtual keyboard one final time. And if it wasn’t too bad, I’d just go with the HTC.
I needed cell phone closure, dammit.
So, I went over there, and some khaki-pants wearing sumbitch, with a lanyard around his neck, descended upon me within seconds.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked.
“No, I just want to look at the phones. I’m good.”
“May I ask you which company you’re using as a cable provider?” he answered.
WTF? I just told this guy I didn’t need or want to talk with him, and that I was interested in phones. So, what does he do? He continues talking — about cable TV.
“Hey man, I’m here to play around with the cell phones. Nothing else. I’m not going to change my cable company,” I replied.
“Can I ask how much you pay per month for service?”
I said nothing, but something in my expression caused him to retreat. “If I can be of any assistance, just ask,” he said, while walking backwards.
Grrr… That place is as bad as the old Circuit City. Every time I went into one of those stores, some lanyard bastard would instantly suction himself to me. And it got to the point where I stayed away, for that specific reason.
In fact, I don’t do business with the Verizon Store, either. I just go there to hold phones in my hands, and test ’em out. Actually dealing with those pushy, condescending fucks? Never! In addition to their overbearing demeanor, they’ll also bend you over the proverbial couch with fees:
“Yes, the phone is $79, final cost. But that’s with a $200 mail-in rebate. Also, there will be a transfer fee, reconnection fee, and commission-enhancement charge. Can I also interest you in an extended warranty, or insurance policy? I highly recommend both, because I get 25% of whatever add-ons I can squeeze out of you dumbass rubes…” On and on it goes.
And at the website it’s just $79, with none of that other nonsense. Doing actual business in one of their stores is for SUCKERS! Shit, I’m getting all worked-up here…
In any case, I didn’t like the virtual keyboard, but tried to convince myself I’d get used to it. I’m sure it’s fine, I mumbled, knowing it would likely drive me up the wall. For two long years.
But I decided I was finally going to bite the bullet, and order the HTC. I went home and logged onto the Verizon website, and had questions about our family plan. I’d received a letter telling me I could upgrade, but what about the other three lines?
So, I called their customer service number, bracing for a hard-sell, etc. But it was completely positive. The woman, who may or may not have been named Ticonderoga (that’s how I remember it, but how could it possibly be?), was extremely helpful and friendly.
I told her my situation, and she took a look at my account. Then she suggested I wait until March 31, before taking any action. At that point I’ll pass some kind of different threshold, and will be eligible for all sorts of added goodies.
The cost of the Motorola Droid will become $99(!), and I’ll be able to choose any other phone they sell — for free. Any phone, including another Droid, if I want.
So, Toney will be able to pick out something kick-ass, for no additional cost. And the phone the Secrets want, the enV Touch, will also be completely free. Final price for four new top o’ the line phones: $99.
Would lanyard boy have surrendered so much important information? Ha!
So, yeah. I’m happy with Verizon right now. We’ve been with them for years, and have no issue with their service, whatsoever. If I can just stay out of their stores, we’ll likely stay with them for many years to come. But it’s in their best interest that I stay out of their stores… ‘Cause I’ve been known to get irritated by something, and write off an entire corporation for life.
Are you happy with your cell phone? What do you have? Are you satisfied with your provider? Are you getting a good deal from them? What about horror stories? They’re always fun. Tell us all about it in the comments.
And I’ll see you guys again tomorrow.
Have a great day.
BOOM!
Balls!!!
Fuck. Fucked by WordPress again!!!
The company I work for also owns a Verizon/Nextel store, and yeah I avoid that place like the plague. The only good thing about it is I don’t pay for a cell phone. I have the Motorola i580. Durable but not very exciting. Nextel has some pretty big service voids in the more rural parts of Ohio.
NP-The BO healthcare speech on WLW.
FOUR-TU-I-TOUS
Damn, actually FIVE-TU-I-TOUS
Verizon is not great but probably the best. (not the cheapest, however.) Good service. Best coverage, etc… I am, however, going to consider this Boost Mobile when my contact is up in 10 months. I’m not even sure I have a contract anymore.
LOL@TQM!
I got an iPhone recently, and while I feel a bit douchy when I break it out in public, I love that damned thing. I’m headed straight for fanboy status, I fear.
I desperately wanted to hear stories of near-violent confrontations, name calling and thinly veiled threats.
Where’s my amen corner?
@ the Qweezy Mark: Ha ha fucker.
Verizon?! Blech!
I have an iPhone. Once you have one, you will NEVER go back to a flip; never go near the several iPhone wannabes & will NEVER touch a RIM or Blackberry again.
Yeah, I’m a bit of a fan. But I still have a PC, so there!
Yeah, I was about to say, I just got my HTC Droid for free.
I wanted the Moto Droid, but couldn’t get past the face that that slide open keyboard was going to break off. I’m really happy with the Droid, and yeah, the rebates are instant if you order online. Stay away from the stores, Jeff. They wanna sell you VIOS 50 MB per second internet, phone and TV.
I use Verizon and have had nothing but great service though I too absolutely hate the stores and do not use them. I have the Motorola Droid and absolutely love it!! I use the virtual keyboard as my fingers are too clunky for the keyboard. I highly recommend thr Motorola Droid.
Don’t get me started on cell toys. Hate the sumbitches!
I still walk over to Ike Godsey’s store to use the telephone.
I own a motorola droid. it is, mitts down, the best phone i have ever gripped with my grubby mitts.
I have the iPhone, as required by the League of Web Designer’s manifesto. I’m also required to be a condescending prick to people who use any other phone.
I bought it reconditioned from apple so it was about 50% less then a brand new one, love the thing.
Now I just gotta scrape together $500 so I can pick up a iPad in a few weeks.
I have the LG enV touch and I love it!!!
Verizon. Started way back in the early 90s with CellularOne and a bag phone before Verizon bought ’em out. Cannot tell you how many times I’ve caused a scene in the store and stormed out in a huff. I wouldn’t go there to Pick up a free phone these days, but I’ll order one from the slow ass website in a skinny minute. I don’t have one of the fancy phones, though. I’m the mama and I have the bottom rung LG Decoy or something crappy like that. It works fairly reliably.
I’ve never texted. Or whatever it is called. I did get a cell phone a while back (Trac Phone) due to the fact that payphones are almost nonexistent these days.
I just got a Blackberry Curve 8530 today from wirefly dot com.
Cost from Sprint store: $200 and a $150 mail in rebate
Cost from sprint dot come: $50.
Cost from radio shack dot com : free and $10 shipping
Cost from Wirefly dot com: Free, free shipping
I haven’t had a chance to really play with it yet, but even if it sucks it’s better than my last phone, and the price was right. I would have preferred a Palm Pre or either the Samsung or HTC Android phones, but they were between $150 and $180… Didn’t want them THAT much more.
Ask Joe T about HIS new phone. What happened to the old one, Bitch ??!!
I have verizon and i just upgraded from the LG enV 2 to the enV 3. They are very similar so there wasn’t any learning curve and they are nice phones. I wasn’t happy about having to change my calling plan as my old one wasn’t compatible and then i had to add a 9.99 data package. grrr. I feel like I pay way too much for it all and could probably get better reception with a tracphone. But I like to text and everyone I know has Verizon so I get the free in calling and texting.
Net10 phone…LG slider. Yeh I know but I only make calls…don’t need games, texting, web. Thats what I have a notebook for. And I only spend about $30 a month…not a heavy user. Or is it I have no one to call? Shit now I’m depressed.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters….
I actually got my first cell phone for Christmas. Never wanted one, however the few friends I have secretly told the Missus they were getting tired of me borrowing theirs(not that I did with any frequency).
So Christmas morning I joined the masses with 21st century technology. The phone itself is very basic. It’s made by Samsung, service provided by Verizon.
It makes and receives calls. I can text, but hitting those tiny little buttons in the right sequence to get the letter right always causes a blinding headache.
I think I can take a picture or a short movie with it too. I’ve yet to do that. I’m pretty sure it has a voice mail feature. Maybe. I guess. Meh.
Ike Godsey always has a cold sody pop waiting for me when I come in to use the telephone in his store. I beat him in checkers yesterday.
I don’t own a phone. I think phones are the mark of the beast. I keep a small chalk board hanging around my neck. When I want to communicate with someone I scribble my words on the board and then hand them the chalk. It’s much easier than actually talking to people and it helps reduce the spread of germs, I believe.
I got my 18 yr old daughter a Rogue (we’re Verizon too). Note that you have to buy the Internet (or data) package with phones like these. Anyway, she loves it. She does a lot of texting but needed internet access for school.
My son wanted the ENV. We were told that is a texter’s dream, and so far he loves that phone too. Best part is the data access is not required, but you can still get on, pay monthly, and it works pretty good with that phone too.
So, there are my recommendations for what they are worth.
Phew, glad to see I’m not alone here…
I can’t see the sense in having a cell phone, let alone one with a contract. I have enough bills to pay. I only have a phone for “emergencies”, and because everyone was getting on my case over it. It’s a Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go model, with internet access, and it only costs me about 10 bucks a month (including text messaging). I’m quite happy with things the way they are.
But if I could get myself an iPhone with no contract, I’d be all over that in a heartbeat. You can get them in the rest of the world, but not here. Maybe when Apple’s deal runs out with ATT, things will change.
Fuck AT&T and the fucking horse they rode in on…..I loved the service on the phone and online, but when I went into the store I about blew a cranial tube. Some puss nut named Brad had all he could do to look up from his wifi device and give me any service. And when he did it was less than stellar. The only thing I needed was a charger for a GD phone and this ass nugget was all kinds of ways trying to talk me out of it and to get a new phone…FUCK OFF meat whistle….soooooo….any suggestions for a new carrier???
We just switched from Verizon to Sprint, in hopes that we could use our phones without having to stand on the porch. The daughter has that Droid phone, without having to purchase the additional data package Verizon wanted. I have some gay flip phone, which has lots of nifty features, but I miss my sturdy, metal-encased Motorola Razor. What’s nice about Sprint is that I pay the same amount for TWICE the shared minutes and unlimited pic & text messaging. I got burned on that 250 text/pic messages per month before. Also, I can plug my new phone into my computer and just drag & drop music and pictures, where before I had to use Verizon’s media software, which was kinda’ bothersome. Oh, and as a bonus, I can actually stay inside my apartment to talk. Screw Verizon!
I don’t understaond why people have gotten away from communicating via semaphores. It was a quick, easy, and inexpensive way of transferring messages over long distances. Now everyone seems to feel the need to carry around one of those ‘cell-phones’. I don’t believe that those things actually work. People are just walking around having imaginary conversations with themselves on those things.
@retrollama, my husband and I have Virgin Mobile too (his & hers phones). When we realized we were going to have to break down and get cell phones, our finances were not stable enough to take on a service contract. I tried Tracfone and it was the worst customer “service” experience of my life. VM has great customer service, the phone service itself is dependable and inexpensive for people who don’t use their phones much, and we’re not stuck with all the BS associated with contracts. We both have the Kyocera Wildcard phone, which was selected mostly for the full keyboard for texting (trying to text on the number pad drives me right up the wall).
i have the enV and i love it but the virtual keyboard of shich you speak is highly frustrating. I can no longer text while I drive and that is probably a good thing but still.
I love Verizon. I left for a while and went with boost because I was sure i could save money that way but the service was sketchy at best and i could not get online with it EVER so I did not find the savings to be worth it. i went back to the beast. I like being able to actually use my phone whenever I want and always have enough bars.
So there you have it my assesment of the whole darn situation.
Fellow longtime Verizon customer. Both Wally and I are banned from their store though. Absolutely no control over the temper in that place.
I’m telling you, get the Droid, it will be worth it. My boyfriend has it and I’m very jealous of him. I have a Verizon Dare right now with a virtual keyboard…Lets just say when I had the envy 2 before, I was the fastest typer on the planet…now with the Dare (which I’ve had over a month) I SUCK at texting. You know when you first get a phone and you cannot type on it for a few days? Yeah, imagine doing that forever. I cannot get the hang of this virtual keyboard no matter how hard I try. Seriously, get the DROID!
To hell with the phones, just get whicever one is free. I Never spen more than $0.99 on a phone per two year contract. Instead, spend the money on the new Milky Way that are just caramel.
No zhit, Milky Way caramel wrapped in chocolate. And they aren’t deep donging you on it eather, the bar is the same size. All they did was blow out the fake fluff and fill the gaping hole with caramel. Which is what I now fill the hole in my heart with.
Oh yeah, no new phone is as good as the last one.
Up here where I live, people still use smoke signals.
I tried it once and had 37 people show up for a baby shower. Another time, I had six guys show up wanting to kick my ass because of what I was saying about their girlfriends. I’m getting better at it.
Don’t have a magic box to talk into. Wife has one and I keep the number on a piece of paper in my wallet.
The problems I’ve been reading here do not surprise me having read about the problems of buying a goddamn $5.00 sandwich at a take out joint.
I just got the Blackberry Curve as well. Verizon service. At first I was hating it…still have some issues with the functions since they really don’t give you a guide book…only a “book of hints”. But the first dude at the Verizon Store I dealt with was a real dickbeater. He brushed me off and told me to come back in two (TWO!) days when my contract expires. Eat shit, dickwad.
When I went back the second guy was cool. Seemed to be pretty honest. So far so good as far as my contract.
” I’m not very nice to myself, if you want to know the truth.”
-a tiny gem.
I have had a Droid since they were released and I love it. You will be able to look at the surf report while you are at work 🙂 And the fact that it gets my gmail and has my Google calendar integrated is a big plus. The GPS with Google maps works really well too. I use it now instead of my old Garmin which was nagging me to purchase a 50 dollar map update. Google maps updates constantly for free. The camera and the video work decent too. I am really crossing my fingers for the rumored future flash update!
Work provides my phone. I like when life decisions like this are made on my behalf.
The soul searching and praying to the appropriate deity for guidance seems like a huge sucking vortex of time and effort for something you’re going to use to say “LMFAO I’m SO HIGH” or worse “I want to ride a unicorn up a rainbow to say hey to god!!!!!”
The poor Nerdic-Asians that work so hard to develop tools to communicate more effectively in all parts of the world and their work is reduced to “OMG did you see her ass??? LOL”… thank god they’re not expected to fall on their swords anymore.
Oh and then the cognitive dissonance that fills the void left when the giddiness evaporates is the money shot for sure.
Well, enjoy your new master whatever you choose.
…and because it’s been a few weeks and Jason is probably going through withdrawl – ASSRABBITS…
AWG – we miss you man. Damn those IT-Nazi’s that ban anything like this at work
The 2 years is up on my HTC Mogul and I’m looking to replace it. It has one of those “virtual keyboards” but only for the phone dialing function and that is annoying enough. A full QWERTY virtual keyboard – er, no f-ing way.
I’d like a Droid. The best sounding one (Motorola) is not available with Sprint, but since I pay $33/month for unlimited everything I’m loathe to ditch my plan. A HTC Droid it is then.
I considered an iPhone/Pad but then I remembered I know about technology and I’m not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Not Sent from my iPhone.
iPhone all the way! I got it because of the virtual keyboard and use it everyday to amuse myself. I got a tiny little docking station for Christmas. I park my iPhone in it and can hear my music all over the house.
Sent from my iPhone
So I’m the khaki pants-wearing sumbitch at the actual store, and it’s not all fun and games on our end either. I’ve had two death threats, been told a number of times to shove the phone up my ass, and most recently, had a 50+ (and I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt) year old woman throw a goddamned temper tantrum on my floor.
I do my best to help people out, but if you come in telling me what I will and won’t do, I’m going to put the least effort in possible. If you come in and tell me what you’re looking for, and what you want to do, laugh at my jokes and be friendly and open to my suggestions, I’ll throw free shit at you, fix your iphone, and make sure that if anything on your bill is jacked up, it gets fixed.
I know that typically, the guy at the store is trying to screw you as best he can, and we’re trained like that–but when you’re in a small town in rural Ohio, you can’t do it–And I make better money if I’m a nice guy! But seriously, love my Iphone–if you’re an AT&T subscriber, the new LG Arena is going to be a great phone without a smartphone plan, and if you’re looking for Android, the Motorola Backflip is pretty cool. I love my Iphone, but Android is pretty cool, and the Backflip is really similar to the Moto Droid, so your choice seems pretty good, Jeff!
Work pays for my cell phone, so I have no idea what the cost is, but the carrier is Bell Mobility. My current phone is a LG Rumor. I’ll upgrade in a few months when this one dies.
I have an iPod Touch and love it, so I can see an iPhone in my future….
With all this Verizon talk I’m surprised no one posted this yet:
http://thinkorthwim.com/2007/02/15/what-now-bitches/
It’s the famous protest check Randall Munroe (author of the web comic xkcd) sent to Verizon.