Shopping for New Verizon Phone

[10sun]

Looking to spend no more than $300.

Key thing for me is that I need awesome signal reception because I want to use it at home and most of the time I can't even use it here.

Other than that, I have no real preferences.

I have a pre-existing Verizon account that I don't want to change because I have a plan that I pay very little for, but I get a lot due to some grandfathering and technicians having to upgrade my plan because they fucked up my account before.

[Dylan]

The reason you pay so little is because they give so little signal. I used Verizon for two years and the entire time I had it I could never use it at my home, or work because of signal issues, no matter what phone I was using the verizon service didn't work.

Get a T-mobile, they have a really cheap plan that will get you a basic camera phone and for me at least it works everywhere I need it to.

[Jay]

Signal is moreso based on the carrier you have and not so much the phone. Indoor reception no one guarantees as all houses are constructed differently. When it comes to phone vs. phone reception, I always find that the minimal amount of features = the better reception. Something like a basic Nokia will get more RF (radio frequency aka reception) than a brand spanking new RAZR with mp3 player and built in VCR. Question for you, do you get reception right outside of your house? How many bars?

[10sun]

Indoors or out, my barebones LG phone barely worked. Indoors was just slightly worse.

I picked up a RAZR V3M today to try it out and see if I got decent reception here because my girlfriend has one as well and gets great reception here.

I'm getting about 1 bar(an improvement) in my computer room.

After I told the guy at the store my story, he told me that he has had numerous requests for people living in my area for the RAZR.

-Adam

ps. my phone doesn't have a VCR, only SD memory card slot for videos etc.

[Captain Insano]

the RAZR is a kickass phone.

Verizon has the best network hands down.

Regardless you might need to talk to friends/family in your area to see whose network, works the best.

TMobile has great service, but generally a shitty network. I have them now. I will be going back to Verizon shortly.

[10sun]

Girlfriend has Cingular. Rest of my friends / family have Verizon. Nobody likes her.

[Captain Insano]

bwahahaa.

Another important thing to consider is the software on the phones. The TMobile RAZR sucks compared to the Verizon RAZR.

The software on the Verizon actually seems to help with the signal and it is a much faster interface. The TMobile version locks up and freezes pretty often, ie: sucks

[Tikker]

Signal is moreso based on the carrier you have and not so much the phone.

spoken like someone who truly doesn't know anything about the technology

[Jay]

Signal is moreso based on the carrier you have and not so much the phone.

spoken like someone who truly doesn't know anything about the technology

The reception that consumers get from phone to phone is similiar between all Verizon customers on the digital level. If there's a large deviation in RF between customers with the same carrier in the same areas then it's normally a defect in the pcs equipment or that the phone is built with different frequencies. Verizon for instance have some phones that carry the AMPS 850 while the newer phones don't. What that means to the typical consumer is that they'll have a better chance getting signal in farm country with an older phone. T-Mobile for instance uses 850mhz roaming and 1900mhz here in the US. If I have a New Zealand phone with the same service but I lack the 1900mhz band I won't get any signal here in the US unless I'm in an 850mhz roaming area. Most phones have about the same reception if they're on the same carrier give or take one bar. There's few cases out there of some very poorly manufactured phones that somehow made it on the shelf that have as high as a 2 bar difference. There's also quality phonemakers like Nokia who will make a phone that does nothing, but produces that one extra bar that might be the difference between whether it works in your house or not or a Samsung that looks like it has no bars but for some reason is making calls just fine. Verizon boasts that it has the strongest network and reception and their tagline is "It's the Network", not "It's the Network with some phones that don't suck". Trust me, I'm very qualified to answer these questions.

[Tikker]

I build cellular networks



what do you do? work in a radio shack and sell phones?

[Jay]

I work in advertising now, but I used to manage a wireless retailer and researched my info from various sources as well as gotten it directly from a Verizon Network Engineer, or as you'd like to call it, "someone who builds cellular networks." You're telling me you know more about Verizon than Verizon does? Simple solution is to call tech support or various stores or check online to prove I'm right. Working as some network supervisors goon doesn't make you a foremost expert on America's wireless companies.

[Tikker]

I work in advertising now, but I used to manage a wireless retailer and researched my info from various sources as well as gotten it directly from a Verizon Network Engineer, or as you'd like to call it, "someone who builds cellular networks." You're telling me you know more about Verizon than Verizon does? Simple solution is to call tech support or various stores or check online to prove I'm right. Working as some network supervisors goon doesn't make you a foremost expert on America's wireless companies.

I'm not commenting on verizon, but cellular in general


ahhh, advertising and marketing

the anti-techs


people who read a white paper spec, and never do field testing

yes, you're clearly the most reliable source of actual data

[Jay]

Advertising and marketing is my current career field and completely unrelated to what I used to do with Verizon which involved plenty of field testing of the most important variety, which is customer feedback as well as me physically going places with several pieces of equipment. I also commonly spoke with test callers (like the "can you hear me now" people), network specialists and field technicians who work on the towers themselves. BTW, they aren't called cellular networks anymore buddy. Might want to update your notebook.

[Captain Insano]

I work in advertising now, but I used to manage a wireless retailer and researched my info from various sources as well as gotten it directly from a Verizon Network Engineer, or as you'd like to call it, "someone who builds cellular networks." You're telling me you know more about Verizon than Verizon does? Simple solution is to call tech support or various stores or check online to prove I'm right. Working as some network supervisors goon doesn't make you a foremost expert on America's wireless companies.

I'm not commenting on verizon, but cellular in general


ahhh, advertising and marketing

the anti-techs


people who read a white paper spec, and never do field testing

yes, you're clearly the most reliable source of actual data

This is interesting... I'm about to switch back to Verizon... Any recommendations on phones? I'm thinking about getting a RAZR through them. Good idea or bad? I want reliability and quality when I am on the phone since I use it for business primarily.

[Narrock]

This is getting good.



p.s. Stop bein a jerk, Tikker. It's obvious that Jay does know what he's talking about in this regard. He's correct about the cell phone signal strength which relies more on the carrier and not the phone.

[Jay]

I work in advertising now, but I used to manage a wireless retailer and researched my info from various sources as well as gotten it directly from a Verizon Network Engineer, or as you'd like to call it, "someone who builds cellular networks." You're telling me you know more about Verizon than Verizon does? Simple solution is to call tech support or various stores or check online to prove I'm right. Working as some network supervisors goon doesn't make you a foremost expert on America's wireless companies.

I'm not commenting on verizon, but cellular in general


ahhh, advertising and marketing

the anti-techs


people who read a white paper spec, and never do field testing

yes, you're clearly the most reliable source of actual data

This is interesting... I'm about to switch back to Verizon... Any recommendations on phones? I'm thinking about getting a RAZR through them. Good idea or bad? I want reliability and quality when I am on the phone since I use it for business primarily.

I like the RAZR's on Verizon now. I'd have one if I didn't need it for the BlackBerry. Those Q's are pretty sick too.

[10sun]

Its a two part thing though because LG phones in general don't work in my area regardless of carrier (Sprint / Verizon I've tested). Motorolas work decently (Cingular being best carrier around here). My Nokia didn't work at all. Samsung works somewhat on Sprint's network. There seems to be variance based upon both phone and carrier around here.

[Drem]

I don't have a RAZR but i have some other kind of motorola on verizon. it's the only one i saw that had an antenna you can actually pull out if you need to. my old LG on verizon got like 5% reception on this third floor apartment filled with a billion wireless devices and the motorola gets like 95% when i bust out the antenna. huuuge difference. i haven't lost a call yet

[Captain Insano]

When I have trouble with reception I just duct tape a wire from my phone antenna to my tinfoil hat. It helps me communicate with my alien abductors well too.

[Narrock]

When I have trouble with reception I just duct tape a wire from my phone antenna to my tinfoil hat. It helps me communicate with my alien abductors well too.

I'm pretty sure that Nancy Pelosi has one of those too.

[Tikker]

He's correct about the cell phone signal strength which relies more on the carrier and not the phone.

he's not though~


it's about matching a cell with a carrier


ps, it doesn't matter what you want to call the network jay, it's still a cell network

[Narrock]

Then why do I get cleaner reception and less "dead zones" with Cingular than I did with Verizon using the same phone?

[Captain Insano]

cuz the same phone is better matched to cingular's network like tikker is saying?

Just a thought... but when are cell phones going to pop popcorn? Now thats a feature worth paying for.

[Narrock]

Your tinfoil hat is on too tight.

[Parv]

I have a RAZR V3C - very happy with it, although I had to rollback the firmware to get uncrippled Bluetooth - the current firmware will only allow you to sync up phonebook and calender, not transfer photos/ringtones.

I have Cingular through work - piece of shit network in my opinion, with the number of dropped calls around here.