I've been disgusted with the Verizon phone selection for a long time now. In particular I wanted a phone with bluetooth. So, I decided to make the switch to Cingular. I chose Cingular because they are a large GSM carrier...and I like the orange cingular guy. I chose the Sony Ericson T637 phone and purchased it at amazon.com, which had a great rebate so that in the end the phone was free. (Note: even if you pay $99 for this phone, it's hard to beat.) The T637 was really cool. I liked the size and feel. The camera could have been better. The bluetooth option was really nice. I flipped when I used BluePhoneMenu on my mac with the phone. Also seemless syncing of contacts and calendar with iSync.
The move to Cingular was a big step. I have been a Verizon customer for +2 years and everyone I knew used Verizon so I was going to loose all those mobile-to-mobile in-network minutes. Also, the Verizon coverage is great. This year I've been in NY, LA, San Francisco, all through NC, ATL, SW AL and and NW FL and haven't had any problems. But I had to have bluetooth.
Unfortunately, it didn't go well. With the new phone, I could walk 10 ft into my office and completely loose all reception...nothing...not 0.1 bar. Which meant that the phone is completely usesless in my office and at my desk. So I had no choice but to return to Verizon...withouth bluetooth.
Okay, so I know that Verizon carries the Motorola V710, but it doesn't have all the standard bluetooth features. There has been a lot said about Verizon crippling bluetooth in the V710; and I'm a voice in that choir. But I have to say that from a pure financial perspective, why would Verizon enable such a feature. It is pretty clear that a big part of their audience is business users, most of which don't care about bluetooth. So to continue to maximize the revenue in their portion of the value chain (ala The Innovators Solution), Verizon is probably doing the right thing. They have no incentive to use an open interface...regardless it sucks.
Posted by rob at September 9, 2004 12:58 PM | TrackBack