So it looks like I am eligible for a new phone really soon (thank god). Ive always just had your standard flip phone since Ive had a cell phone but now I want to get something a bit nicer. I dont have the need (or the desire to spend the money) to get an actual PDA/smartphone like a blackberry i dont think. So im looking at getting a "high end" non pda/sp. Something that will let me get online, maybe check email, have a touch screen etc. but still have a good battery life.

Ive looked at the LG Voyager and LG Dare online and talked to a few people. Sounds like the Voyager is a good deal for the price for what im looking at. Any opinions on here though?

8/18/2008 11:40:30 AM

bttt

8/18/2008 2:29:00 PM

bttt. i figured maybe someone had used one of these at some point. I know a lot of people on here are either pretty basic phone or all out pda/iphone/whatever but im open for any other suggestions from verizon as well.

8/18/2008 9:19:12 PM

BLACKBERRY CURVE

8/19/2008 12:17:57 AM

yea yea. i dont feel like paying for the plan. I pay for all my own cell phone bills but my parents still let my sister and I be part of the family plan which lets me get a pretty good price. (I just pay them each month). So I only spend like $25 a month at the moment. Im looking to add vcast and text messaging (which will put me around $50 a month for everything I need I think).

from what I can see theres no way to get a blackberry plan for under that.

[Edited on August 19, 2008 at 7:53 AM. Reason : ]

8/19/2008 7:31:41 AM

I need a mid/high-end Verizon phone that does well with Outlook syncing. What are the best options?

8/22/2008 3:12:14 PM

hey im glad someone used my thread I was kind of hoping people might start using this instead of creating a new thread everytime, but I dont think its a popular enough topic to keep this bumped

8/22/2008 3:16:58 PM

I just got the voyager. I like it because it has the touch screen in addition to the full keyboard, which is nice. The browser is pretty decent. The only thing that pisses me off is it doesn't have javascript. Which makes most websites nonfunctional. And I can't like watch youtube videos. I noticed that the dare launches youtube videos in it's own player.

8/22/2008 3:32:36 PM

I went through this whole process 2 months ago.

Ended up with the Samsung Alias, and I love it.

I'd admit I looked at the LG Dare, LG Voyager, Samsung Glyde, and ended up with the Alias just because of price

Verizon also offers the HTC Touch (Verizon Wireless XV6900) as a smart phone

[Edited on August 22, 2008 at 3:38 PM. Reason : ,]

8/22/2008 3:34:52 PM

the Alias is a good phone


try judging models at phonescoop.com


regardless of the retards that post their worthless opinions, you can at least compare the features side by side

8/22/2008 3:52:43 PM

outlook sync? anyone?

let me ask this another way. does anyone know if you can sync to outlook any of verizon's LG phones?...without having to use 3rd party software..

8/22/2008 4:02:51 PM

without 3rd party software i'd say you'd have to have a windows mobile device., but don't quote me on that.

8/22/2008 4:34:21 PM

yeah you would need windows mobile (active sync)

8/22/2008 4:56:08 PM

uggh, windows mobile is shite

ive used sony ericsson and motorola phones (and my iphone of course), and they both have tools available to sync with outlook. i'm amazed they sell 'premium' phones without the functionality to sync to outlook.

8/22/2008 5:00:55 PM

yes but thats all with 3rd party software


you said without 3rd party software

8/22/2008 5:02:52 PM

huh? sony ericsson's "PC Tools" isn't third party. and the "motorola phone tools" doesn't sound very third party either. iphone isn't third party...

8/22/2008 5:07:10 PM

alias VS blackberry pearl? or something in that price range. i'll probably just use it to make calls and text message. i've had a junk at&t phone for the last couple of years and am looking forward to something better.

9/9/2008 10:35:45 PM

bump. im eligible in like 6 weeks. still thinking of the voyager maybe.

9/27/2008 2:04:06 PM

Quote :

"yes but thats all with 3rd party software"

what in the fuck are you talking about? unless you consider itunes to be a third party app then you're wrong

9/27/2008 2:08:23 PM

Alias can have the standard plan, but the Blackberry will require the unlimited data plan.

Alias will text, but I worry about how long it will last with that one and only hinge point for the top. If your rough on a phone, I think that will be a concern. If not, then your probably alright. The Pearl is a straight phone, so I don't think you have anything to worry about.

^^I think the Voyager has started coming down in price. It went from $400 - $50 MIR to $250 - $50 MIR at my store.


[Edited on September 27, 2008 at 3:09 PM. Reason : ]

9/27/2008 3:08:20 PM

Has anyone seen early reviews of the Blackberry Storm?

9/27/2008 7:03:29 PM

^^ word. I wish I could take the phone off of the stand it is wired to to see how big it felt in my pocket

I had also looked at the dare and decoy some but just in store usage seemed to lean towards the voyager.

9/28/2008 2:43:15 PM

Im liking the LG Dare

9/28/2008 11:43:03 PM

I just got the LG Dare.

Great in some aspects, not so great in others. It's just quirky. Always wants to unlock itself. Music player is bad. Touch feedback can sometimes be inaccurate or slow. I heard the new firmware update fixes some of these issues, but I have yet to stop by Verizon shop to get it (no OTA updates). Typical with a new phone I guess. So, just remember that you'll be getting a neat phone, but not without it's issues.

9/29/2008 12:02:01 AM

^ beat me with a response, ive been distracted since i opened up the page to reply heh. did you compare it to any other phones before you bought it? or what reasons did you like the dare enough to buy it? im still interested in considering it.

^^yea i liked that the little bit I messed with it too since it seems pretty compact and all. one thing I liked about the voyager using it in store though was the separate qwerty keyboard (as in not in the screen). on the dare you could turn it sideways and get a qwerty keyboard but it took up like 80% of the screen so you could only see one or two lines of text in a text or im or email you were sending it seemed like. ive never had a qwerty keyboard before though so that might not be that big of a deal. Ill have to take some more time another day and browse the internet more on the dare and stuff to see what I like best.

I really liked the voyager, but its kind of a long phone it seemed like and im wondering if ill mind having it in my pocket.

[Edited on September 29, 2008 at 12:03 AM. Reason : ]

9/29/2008 12:02:02 AM

i havent had any problems with the dare unlocking itself or touch feedback issues, and have yet to use the music player.

when will the Dare update be available OTA?

9/29/2008 1:21:12 AM

The Dare is pretty nice, and both it and the Glyde have some issues that are resolved with a new firmware, I believe.

As for the Storm, I think this will be my next work phone. I really think I will love this baby, and want to get one pretty bad.

9/29/2008 8:16:06 AM

if anyone has a dare with the updates or gets it updated soon let me know if anything is better. seems like its down to the voyager or dare for me now maybe unless I just decide to get a more basic phone again. how is the call quality on the dare?

[Edited on September 30, 2008 at 9:00 AM. Reason : ]

9/30/2008 8:47:56 AM

Call quality is fine. I get much better reception with it than I did on my RAZR. Though, could be a little louder for me. I more deaf than your average user. I miss being able to cradle the phone between my head and my shoulder. Only benefit of a flip phone that I miss.

9/30/2008 10:37:10 AM

Picked up the Dare on Friday and used it heavily all weekend while in Raleigh. I can't say anything about the music player because I have no interest in using it with my Ipod always with me, but so far I havent had one issue with the phone. The touch response is very quick, sensitive, and accurate for me with no calibration. I have never used a touch phone before and I had 0 problems from the start, even clicking tiny links on websites very easily. Phone has not unlocked itself once either. Call quality is good, though a few people said I was slightly quieter than before.

The menus are extremely easy to navigate and set up a lot better than most other verizon phones ive messed with and the shortcut menu is definitely a useful feature. Texting is also a breeze on this phone. The web is extremely fast for a phone compared to some of my friends with the voyager or even some of the blackberries.

Battery life has been good too; I gave it a good full charge that finished saturday morning and I am still at 2 bars right now 48 hours later with fairly heavy internet, texting, mobile email, mobile IM use etc. on saturday and sunday (above average for what will be my normal use since it was brand new and I was playing with it all weekend)

Thats about all I can think of for now. After the first 4 days I am very impressed...we'll see if any quirky stuff starts happening once I get to mess with it a little more.

[Edited on November 17, 2008 at 8:39 AM. Reason : ]

11/17/2008 8:38:31 AM

You should all be waiting on the Blackberry Storm.

11/17/2008 1:04:32 PM

eh blackberries dont really interest me too much, I dont need to spend that much more on the plan to pick up hardly anything that I would personally use.

I can see other people getting use out of them for sure, but Im still on my parents' family plan (and paying my fair portion of the plan - not just mooching) so its like $30 a month for me to get about the same thing id spend $130 with the blackberry (obviously a few more features with the blackberry but as I stated just not for me at the present time)


[Edited on November 17, 2008 at 1:20 PM. Reason : ]

11/17/2008 1:10:51 PM

I'm considering the storm, but the lack of wifi or a physical keyboard (I'm going to check out the touchscreen on Friday) make it kind of iffy for me.

11/17/2008 7:11:56 PM

I gotta tell you, I havent used the Storm's touchscreen keyboard but touchscreen on my Dare is a lot easier than I thought it would be. The vibrate feedback is great. ive never used a touch screen before and I can type very quickly and accurately on mine. I can only assume a new blackberry touch screen should be at least as good as the dare's

11/17/2008 10:47:59 PM

The Storm got a pretty scathing review from Engadget and Gizmodo this morning. Basically said the typing is terrible, the OS is laggy compared to the Bold, it crashes a lot, stuff like that.

Ugh.

11/20/2008 9:06:31 AM

found one thing with the dare, if you leave your mobile email alerts on 24/7 the battery is significantly shorter (barely made 2 days off of a full charge). But I certainly don't need it on 24/7; In fact I have actually turned the auto-notifications off for email. I have just been testing things.

After I ran the battery out leaving those notifications on, I charged it fully up and have been using it normally the past couple days (with auto email notification off) and the battery is a beast. Finished charging at 6:30pm on Tuesday and it hasn't been turned off yet and I've browsed some on it, made several calls, texted, manually checked mobile email, etc. tuesday night, wednseday, and today and I still have full 4/4 bars 44 hours later. Thats pretty solid if you ask me.

[Edited on November 20, 2008 at 2:31 PM. Reason : ]

11/20/2008 2:30:00 PM

I want a phone that I can drop 1000000 times and it still work. Maybe even throw against a wall. Suggestions?

11/20/2008 2:32:54 PM

Not verizon but here are links anyways heh:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2001855,00.asp
http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/kx12-phone/
http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/SamsungRugbya837/index.jsp

If you are wanting to stay on Verizon, the push to talk phones are "ruggadized"
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneOverviewByDevice&deviceType=Push%20To%20Talk

[Edited on November 20, 2008 at 2:48 PM. Reason : ]

11/20/2008 2:42:53 PM

here's Goatberg's review of the Storm
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122714533895043229.html?

the Sure Touch or True Touch seems to be a bit of overkill. I've seen on several reviews that apparently you have to press pretty hard to get a click.
But when I've used the iPhone, i found that a light-touch is really the key to typing well on it. by mashing your fingers on small icons, i found i was much more likely to press the wrong key

11/20/2008 3:44:25 PM

Voyager


/thread

11/20/2008 3:55:10 PM

I tried the voyager extensively in store and really liked it; In fact I was leaning towards it for a very long time until I messed around with my friend's Dare for awhile one night and then went back to the verizon store and compared them side by side.

The voyager was very impressive, but I really liked the Dare's size better and the web seemed to load significantly faster. The camera was a good step up too. So, while the voyager had me for awhile, the Dare eventually won me over with a few of the extras it had on the voyager

11/20/2008 4:06:47 PM

anyone else get a storm today? i had gotten an iphone two weeks ago only to find my apartment was in a dead zone so i figured id give the storm a try. so far i feel like the iphone is a far superior product but i havent really messed with the storm enough yet. will post updates!

11/22/2008 1:18:30 AM

I tried the Storm and thought it had a bit of lag. Definitely spend some time with it because I think a lot of touch screens are too slow. I read one reviewer's comments and he said he liked it at first but when he became more comfortable with it he found that the screen limited his typing speed. When you depress the screen it has to come back up before you can enter the next character.


Has anyone had a chance to use the Samsung i770?

11/23/2008 10:33:48 AM

I don't have mine yet but my Storm was ordered Friday (I'm on a corporate account and get bigger discounts if I do it that way, paid $105 shipped for it ) so I've been doing a lot of reading on it. Apparently you can do 2 things to help the lag. The 1st is to delete VZNavigator and Visual Voicemail. The other is to update it to the release that RIM pulled at the last minute due to some bug that was found. People that have updated haven't found the bug from what I've seen so far but report that all lag is gone and it runs as smooth & quickly as the iPhone.

11/23/2008 1:04:49 PM

the main problem that i have with it is the lack of wifi.

i need that for work.

11/23/2008 1:24:10 PM

everything sucks on vzw until the bold comes out for it. i know this doesn't help, but it's the truth.

...well, depends on what you're using it for, but for email/web, i stand by this. the curve is the best alternative for now imo.

[Edited on November 23, 2008 at 3:01 PM. Reason : ...]

11/23/2008 2:58:58 PM

^^I agree Won. No WiFi means no Nighthawk. Hence why I use the PPC-6700.

11/23/2008 3:04:51 PM

i have a tester BB Storm. the click screen is interesting, but the menus could use some work. not as user friendly as say a nokia.

reception is great. call quality not so good. background noise is pretty low, i called a friend when I was driving with my windows down and they couldn't hear the wind noise. caller said my voice sounds farther away and weaker.

battery life isn't great, but of course it's a phone with a big lit up screen so that's par for the course. i charge every chance i get. at work it's plugged into usb. in the car, it's plugged into the usb 12v adapter (the only thing you need is another usb cable). could stand to have an extended battery and a larger back cover for power users.

comes with 8gb microSD card and headset.

deleting VZnavigator speeds things up immensely, but i'm sure everyone knows that by now.

the standard browser is ok, but i'm waiting for something that can do tabs.

speed is great for browsing.

fits well in the hand, heavier than i thought, but that's a good thing. might not stand repeated drops, no questions asked insurance is highly reccomended at $6 monthly.

phone does not have a very loud ringer. kinda sad.

there is a small amount of software for it, hopefully there will be more.

camera is kinda poor quality, but the active flash makes up for it.

the lack of wi-fi does annoy me though. it should have it.

11/29/2008 10:59:30 PM

Quote :

"phone does not have a very loud ringer. kinda sad."

i have probably had the ringer turned on less than 1 week worth of days on any cell phone I have had in the past few years. First thing I do with a phone is put it on vibrate when I get it

11/29/2008 11:27:25 PM

Quote :

"battery life isn't great, but of course it's a phone with a big lit up screen so that's par for the course. i charge every chance i get. at work it's plugged into usb. in the car, it's plugged into the usb 12v adapter (the only thing you need is another usb cable). could stand to have an extended battery and a larger back cover for power users."

also i could be totally off base here so someone else correct me if I am wrong, but that is about the worst thing you can do to one of these types of batteries and you're just going to run that thing into the ground fast. Car chargers have always seemed to degrade my batteries so I have stopped using them on my phones (but always keep one for emergencies) and have noticed a big difference. I have also noticed differences in my last few when I switched to only charging when it was extremely low, and charging to full instead of just charging it every chance I got. Sure you're always walking around with a "full" charge but it really seemed to degrade my batteries over time.

11/30/2008 12:53:00 AM