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- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 50 reviews Back to product review
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5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Great phone- for free!"
Pros: Colorful screen, easy to use, small and stylish, fun camera
Cons: Weak speakerphone, sometimes goes straight to voice mail?
Summary: My husband and I just joined Verizon after the year from hell with Nextel. (Lousy reception, dropped calls, numerous service calls, no improvement,etc.) We both chose this phone for it's camera ability, basic features, color screen, and for the fact that it was free on the Verizon website.
(However, it was $100 in the Verizon store. We were told that they could not honor the online $0 price and, that if we wanted it for free, I would have to do all the work online for myself. I told the man, "For a $100 phone, I think that I can manage to type in my own information. The phones arrived in three days and it was a piece of cake. CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE BEFORE GOING TO A STORE!)
Anywho...we really like these phones. They're small and lightweight, much more so than the black bricks we had with Nextel. Reception is good and we live in the boonies. (We are highly impressed with Verizon's reception! Even out here, near Three Mile Island, we have four bars all of the time.) I've had a blast downloading ringtones and background wallpaper for the screen. By reading the reviews here on CNet, I found out how to get rid of the Verizon logo on the outside small screen and some of the other cutsey tricks. We've dropped our long distance on our house phone and will be using this for all of our long distance calls.
The camera is a fun little thing to play with. Just one of those gadgets you love to have. The flash is weak if you're in poor light, but I don't intend to use this to replace my digital camera either. Nice to have to take quick photos of those things you wish to show someone. Very easy to text message and send the photos to someone's e-mail or compatible cell phone. "Look honey, here's a photo of YOUR cat ripping apart the garbage bag!"
Cons- The ring and earpiece volume is not near as loud as our Nextel phones, but we have yet to miss a call. Just don't expect to hear the phone right across the house. Keep it near you. The speakerphone is really worthless. With Nextel, the only good thing I can say is that they had a great speakerphone. With that one, I could easily place the phone on my knee while driving. With this one, you have to be in a very quiet place to even hear and then it's pretty garbled. Way to solve it...pull over while driving if you need to talk.
Concern- One thing we are keeping our eye on is that a couple of times now we have tried to call each other, knowing that we each had our phone on us, and we didn't get the calls. It went straight to voice mail. One time I called my husband, two minutes after hanging up with him, and I got his voice mail. It also happened when my Mom tried calling me. I'm not sure though if this is a phone or reception/service issue. (While reading the reviews however, I see that this is not uncommon.) If this becomes a problem, I'll be calling Verizon for an upgrade on the phones. Until then, if it goes to voice mail, we just hang up and try again.
All in all, this is a great free phone on the Verizon website. For someone like me, who likes the little bells and whistles, and uses my cell phone on an average basis....this is great!
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