HTC Touch Pro (Verizon Wireless)

Summary: When my two year contact with Verizon was ending, I contemplated about switching carries since their selection of new PDS/Phones was very limited and 2 years with a Motorola Q is enough pain for anyone. I am not a Blackberry fan so the Storm did nothing for me nor do I want an I-Phone. I was thinking Sprint and the HTC Touch Pro simply because the reviews are good so far and Sprints $99 unlimited plan sounds tempting. However since Verizon announced they would offer the HTC I decided to stay, sign up for another two years and purchased the HTC as soon as it became available online. As promised, the phone came within 36 hours of the on-line transaction. When I opened the box, things started to get depressing, looks like Verizon was in a hurry to get these phones out and forgot a few things like attention to detail. With the phone I ordered additional memory and a car charger, neither one was compatible with the HTC; I got a regular sized memory card and a piece of junk generic car charger. Verizon forgot to place the activation instructions so I had to make the dreaded call to their customer service. The person I spoke to was rude, and insisted that the activation directions are in the box after some heated argument I hung up and tried again; approximately 90 minutes and two support personnel from hold time to final activation, nice going Verizon. There was some Internet chatter about Verizon crippling the phone with less memory, perhaps but they definitely went the cheap road with very little bundled accessories. Their top of the line phone, still over $250 after rebate and new every 2 year deal and they still can?t provide a decent headset and carrying case? OK, on to the phone, this is a new phone then why is there a large bump on the lower part of the screen? After the lengthy activation experience, I started personalizing the phone. Forget Verizon?s on-line backup process, that is a joke, I used DashWire and transferred everything form the Q to the HTC in minutes, very nice. I installed a single application; Microsoft?s Live Search, worked great on the Q but crashed the HTC on first use. No response with a soft reset or battery removal so a second call to Verizon?s wonderful customer support. They walked me through a factory reset which of course wiped all the changes, no big deal another connection to DashWire fixed that. So far I am not a happy camper with this phone, a third call to customer support about the ?bump? and a replacement phone ended up with a suggestion to either send the phone back or wait till December 1st and take the phone to a local Version store. I have used the phone ?as is? for the last few days, the TouchPro interface is nice once it?s setup correctly. Performance is adequate but there is some lag while switching screens. The speakerphone is useless, with volume up all the way it is still hard to hear while in a car. The keys on the slide out keyboard are very still and will take some getting used to but still way better then the on-screen keyboard. I would rate the experience of Verizon?s HTC Touch Pro so far as acceptable, but not satisfied. I should have switched carries when I had the chance and get Sprints HTC Touch Pro months ago.