VeeshanVault

Now on a not so serious note: If only he'd bought an iPod!

Edit: He's back!

Boogahz wrote:He is probably still trying to post here from his Instinct which would be damn near impossible. I had no problem making a few posts on my Touch from the service center of the Chevy dealership yesterday though!

Fu3%ck3r, i8m NO4 hvI7ng tro9ble post-m,g wth my Ins&ct!2

lmao

Thoughts:

I will probably keep the Instinct until July 11th when the 3G iPhones are available. Then, I will have to decide whether to go back to AT&T or stick with Sprint. If I stay with Sprint, I will probably just back down to the Samsung M520. The only snag I have right now is the same thing that made me go ahead and get the Instinct to begin with...porting my home number to a cell. The change is scheduled to take place on Monday, 07/07. I would actually take the Instinct back sooner if I did not think that Sprint would then steal my home number

I returned my Instinct today.

Here's the breakdown:

Major Pros for the Instinct over iPhone:

The Instinct is a better phone than the iPhone
The Instinct has better navigation than the iPhone
The Instinct has much better (iPhone doesn't have it at all) voice commands and Live Voice Search than the iPhone
The Instinct's landscape keyboard blows away the iPhones (I had to use the iTouch keypad last night and it really does blow compared to Instincts')
The Instinct has stereo Bluetooth...a HUGE piece missing with the iPhone which has mono Bluetooth (freaking lame for a multimedia phone)
Insticnts two removable battery system is better than the incased single iPhone battery


Major Pros for the iPhone over Instinct

The iPhone's web browser is the best by far.
The auto ability for the iPhone to sense and switch over to wi-fi when it's available (like when at home) is nice
iPhone's larger screen and UI is better.
iPhone handles podcasts which the Insticnt doesn't
-----

A big negative for the Instinct is that it's not MIDP2 compliant. What this means is that all of the existing Java apps that require text entry won't work with the Instinct. Instinct's crappy browser could be ignored altogether if you could install Opera. You can install Mobile Opera, Google Maps, etc. Instinct loads them right up, but because Sprint decided not to make the phone compliant with the standardized MIDP interface, you can't access the keyboard to enter data.

This has been a huge deal on the forums. Both third party app developers and people like me have complained. Sprint basically made the Instinct useless for many many apps that had already been written in java. To Sprint's credit, they announced that they are going to push out a firmware update in a month or so that will make the Instinct MIDP compliant.

So, for those that own the Instinct, it's a better "phone" than the iPhone. My primary use of an unlimited data plan phone would be for surfing the net and this is the area where the Instinct lacks.

Here's the deal. If I needed a phone primarily, the Instinct is the way to go with it's much better navigation and voice command searching. The problem is I don't really need a cell phone except for minimal talk time. I'm not into chatting on the phone for the most part. What I do want is the best browser/internet functionality as that's really all I'll use for my purposes. I'm also a huge Podcast fan and as much as I hate Apple, iTunes is by far the best way to manage Podcasts.

I'm considering the iPhone 3G. I already own a 16GB iTouch so am familiar with it and know exactly what it can do. My other option is Windows Mobile 7 phones whenever they come out. I'd like to avoid Apple if possible but I know I can make stock trades on the iPhone. I'm also not sure about AT&T. Sprint has been great for me. The Sprint Employee was very helpful both buying and returning the Instinct.

After briefly bricking my iPhone today, I got the 2.0 firmware up and going.

However, now I can't listen to voicemail messages via my bluetooth headset. There used to be an "audio" button but now it just says "speaker" and toggles between the phone and loud speaker as the audio source. Phone calls over the headset work fine still. Can anybody else duplicate this? It can't be intentional... but it is possible I'm just missing something.

Okay, I got screwed on the port of my home phone to a mobile. Apparently they "forgot" to tell me that the port cannot be reversed from any mobile carrier to a land line. So, even though I get shitty reception on my shitty phone in my home, I am going to have to switch to some other mobile carrier or pay Sprint an extra $10 a month for their Airave (wtf kind of name is that) to be able to have good signal in my apt that is less than a mile from 5 towers.

Just a follow up on the return of my Instinct to Sprint.

I looked at my bill today and there was a $75.00 charge for casual internet usage. @.03/kb

I returned my Instinct at noon on July 11th and reactivated my old Sprint phone, switching back to a basic voice only phone plan. Those fucking bastards retro'd that plan back to the beginning of the day and charged me for the internet bandwidth I used on the Instinct earlier that morning when I had unlimited internet.

What a bunch of cocksuckers. After a wasted 20 minutes of my time and inconvenience, they removed the charges. Crooks!

Jesus fucking christ. These phone companies lie like it was second nature. The 75.00 charge mentioned above is still on my fucking bill. No way to resolve it except for another fucking 20-30 minute phone call. That last rep said multiple times it would be taken care of. What a huge waste of time and there's no avoiding it. Every cell phone provider has a core bunch of incompetents working for them. I'm going to have to repeat the exact same fucking story to another god damned non caring shit and get the same fucking response eventually after 30 minutes and then have to wait and see if they actually do it this time. Even worse, these assholes don't care if it's their fault, if you don't pay the overcharge, you're phone's eventually going to be turned off and then you have late fees, reconnect fees, etc to add insult to injury.

I know if I worked their job I wouldn't give a shit and would probably fuck with people for the hell of it. There's no win in this situation. It doesn't matter if you're nice or an ass on the phone, they still fail.

Minimized the wasted time by calling on my way to work this morning. Lady with Darth Vader breath explained that there were technical difficulties that weren't explained to me on Aug 19th so that's why the charge wasn't reversed.

At least Habib had notated my account on the 19th so a full blown repeated explanation wasn't necessary.

/mission accomplished *maybe*

Don't bet on it. I got fucked over by T-Mobile for MONTHS despite constant assurances it was all taken care of.

Anyway. It's new phone time for Ashur on Verizon. Which of the low-cost/cheap models they have are any good? The LG Chocolate (1.0) was a complete POS.

So far I like my Sony W580i. There are newer / better models available, depending on your provider and location.

Ashur, what features do you need/want? Or is just free basically you're only condition?

Also, I don't think I would ever recommend an LG phone to anyone that I didn't want to torture.

Speakerphone is a MUST.
Not shitty is a MUST (my last phone was an LG Chocolate)

Bluetooth is a plus
QWERTY is a plus
Music is a plus

It would be really super awesome if it had a GOOD calendar (or one that actually could synch w/ Lotus Notes), but I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not willing to pay through the nose for it.

I'm looking in the UNDER $100 range. Preferably the free-$50 with contract extension range

I was looking at the Blitz, but it seemed targeted at teenagers. The enV2 looked ok, but a bit pricey.

Have you checked out the Samsung Alias? I had an older model of that style, and I liked it.

Good luck with the Lotus Notes sync... I never found anything that did it elegantly (for free) and wasn't a Blackberry.

Boogahz wrote:He is probably still trying to post here from his Instinct which would be damn near impossible. I had no problem making a few posts on my Touch from the service center of the Chevy dealership yesterday though!

on a different, belated note: what the fuck were you doing at a Chevy dealership at all? Get a proper car!

Winnow wrote:Minimized the wasted time by calling on my way to work this morning. Lady with Darth Vader breath explained that there were technical difficulties that weren't explained to me on Aug 19th so that's why the charge wasn't reversed.

At least Habib had notated my account on the 19th so a full blown repeated explanation wasn't necessary.

/mission accomplished *maybe*

Did you try their VIP customer service line? I'm sure the number is smattered all over the internet by now. Their main job is retention so people usually have a better experience dealing with them.

Drolgin Steingrinder wrote:

Boogahz wrote:He is probably still trying to post here from his Instinct which would be damn near impossible. I had no problem making a few posts on my Touch from the service center of the Chevy dealership yesterday though!

on a different, belated note: what the fuck were you doing at a Chevy dealership at all? Get a proper car!

I have an '06 Chevy Impala LTZ. I had it in for one of my free oil changes before a road trip.

Ashur wrote:Speakerphone is a MUST.
Not shitty is a MUST (my last phone was an LG Chocolate)

Bluetooth is a plus
QWERTY is a plus
Music is a plus

It would be really super awesome if it had a GOOD calendar (or one that actually could synch w/ Lotus Notes), but I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not willing to pay through the nose for it.

I'm looking in the UNDER $100 range. Preferably the free-$50 with contract extension range

I was looking at the Blitz, but it seemed targeted at teenagers. The enV2 looked ok, but a bit pricey.

I have an enV2, and I really like it, my only problem is that the speakerphone mic isn't that great. Seeing as how that's a pretty big point for you, it might not be up there on your list of things aside from just price. Having said that, I don't think I paid anything for my enV2 last month, but I know they were on sale then, or at least my friend who sold me the phone said they were (he's a manager at a Verizon store so go figure why I didn't pay out of my nose).

If the bluetooth support was good, I could let speakerphone pass in importance. Sometimes I just have to do a conference call in the car and I refuse to hold a phone to my head while I'm driving for more than a minute. It's just not safe.

Wasn't the enV2 on the pricey side though? I'll have a look.

Ashur wrote:If the bluetooth support was good, I could let speakerphone pass in importance. Sometimes I just have to do a conference call in the car and I refuse to hold a phone to my head while I'm driving for more than a minute. It's just not safe.

Wasn't the enV2 on the pricey side though? I'll have a look.

I don't use my bluetooth earpiece with it much, I let my fiance use it now because she uses her phone much, much more. I could try connecting it and seeing how annoying/obnoxious it is or isn't. Also, I'm not even sure the bluetooth earpiece I have is even any good, it was a gift a year or two ago.

I hadn't gotten a new phone with Verizon in 3 years, I'm pretty sure between that and renewing my contract, I didn't pay much. The bank statement shows $103 and $83 at the Verizon store, but I have $100 in rebates coming back to me. So in total I spent around $86 for an enV2, Voyager and activating a new line (I moved fiance over from Sprint to Verizon because Sprint is fucking terrible here imo).