Cell Phone Choices from Verizon Wireless

I'm looking for some input for cells phones. Verizon Wireless will be my carrier. My 2-main requirements are for a phone with great battery life between charges and something which has a very load eye-piece volume setting. I get tired of not being able to hear anyone in traffic or at the airport.

Your suggestions will be appreciated.

I have the audiovox CDM9155 and it goes as loud as any cell phone I'v herd. But in a loud car it can still be hard to hear. I had the CDM9000 before that and it was about the same.

Kyocera 7135. Has a built in speaker phone that actually works. Plus it has a Palm PDA built in. The phone is terrific, the price is not so terrific.

Hey nascar, I live at the opposite end of NJ and I have Verizon Wireless. They are hands down the best carrier for coverage in this area. But their selection of phones is scant. I have the V120 and for loudness, it "ess you see kay ess". Lousy as far as any volume you can muster out of it. My star tac was better all around EXCEPT for runtime. The V series can go the distance on a charge, but my sister has the V60 and it too lacks in the audibility department. Don't know which models to reccommend, but these two stay away from. Unless you wear a hearing aid.
{Edit}
Both models cited above are Motorola products. Shame because they used to be rock solid in both durability and performance (audio incl.) What happened to their engineering/manufacturing? The V120 is also very flimsy. At least it feels that way whenever I use it.


Ed.

I can give you only a negative report -- the max volume from my Motorola T720c sucks.

HOWEVER I've read reports that through the earpiece it's great. I'll try my little earpiece-with-mic-on-cord thingy on the way home today for ya. Maybe you won't want to use this option but you've got me curious so I'll try it.

On the positive side of it, the battery life is nowhere near as bad as what I've read. I think most of the reports were from early users who used a 500mAh pack, but now the 720 ships with the 750mAh pack. (There's an 1100 avail as an option of course. I have no idea why such large batteries have such crappy mAh ratings.)

If you're spending your time in airports & traffic you may be a heavy built-in phonebook user. I can report that the datalink kit for the 720 is functional but not great. At least it does save a ton of time entering zillions of phone numbers. And it will sync with Palm too. (only Outlook is mentioned prominently on the description for some very annoying reason.)

You might want to look into getting a bluetooth earpiece such as from Jabra and then you can just get whatever phone has the other features you want.

[edit] I tried my cheapo earpiece-with-mic-on-cord thing last night on the way home. I opened a couple windows just to make it really noisy and my Honda isn't very quiet even with the widows shut. I found the earbud to be much more clear than the speaker in the earpiece of the phone. Maybe that phone speaker is a piezo unit, I don't know, but it doesn't go up very loud and at max volume isn't very clear.
YMMV. I rarely would need high volume and other than that I'm very happy with the phone. FC is happy with his 720 and as a fire-rescue guy I bet he's got a lot of experience using it in noisy conditions.
Off-topic: It sure is nice being able to feed the phone book from my pc (have I mentioned that enough?) /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Also of note: Whatever model you do decide on, bear this in mind, the runtime between charges is HIGHLY DEPENDENT on the carrier's implementation of the battery saver scheme employed over-the-air. Any model which touts more than 2 days runtime lives up to that on ATT, but the same exact model (just different modality, ie, frequency, TDMA/CDMA/GSM) will have a diminished runtime while operated on Verizon. This is due to the control center's managment of the battery saver signal, which has to be properly implemented and sent at periodic intervals. ATT seems to have this mastered, as when I had phones with them, they ALL seemed to run for much longer than the offerings that Verizon has. But like I said, your milege will vary widely from the mfr's stated claims, esp true on Verizon's system. I have them just because in the NJ/NYC metro area, they win by a landslide when it comes to near seamless coverage.
Case-in-point: Motorola's spec for the V120C is 220 hours of standby time. On the Verizon Wireless system, RUBBISH! I get more like 72 hrs at best if I make at most one call. Ordinarily with usage, I get 48 hours before it poops out. That's with 5 calls totaling 20 mins of useage daily. This is an FYI, not a bashing as I like verizon overall as a carrier.

Ed.

Thanks guys. I have the v60i. It's pretty good on battery life, but I can't hear worth a sh** on it.

Totally unrelated, but Verizon is loosing my local phone service as of today. Can no longer receive incoming calls and can't hear over the buzz on outgoing ones. Verified that the sound is on the line as it comes into the house so it's nothing that I did. It's first thing Monday morning when I call them and they can't get anyone out here until Thursday. Time span is funny too, they will be there "between 8am and 7pm" Good thing I can stay home...

Sorry, if you're going to offer local phone service, you have to be able to SERVICE local phone service.

They flunked.

I had T720 for about 6 month, and very happy with it...

I've got a v60c that I've been happy with overall. The Truesync software sucks though, and I'm in the middle of restoring my phonebook as I type this. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twak.gif Still, it's better than entering a couple of hundred numbers through the keypad.

I'm actually looking for a new phone for my dad to add on to my plan as a second line. I hear that the v60i is no longer being sold, and will be replaced by the v60x? I haven't decided what to get yet...

James: you may have very badly frayed phone wiring coming into the house from the outside. This happened to us twice and we don't have Verizon for local here (was United Telephone now Sprint).

For my cellphone, I do have Verizon Wireless and have a Kyocera 2235. Since I don't receive calls, I can't say about the ringer volume. Audio volume is okay out in traffic (sorta: outside with heavy traffic passing by).

Next time I walk into an airport, would be to purchase a One Way ticket to Hawaii. These days, that would get me arrested on the spot. Otherwise I avoid airports. hehehe

My Dad is on Verizon. This is a BASH!/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

In their store I pulled my Nokia 3360 off my belt and proclaimed "I recently heard a survey saying some 90 percent of people are dissatisfied with their phone or service. I LOVE mine and this phone is on Cingular!!!"

Dad had a CDM9000 for some time, worked fine, but he killed it with water somehow. Then he had a Kyocera ??? phone. He started missing over 50% of calls (it would never even ring!) then died altogether./ubbthreads/images/graemlins/twak.gif

Right now he has an LG-TM510. It SEEMS to work okay./ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

You couldn't pry my Nokia out of my hands!!! And I have nothing but good things to say about Cingular (at least everywhere I've been including Sioux Falls, SD and Chicago!)./ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

I don't think you could force me to use Verizon... at least with most of the phones THAT store had. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

my Radio Shack sells for $25. the same Plantronics headset Verizon offers for around $45 or more. It's the one with the boom mike, 'noise cancellation' and volume control on the wire, plenty loud with the little Motorola cellphone, I bought it because a guy at a noisey construction site said it worked well, and he was right.

Charles, I opened the outside box and tested the incoming lines from there with the same horrible sound. but the wires looked OK. I suppose I could go and open their side of the box too and check that. The little pedestal thingy where all the blocks phone lines come in is just the other side of my fence. I'm tempted to just open it up and start wiggeling things until my phone comes back. My cordless will easily reach that far so I could test /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Do you get in trouble for messing with those?

James, aren't those padlocked? Around here they are, but we also have nasty thugs in our neighborhood. They are all painted this ugly shade of green, sort of Luxeon Green /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif (a new color listing for Benjamin Moore to consider)


Ed

Hey Guys,

Here is a good site for checking out cell phones & service.

http://www.wirelessadvisor.com/waforums/index.cfm

i've been more than happy with my nokia and verizon.

I've had Verizon service for oh, 6 years or so now. I've NEVER had a problem.

Service is VERY location dependant - Here in NYC, Verizon is great and ATT sucks - I understand that upstate, and parts of NJ, the exact opposite is true - you have to know YOUR area

As for phones - I wish I knew! I was carrying an OLD digital StarTac until last week, when it was time to upgrade the phone (and get one for my wife) - I got the Samsung A310. It's NOT as nice as the StarTac - too quiet on the ring, not enough sidetone when you are talking, and does not seem as clear. Then again, they no longer had the LG or the V60i, and I hear the t720 sucks

Nokia 3390 with T-Mobile for me, their most basic plan for $20 a month. Had this for about a year, and so far so good. T-Mobile has been good to me so far, so I can't complain. The Nokia 3390 is an excellent phone, although it is probably too basic for most people these days (not even a color screen, the horror!). Used a european version of one of these for about 5 months in The Netherlands last year, and they're great phones.

I had reason to talk phones with a very nice guy, and he knows of two people with Nokia phones that like them a lot!

So that's 4 or 5 recomendations for Nokia!!!

I'm still staying with Cingular here in MY area!