Settlement Good News for MotorolaV710 Owners

bluebanzai writes "When hordes of people bought up the Motorola V710 upon its release a year ago, Slashdot readers may remember many impressive features including the cutting edge Bluetooth features (picture/mp3 transfer, wireless syncing) as described on Motorola's website. However, when used with the popular Verizon Wireless cell phone service provider, many Bluetooth features were sadly crippled (apart from a wireless headset) because OBEX features had been purposely disabled by Verizon. Hundreds of people donated to a hacker rewards program to unlock the full features of the phone to the tune of $3000, but was never fully successful. Well, one year later, the Los Angeles Superior Court (PDF Warning) and Verizon have announced the initial steps of a Class Action Lawsuit that appears to be influenced by the user community allowing everyone who bought it before the start of 2005 a few options for compensation--including a refund up to the purchase price of another phone which, interestingly enough, is a lot easier to hack."

Comments

How about...

[aussie_a]

including a refund up to the purchase price of another phone which, interestingly enough, is a lot easier to hack.

How about Verizon just stop crippling their customers and unlock the locked features?

Re:How about...

[meringuoid]

How about Verizon just stop crippling their customers and unlock the locked features?

If they did that, then you could easily create your own wallpapers and mp3 ringtones on your PC and transfer them to your telephone by Bluetooth. This is obviously wrong, and the sort of thing only pirates would do. Therefore the phone company locks down the features, and you can then pay a modest sum of money for professionally-created multimedia products of much better quality. Isn't the Company great, looking out for you like that?

Re:How about...

[maxwell demon]

How about Verizon just stop crippling their customers and unlock the locked features?

They don't just cripple the phones, they also cripple their customers? I didn't know that they are that bad ... :-)

thats the problem with US phone networks

[riflemann]

This seems to be a unique problem to US mobile phone markets. Why the hell do they require the phone company's own phone?

In any other part of the world, you buy your own phone from wherever you choose (even another country) and just plug in a sim card from your chosen provider and it just works.

If any provier here tried to pull those tricks, the market would take care of the problem very quickly.

Is GSM actually getting any foothold in the US market?

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[ianbnet]

This is not so much a uniquely US problem, as a uniquely Verizon problem. Their CDMA network is huge, but T-Mobile and Cingular are just two examples of nationwide GSM networks, complete with SIM-unlocked phones. Verizon has great coverage across the US, but for the technically inclined or anyone wanting "cutting edge," they're rarely the best choice, with outdated, locked phones and limited, expensive data capabilities.

Still, it's great to see them getting their due. Their attempt to lock up basic features in the US market is ridiculous, and hopefully this practice will end soon.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[ForestGrump]

Yes, GSM is getting a foothold in the US market. I myself have been with Cingular/ATT (both GSM) for almost 5 years now.

Like CDMA carriers, GSM isn't problem free.

For example, if you buy a GSM phone, it is most likely locked to the carrier you bought it from. Why do they do this? Because most phones are either "free" or "discountted" with the signing of a contract.

Now, I figure they lock phones for 3 purposes:
1. If your family member destroys their phone somehow, your "locked" phone won't work because they have a different carrier. Thus, they'll be forced to buy a new phone.
2. So you can pay their roaming/international charges when you travel (because a locally bought SIM doesn't work on the locked phone).
3. Profit!

Thankfully, unlock codes/reflashing can easily be done if you know where to find a code calculator, or willing to buy a $10 data cable.

Grump
Unlocked Siemens S40, Mot V400.
Unlocked half my family's nokia phones.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[Adlopa]

Well, that's not strictly true. In the UK, you have two choices -- 1) 'buy' a phone from a provider or 2) from the manufacturer. In the case of 1), phones are sold at much, much less than the manufacturer's RRP but you're forced to sign up to a 12 month contract with the provider. The phone is also locked to that provider and another provider's SIM won't work. Essentially, the phone's low cost is subsidised by your 12 month subscription. Once the contract is up, you can often get the provider to 'unlock' the phone for use with any provider's SIM for free or a small fee. Or, you can go to a back street unlocking shop at any time and pay around £10 for them to unlock it. With 2),you pay the full RRP, which is not inconsiderable for a mobile phone. The phone is free for use with any SIM though. Oh and most UK providers customise the phone's interface to suit their particular service, but I'm not aware of any case where features were disabled -- they're merely presented differently.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[Derlum]

Verizon has great coverage across the US, but for the technically inclined or anyone wanting "cutting edge," they're rarely the best choice, with outdated, locked phones and limited, expensive data capabilities.

    Not true at all. I work for a wireless engineering firm in the DC area and have done quite a bit of work with a wide range of cellular equipment from all carriers. Verizon's EV-DO data service with a burst max of 2.4Mbps is the absolute best available right now, period. It will likely continue to be so even after Cingular rolls out UMTS (burst max 2.3Mbps). Only when Cingular starts applying the system software upgrade to go to HSPDA (8-10Mbps) will they stand a chance of being the best mobile data service, but Verizon could easily be well on their way to EV-DV by then. And at $60/mo. for a service on which I've personally seen sustained data rates of 700-800kbps (at 80mph no less), I wouldn't call it expensive either. On top of that, Verizon's data service gives you an open public IP address, while Cingular firewalls their data customers without exception.
    Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put Verizon on a pedestal. They've got plenty of problems. I'm a v710 owner and the Bluetooth crippling issue is absolutely ridiculous. I fully intend to be a member of the class action settlement. But I wanted to clarify that poor choice of phones != bad service.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[karnal]

The way your sig played into your comment was priceless:


Grump
Unlocked Siemens S40, Mot V400.
Unlocked half my family's nokia phones.
--
still looking for a wife...

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[SilverMane69]

Just a comment:

Only the major US carriers use "locked phones", smaller regional carriers can't afford to pay the manufacturers to lock their phones. (These fees also include the special logos, menus, and apps) So, if you purchase a GSM phone (CDMA is another story) from one of these small guys, odds are that it won't be sim locked. This means you can use it with any service provider. No hacks required. The only real drawback is that these small carriers don't always carry the latest tech due to cost. As for CDMA, I understand they are moving the tech towards using a chip similar to a SIM. Maybe one day you will be able to move from CDMA to GSM and back simply by swapping a chip.

Re:thats the problem with US phone networks

[plover]

the V3 RAZR is a great phone,

I've had one for a few months now, and I'm at least as disappointed with it as my buddy is with his Verizon V710. First, and most on-topic with this discussion, the bluetooth stack is incredibly buggy! If I try to use OBEX to browse its files, I can sometimes get files in and out of the phone, and sometimes not. And virtually any time I use OBEX or connect from any Windows XP machine (three different machines, three different manufacturer's Bluetooth devices) the Bluetooth on the phone goes south, and it will refuse to even acknowledge a headset afterwards. I need to pull and replace the battery to get it to come back.

And my complaints go much further. The phone does not support OBEX browsing of other phones (like my Sony-Ericsson T637 could do.) It does not support 24/7 discoverability, restricting it to 60 seconds max. It does not support an "advanced headset profile" (again like the T637) where it doesn't establish the Bluetooth headset connection until a call is made, allowing me to use Bluetooth networking even in the presence of a powered up headset. That's a very important feature with a hands-free car kit. Overall, bluetooth functionality on this phone is on a par with the V710 - a lot of promise, but nothing delivered.

And then it suffers from all the other endemic Motorola problems. It has the world's worst address book application, which cannot handle the simple task of storing multiple numbers per contact, instead creating new contacts for each number. It also suffers from a byzantine one-touch speed dial reconfiguration mechanism. Their whole speed dial thing is still based on the "order" in which numbers are stored, so if you want to change speed dials you have to first renumber the old record, then renumber the new record into its place. And it takes it about a minute to boot -- I have no idea what can be taking it so long. Finally, even though the phone is perfectly capable of shooting video, (there are mods to turn it on) it's not available out of the box.

There are some really good features on the phone though that I do like: battery life is very, very good. Audio quality is excellent. The camera is a crisp 640x480. Voice dial recognition has impressive performance, especially in the noisy environment of my car using the handsfree kit. And of course it's small and light. But overall, it's far short of a "great" phone. I was much happier with my T637.

The REAL winners

[Anonymous Coward]

are the lawyers with (fta) 6.3 million dollars + 60k expenses

seems everyday to a lawyer is like winning the lottery except you win every time !
now all they need to decide is which to buy , a speedboat or a Lear jet..hmmmm decisions decisions

Verizon is horrible about this

[fmwap]

Verizon has consistantly pissed me off since I got their service, they've killed Kannel on their network, upgraded to prevent hacking the GetItNow service, and the only way to add custom anything is to locate an impossible to find cable & hack it using BitPim

Sure, you CAN add custom photos and ringtones, which I might do if I had to pay ONCE for, but Verizon charges a monthly fee just for having them on your phone. It's a blatent ripoff and I got tired of being fucked by Verizon.

I don't have any input on them crippling bluetooth, but frankly it doesn't suprise me. This company is a shit providor and I don't understand why anyone has their service. I'm sure they will offer better Bluetooth enabled devices, with many new features, as long as you pay X amount per month to have them enabled, and a fee for using them, and the fee for airtime, and the activation fee, and ...

I got the mailling

[bblazer]

I bought 2 of these phones from Verizon and was so upset with the situation I cancelled the service even-though I had to eat the cancellation fee. In the settlement mailing there are 3 options.

1) Current Verizon customers that want to keep the phone and the service may get a $25 credit to their bill.

2) Current customers who want to keep their service but not their phone may send it in for a refund.

3) Customers who cancelled their service and paid the cancellation fee can get a refund of the fee.

I am not sure why they just don't enable OBEX?! That is what everyone wanted in the first place.

Nice, weak microphone addressed by Lameware cool

[WarmNoodles]

I own a V710, and Beside the FA's observation that lameware nerfed Bluetooth functionality, my main complaint is that people can not hear me when I use the device.
The complaint was personally confirmed as a common grief experienced by V710 Verizon phone users.
The solution which did not work was to reset the phone using the stencil.
Glad I'll be able to get something for the piece of junk.
I stopped using the phone about 6 months ago due the bad microphone sound quality.
I would pick the 3rd option on the claim form. I hope they offer a phone of equivalent function and price/value.
The first claim form option was for $25 which in no way near covers the $430 cost of the junk phone.
Another complaint is that when I purchased a replacement, Verizon had no way of transferring Contact phone #'s to another phone.
--
Avian flu dosen't kill people, people kill people.

This is still bogus...

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Why don't they just enable OBEX file transfer, syncing and basically give you all features of a phone with bluetooth?? Why should they have to hack the replacement phone either?? Verizion is just screwed up on a great many things. Why must I pay 79 bucks or even 59 for 1XRTT or even EVDO?? Can't they have a unlimited plan that's a little more economical? How come I can get a GPRS connection via T-Mobile for HALF of Verizon's 1XRTT?? If they would just look at the POTENTIAL market, they could definitely lower thier price.

Also,with regards to EVDO, they SHOULD allow you to plug the card into that switch unit(forget the name of it). IF Verizon did this, then some people just might use this as thier ONLY connection to the web. When at home, plug it into the switch, when on the road, take another switch or just plug it into the laptop. Verizon could make TONS of cash if they were to do this, however they want to FORCE you to do things their way because they are afraid the network may not be able to handle it or some other stupid reason.

I wish I was that lucky

[Tidal Flame]

I was just in Japan for two weeks, and everyone there over the age of 5 has a really awesome cell phone. Being a techie, I got a bit jealous, so I decided I'd buy a new one when I got back. I needed to switch providers anyway as my old provider was really ripping me off.

So, I get back, read up on providers and such. I eventually decided that Virgin Mobile worked best for me, since I don't use my cell phone a whole lot but do find it a useful gadget. Their rates are pretty good for people who don't need to use their cell phones every day.

Now, here's where I screwed up: I did a Google for "Virgin Mobile" to see what kind of features the plan offered. This of course brought up the Virgin Mobile USA website. I live in Canada. There's no obvious indication on the site that it's the Virgin Mobile USA site, so I figured it was just a general Virgin Mobile site. These days most corporate sites redirect you to the appropriate page based on where your IP is located anyway, right?

So I'm looking at the features and I see that they have internet access and instant messenger support, among other things. So I go out and buy a phone (Audiovox CDM8910). Not a top of the line model, but it's got a camera, superphonic ringtones, and all that. Pretty nice, I think.

Of course, to my horror, when I open the package there is no data cable. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Instead, I discover, Virgin wants me to pay 50 cents per picture to get my pictures off of the phone, up to $4 per ringtone to download new ringtones (normally I wouldn't mind, but the phone's default selection is pathetic - none of them are suitable for anything, really), and up to $2 per picture to download new "wallpapers." Yeah right!

It is possible to purchase a data cable for this phone, and I've done so. The problem is that there's no software that really supports the phone, and of course the phone's firmware is completely undocumented... so I CAN get my pictures and upload new ringtones without paying Virgin's outrageous fees, but because of the shoddy, undocumented firmware, there's a good chance I could completely wreck my phone in the process. I doubt I'd have an easy time of getting a replacement, either...

Honestly, the cell phone market in North America is absolutely pathetic. I'm sick of being locked in by providers and being promised features that I don't receive. To be fair, I should have been more careful about my research in this case, but I'm sure several Slashdotters have experienced similar letdowns with cell phones. A lot of people seemed to think that the "Cell Phone User's Bill of Rights" was ridiculous. Maybe it was. But we all know that when North American cell phone providers aren't outright lying to their customers, they're crippling the phones they provide so that the only way to make use of all of the technology in the phone you buy is to pay outrageous fees.

Re:I wish I was that lucky

[indytx]

But we all know that when North American cell phone providers aren't outright lying to their customers, they're crippling the phones they provide so that the only way to make use of all of the technology in the phone you buy is to pay outrageous fees.

This is both true AND inaccurate. It is true because you do get charged outrageous fees for ringtones, wallpapers, etc. However, it is inaccurate because, in Europe, callers pay to make phone calls to a mobile phone. Try calling a European mobile phone from the US. You'll be astounded just how expensive it is. Someone has to pay for all those fancy services. In Europe, it's the caller. Europeans can send SMS messages for 5-10 cents, and those cost nothing for them to receive.

If I call from Belgium with a French SIM card, I'm roaming. If I call to Belgium with a French SIM card, I pay more. Try comparing a service mape from a large, U.S. mobile provider to what is available in Europe. You'll be shocked. Also, European mobile carriers cannot bundle phones with mobile contracts.

It is simply different in the U.S. Americans can talk much more on their mobile phones because it is much more economical to do so. Most Americans would rather have cheap minutes than gee-whiz features that don't add much value to the average consumer. If you want the gee-whiz features, order a GSM phone, pay the full, unsubsidized price, and get a contract with Cingular. Case closed.

Re:CDMA and SIM card question

[tomreagan]

i realize that the current market is setup (with phone subsidies) so the carriers have incentive to keep you from using phones with another carrier.
but is there any technological barrier? is there any reason that cdma cell phones couldn't be paired with SIM cards?

no, there is no technological barrier. further, some people believe that the importance of supporting next-generation provisioning and wi-fi/3g roaming will lead more of the carriers to support gsm on their networks. you could easily support the gsm provisioning/billing/roaming features on top of a cdma transport. in fact, i believe that some cdma phones with gsm/tdma chipsets built-in for global roaming have been announced/discussed.

it will be interesting to see how long verizon can maintain this technological provincialism. based on their dominance in the marketplace, i would imagine they'll be able to maintain for some time.

Greed IS Verizon's business model

[digitaldc]

"Q. Well, these features are available in phones from many other carriers, and people feel cheated.
A. Verizon does business unlike any other carrier, and we make no apologies for that. ... [Those features] don't work with our business model. Every customer is certainly entitled to their own feelings. "

'we make no apologies for that' =Translation= We do what we want, when we want, and you do not matter.
'don't work with our business model' =Translation= It is much more profitable for us this way
'Every customer is certainly entitled to their own feelings.' =Translation= F You!!!

Re:T-Mobile and Motorola

[jhsiao]

Oh please. The reason we're being treated as a third world country in tech is because the majority of folks in the US won't buy anything until it's at third world prices...

Do you shop at Walmart, Target, Old Navy? Do you scour fatwallet or slickdeals? Do you shop for the cheapest broadband service? Well, why then would a manufacturer waste storeshelf space on really expensive stuff when you only buy cheap crap?

Showing prices after mailin rebates work in the US for a reason...because most people focus on price. Price at any cost. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but the majority of Americans, yes. Remember, this is the home of the Big Gulp and Costco. Where more=cheaper=better.

So if you're one of the rare Americans that buy high-quality stuff at high prices, then you shouldn't care that Verizon or Cingular doesn't offer some high-end phones. Go and buy your Bang and Olfsen CD case. Nor should you care that some Japanese import game isn't available in the US. You just buy them from some of the many numerous online vendors that sell them. And you buy your phone without the subsidy lock or your import PS2 without the discounts that come with volume. But since you don't care about price, you'll pay that right?

Until the market starts buying expensive phones (which the manufacturers would love to sell, by the way), the carriers won't waste the effort trying to sell them. When you see regular Americans (not early adopters) routinely pay $400 for a phone, carriers will be happy to offer that model.

You want to know where we beat virtually everyone else in the modern world? Gasoline prices (no taxes), SUV choices (cheap gas), home square footage (suburb living), grain production (subsidized farming). Folks paying $10/gallon find it annoying we complain so loudly about $3/gallon.

Do you really feel that bad that your fellow Americans don't have the option to buy some phone that you like? Or are you really upset that the majority of Americans don't feel as passionate about tech as you do and so you can't get a discount on your niche-market phone?

Welcome to slashdot.

Re:The MONOPOLY industry.

[Eunuchswear]

Being a yurpeen I don't understand this bit:

The phone would not sell because the carriers would not activate it for you because it is not one of their phones.

Where I come from the carrier doesn't "activate" the phone. I just bung my SIM chip in and use it.

Isn't it funny that your free market has produced monopolies that screw the customer and our regulated one has produced competition?

Re:The MONOPOLY industry.

[Rude Turnip]

"Isn't it funny that your free market has produced monopolies that screw the customer and our regulated one has produced competition?"

I would say you're the one with the free market, my friend. I've been saying it for years..."a free market is a regulated market" (but not necessarily the reverse case).

Case in point? The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) which regulates our stock markets. You would never have gotten the general public investing in the stock market like it does today without an oversight committee to prevent the abuses of the 19th & early 20th centuries. Yes, you get an Enron or Worldcom now and then, but a long time ago, you'd never get the transparency that you get today to find those problems in the first place.