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Stress-Testing the Verizon G'zOne Cellphone
abkaiser writes "You can dunk it under water. Put it in the oven and crank up the heat. Drop it, smack it, treat it like the hunk of plastic that it is. And yet this is a cellphone. I got my hands on the Verizon G'zOne (pronounced 'G-Z-One'), a phone designed for high-abuse environments. Come for the test methodology, stay for the photo of a cellphone cooking in an oven."
... seems to describe the marketing staff's relationship to controlled substances. "G'zOne" is not an electronic device, it is a name for a freaking Klingon. Come back when you have given up the faux hipsterism. Even *authentic* hipsterism isn't an endearing trait.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I swore off ever buying an expensive phone after I broke my old one by stepping on while taking off my pants after a night of drinking. I was only on it for half a second, but the stupid main LCD(the secondary one on the outside of the clamshell was fine) cracked. The phone still worked as a phone, but I could never tell what I was dialing and if I hit the wrong button I could end up in some weird menu and not even realize it. No SMS to boot. From then on, it was sub-$20 phones. If I break them, I don't really care.
Monstar L
There's no comments yet and already the server won't send me the pictures from the article. The ultimate stress test? Running a webserver on a phone and front paging it on Slashdot.
mirrordot
A gzone sounds like an italian sort food filled with cheese... with an environmentally-concious twist... for Gnome... err
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
mirrordot
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
http://www.networkmirror.com/g5wLJVRJGd4YbjTw/www. andybrain.com/extras/gzone-review.htm
I hate my company cell phone so I abuse it every chance I get, yet the damned thing keeps on going like some undead zombie from a B-rate horror film. Why pay extra for a feature that's already built into sucky phones like mine?
Error:
...the "EuroStyle" vibrating massager. Also, another "G-zone to use it on."
I want my! I want my! I want my Eee PC!
I agree about buying inexpensive phones. I put my cheap Seimens A65 - which was switched on - through the washing machine a few months back. I let the phone dry for a week or so, and it is as good as new now. There was actually a puddle in the screen.
We've become so accustomed to crap that when someone builds something the way they used to it becomes news.
For the record, I washed AND DRIED my Motorolla v70 a few years ago (in the pocket of my cargo pants).
I had to replace the antenna, and the microphone made me sound like crap, but it worked.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Um... so... I, for one, welcome our new gnome running Italian cheese diet overlords?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
to the Pizza Hut P'ZONE?
When I went to purchase one of these badboys, I asked them what type of refund policy existed, were I to manage to damage it.
Surprisingly, they said that they can't replace deliberately damaged pieces.
Have to say they didn't sound so confident in the durability of their products right then. Therefore, if you're considering using it as a party prop to pump your popularity, you're might find yourself a pretty penny out of pocket.
I was very disappointed. I was expecting a video of Verizon in the oven, not their phone.
Damn!
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
It's called the molten fumes of hell when I try to send an SMS message or call customer support - neither of which actually work. All I hear is Satan chortling at me.
All a more durable phone means to me is I kill more reps with it when I throw it at them.
The -one- cool phone they bring over from Japan and they uglify it.
And strip half the features and change twice at much. Guess that's what took two years.
(Link to original phone.)
If it's that tough, and resistant to damage, why not offer some kind of 2 year warranty or something? If I spend $300 on a phone because it's supposedly indestructible, I would like that to be backed up by the company.
nothing
anyone else first read that as "giz on phone"
i guess I still got the Telus cell porn thing stuck in my head
oh man, you won't believe this, the captcha below is "depraved"
"G'zOne" is not an electronic device, it is a name for a freaking Klingon.
Hip College-Age Guy on TV Commercial: Dude, you're getting an OoGhiJ MIQtxxXA!
G-Z-One sound like the name of a pron movie.
I'm curious to see (but not awaiting the answer) which will win, this phone or the "Will it Blend?" blender.
Also, my friend's cell phone was once run over by a truck and still worked, aside from the screen. He used it for a semester before replacing it with the same model.
Still happy with my 5 year old Ericsson R310s.
:-)
Party trick - set it to "vibrate" mode, drop it in a pint of beer, and phone it - instant cocktail shaker!
Completely gortex'd up phone. You can find them on ebay here in the UK for about 50 pounds now and again, old stock people are dumping...
I think even the most courageous Klingons are going to run aways before the wrath of the 21-months old Ally from the "Test 5 : toddler attack".
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
...because Verizon has made it their policy to lock down the filesystem of every device they get their greedy mitts on. My first phone with their service was a Samsung a670, which worked great, allowed me to read and write to the filesystem for free (so I could get fancy with ringers, wallpaper, pull pics off quickly and for free, etc) using BitPim and QPST.
Then the time came to pick a "free" phone for work, and unfortunately I chose the Pantech PN-215, a "Verizon brand" phone. While it was more or less similar in features compared to the Samsung, the best I can do so far is just look at the filesystem, no writing allowed (to the device or to anything connected). I've tried out a few different workarounds (Verizon even went so far as to tell me there was no data cable for that model, a blatant lie I quickly disproved by doing some research and trying out an Audiovox cable), but so far no dice.
This means that if I want to transfer pics, ringers, etc I have to do that over the air, lining the pockets of the greed-machine that is Verizon.
My personal plan is coming up for renewal, and when I add my wife to it, you can be sure we will not be purchasing any phone that is locked down in this way.
Thanks a million, "Can you rip me off now?!"
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
OK, the phone being waterproof is news. However, As far as ruggedized phones, Nextel has been releasing mil-spec phones for years and years. An abuse proof or abuse resistant phone is nothing new, but in typical verizon style, they tout everything new to them as if they are the first to ever do it, when rarely they are.
Anyone else read that as jizz-one? Not a phone I'll be buying any time soon.
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
Are you sure being on slashdot isn't the stress test?
www.isoHunt.com
"a phone designed for high-abuse environments"
. html ...While we all know that Verizon intentionally cripples the Bluetooth file transfer features to the point that you have to use Verizons pay per transfer cellular feature.
/. user uses Verizon? And if you use it and pay for it out of pocket... WHY???
/. user use Verizon? /. crowd == the "I WANT A PHONE THAT'S ONLY A PHONE" crowd?
Hey, if you're a telco that intentionally cripples the bluetooth features on its phones to the point of uselessness and still sells it as bluetooth even after a class action lawsuit, you've already created enough of a high abuse environment for me as a customer to never want to ever return.
Citation for my gripe: http://support.vzw.com/capability/bluetooth_popup
"Bluetooth is a wireless networking technology designed primarily to replace cables for communication between personal computing and communication devices. For example, Bluetooth technology allows you to use a wireless headset to place and receive calls."
So what self respecting
My #1 use for Bluetooth is file transfer to store media on my 1G of built in storage on my phone as I would a USB HD, but transferable without the cables.
I switched from Verizon to Cingluar a couple years ago and have been happy to transfer files from my desktop to my cell to my laptop or other peoples computers for years now. I can also plug it in and use it as I would a USB HD. But since I am in SF and so many techies here use MacBooks, because MacBooks lets Pros work like they want, it's just easier to have BT file transfer. BT is also great for syncing my Apple Address Book and iCal to my phone, infact, it syncs multiple computers via blutooth to my contacts and calendar. Verizons crippleware requires you plug in a USB cable and use proprietary software to do this. My Motorola and Mac just use iSync, which comes with my Mac from Apple with OS X for free.
I tried switching to HELIO last month, but I found out after subscribing that their bluetooth was HEADSET ONLY. I unsubscribed within 30 minutes, that's how long it took me to get home and find that my workstation and handset could not talk to each other... my workstation could see the handset but the file browser was "FEATURE NOT AVAILABLE ON THIS DEVICE" and they wanted me to install some proprietary software/spyware. Not suprisingly, HELIO uses Verizons and Sprints networks. I'd be willing to bet $500.00 that there is a contractual arrangement for use of the Verizon network that requires HELIO (EARTHLINK) to cripple Bluetooth to headset only.
And I am glad HELIO crippled their devices in this way without making it clear. I unsubbed, returned my eqpt and went back to Cingular with the only hitch that HELIO was playing games on my number being assigned back to CINGULAR (it took 3 days!!! While Cingular had the number to SPRINT/HELIO inside that 30 minute window) Because I am now just waiting for the Apple iPhone to come out and I will gladly drop cash for that.. ESP since SF will be wifi enabled withiin a year of the phones launch and will be one of the first cell/wifi phones on the market and by far the coolest.
iPhone on Verizon????
HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHA
HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA
You'll have to install so many hacks on the iPhone to get it to work like Cingular users will have it work out of the box that you might as well just sign it off as "PWNED to some hacker in Beijing".
So WHY? WHY does any self respecting
Or does the
FWIW, my Nextel i560 lived through all of that, as do the i530 models that I have out there every day. My current Sprint/Nextel ic502 has been going strong, too. I have a few other milspec 810F certified phones in service that have been dropped out of a car at highway speed, run over by a truck, thrown, submerged, exposed to temperatures regularly ranging from -5*F to 80*F repeatedly, and more. None of them have developed any problems, as of yet.
But the server the results were posted to cannot.
I've had one of these phones for a few months now. I live in an area where Verizon is pretty much the only option. It was the only phone I tried that didn't feel like a cheap piece of plastic in my hand. I've had no problems with it, unlike other phones I had used in the past. I only wish it supported bluetooth, but I only have the cheapest minutes plan and I really don't need a bluetooth headset like some might need for long work calls. The biggest plus is it doesn't look like those god-awful razor phones.
All my money went to Nigeria and all I got was this lousy sig. . .
Please stop describing phones by the service provider that slaps their name on ODM phones. Neither Verizon, Cingular, Sprint/Nextel, nor TMobile make phones.
SO who really is making this phone MOT, Sanyo, Casio? WHo?
(pronounced 'G-Z-One')
That's "gee-zed-one", right?
-- Alastair
You drop your phone in the toilet while it's flushing, as two people I know have done.
I have a mixed reaction to this phone. My first, upon reading the advertizing which is all I could access after the /.ing, was "Why doesn't Cingular offer a phone like this." (I am not an unbiased observer.) I work for Cingular and a day doesn't go by where I don't see a broken RAZR. Yesterday's was cleanly halved from (supposedly) a single drop. The only phone Cingular sells that in my experience qualifies as remotely durable is the Blackberry, and that does nothing for the "I want a phone that's just a phone" crowd, nor does it do anything about the lack of weatherproofing.
/. or a phone industry site had an article about a "disposable phone" concept. As such, it's a wasted idea, but it was proof of technology showing that years ago it was possible to create a rugged, simple phone of flexible materials. The "business end" of my blackberry occupies less volume than the battery cover does, so to enshroud it in plastic (especially a thin urethane coating merely a level beyond conformal coating) would at most add 1-2 mm in thickness. The design is already sufficient against dropping and pressure, and the risk of a water short on the battery terminal side causing damage is negligible except perhaps for salt water.
This phone, of course, proves what I've suspected all along- that there's no tremendous technical reason why a phone can't be built durable. Silicon rubber membranes are already in use to make the keyboard functional; why they could not be made to enshroud 100% of the electronics except the battery terminals (or even go apple style and seal the battery in) is beyond me. The argument that circuitry should be accessible for repair is invalid; in todays market, phones are rarely repaired except by the manufacturers themselves, and the most common repair is preventable water damage. The other possible argument is cooling, but phones are designed for such low power use that this should be a nonissue anyway. Were I a true geek, I'd test this by building my own rugged phone...
A few years back either
Hence, in short, the main question this phone raises is "why aren't all phones like this?"
The second question is "Why is it $300 with contract and not even bluetooth or memory card support?" To put that in perspective that means a "no contract" price of $450-$500 (same as an iphone.) Yes, I'd like my phone to be durable, and yes, in a sense one could compare it to the price of the 2 to 3 sequential phones it replaces. And I TRULY don't understand why no bluetooth. In a rugged phone, BT is a perfect fit; eliminate the electrical connection to a headset, AND market a $150 rugged bluetooth headset to go with it (...5) Profit!!!)
My hope is that this product is a hot enough seller that it puts some fear into the other manufacturers, and maybe we see some competition on this front. With open market competition involved, I see no reason why "rugged phone" couldn't become the new "camera phone" and become a standard feature within two years or so. Besides, of course, the obvious conspiratory reasons that will be posted by others in response to this statement, and yes, that's a damn shame. (about the reasons, not the posts.)
excuse me . What I meant to say was MOTOROLA made the phones. Nearly anyone familiar with nextel would have been able to tell you that, as motorola is the ONLY provider for Nextel iDEN phones. Some examples are the i700, i50sr, i350, and more modern ones that I can't think of the nomenclature for at the time. Excuse me for being unclear Mr. Coward.
Just set the phone next to your server. It'll be in flames before you can say "slashdotted."
Except the moron there can't type. I inserted the spaces in the ht tp part to keep from hotlinking.
If the asshats at this website do not want slashdot's attention maybe they should have used a 404.
wget ht tp://www.andybrain.com/extras/gzone-review.htm
--15:15:59-- ht tp://www.andybrain.com/extras/gzone-review.htm
Resolving www.andybrain.com... 64.141.135.25
Connecting to www.andybrain.com|64.141.135.25|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: ht tp://www.slashdot.comextras/gzone-review.htm [following]
--15:15:59-- ht tp://www.slashdot.comextras/gzone-review.htm
Resolving www.slashdot.comextras... failed: Name or service not known.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The sad truth is that Verizon has the best (consistent) coverage in the northeast once you get outside of high population areas.
The real question is will it survive extreme cold. And will it survive sudden chilling or sudden heating.
i never really believed the stereotype about /.ers being womanless nerds until today.
the guy straps a phone onto a vibrator, and not one comment.
go get it
Someone had to say it. Submitter, your daughter is adorable.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
They're getting close...
Will Verizon's next phone be called G'sPot?
I sell marine GPS units. Waterproof (JIS7) GPS units have exposed USB connectors, power connectors and more, but are still watertight even without the dust caps on. It is sad to see the need for caps that must be replaced to guarentee watertightness.
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
Luckily I happen to have a copy of MIL-STD-810F right here. In practice you have to take these standards with a grain of salt, but some funny things come to light when you compare what the article/Verizon's claims are vs. what the standard prescribes. Also, it's likely that many existing "non-ruggedized" cellphones would pass these tests.
... although they didn't bother with the 4 inches per hour ...
Water Resistance (Method 506.4, procedure I). The writeup says the test was designed to simulate rainfall of 2 inches per hour with a 40 MPH wind. This is fine if you take it by itself. However, if you look at section 2.3.2. of Method 506.4 which provides guidance on "Rainfall Rate", you get a blurb recommending a minimum rate 4 inches per hour "since it is not an uncommon occurrence and would provide a reasonable degree of confidence in the materiel." Hmm. Well, at least they got the wind velocity (40MPH) right. Is this really an exciting test though? My non-MIL-STD qualified cellphone (had it for two years so far) has gone through some harsh rainstorms without any problems.
Immersion (Method 512.4, procedure I). Maintaining a seal at 1m for 30 minutes is actually pretty good for a cellphone. It would be interesting to know if they bothered heating the test sample prior to the test (as is recommended). This creates a pressure differential as the case interior cools during immersion - and it will tend to pull water in through faulty or inadequate seals. It's a more realistic test than immersing a room temperature sample in room temperature water. Imagine if your cellphone was in your pocket before it tumbled out into a puddle on the trail. It would be near body temperature initially and then would start cooling to whatever the puddle temperature was. Probably they did this
Humidity (Method 507.4). I wonder why they did this test. They already established that the product exhibits decent water ingress protection with the immersion and spray tests, so maybe the only thing they'd gain would be the added pressure differentials from thermal cycling. It's unlikely that there are any exposed metal bits, so corrosion wouldn't be a concern. I suppose they could have coatings & paint for the plastics that they might evaluate for degradation. I can't see the appeal - again, just citing my run-of-the-mill phone which has gone through high humidity conditions without problems.
Salt Fog (Method 509.4). Salt fog and spray tests are funny because they are really hard to correlate with real-world exposure. You really have to strap down a sample out in the wild somewhere for a year to see what effects correlate with your lab experiment. I could see salt being a cosmetic issue for a mariner's cellphone - and possibly more damaging if seal integrity was weakened and salt started corroding metal on circuit boards, component leads, connectors, etc. This is a useful test to run, although using an arbitrary 48hrs doesn't tell you much. Also, you have to wonder if they only did 48hrs of straight spray as opposed to the suggested 24hr wet/24hr dry cycle. Either way, makers of equipment for marine environments often expose their products to many hundreds of salt fog test hours - so is 48hrs enough? Hard to say.
Drop (Method 516.5, procedure IV). This is a pretty straightforward test with so little detail that it would be tough to diverge from the procedure. Curiously they dropped from 1.5 meters instead of the suggested 1.22 meters. I guess this is a good thing. I've probably dropped my cellphone a couple of dozen times, although generally from waist-height, say about a meter, rather than 1.5 meters. It's been dropped on a variety of surfaces including concrete, wooden floors, tile and so on. Nicked and scarred, yes, but it still works. One interesting clause in the test method allows for splitting the 26-drop requirement among five test samples. Wonder if they did that.
Vibration (Method 514.5, procedure I, category 24). At every turn
I don't use Bluetooth. After getting ripped off with a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard that barely work, I'm not about to make my cell phone decisions based on that mangled abortion of a wireless technology. I can use a USB cable to transfer ringtones and connect to the internet.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
...the vibrator tested in a variety of "environments."
I fail to see phones as sexy tech.
The sad truth is that Verizon has the best (consistent) coverage in the northeast once you get outside of high population areas.
Umm. Cingular seems to match them pretty well in Upstate NY. There's a few areas where Verizon isn't that Cingular is -- and a few areas where Cingular isn't that Verizon is. Sprint and T-Mo users have almost the same coverage -- via roaming with VZW and Cingular.
In any case I decided it wasn't worth putting up with big red's bullshit for those three or four times a year that I'm out in the boonies where only VZW has service.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.