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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."
Likewise. My first phone, a Nokia 6130 (branded Nk702) took a major dip in Tango, which just made the keys a bit sticky, open up, clean keyboard, and it was fine.
After it got retired, I passed it to my son for use as a kiddies toy, and it took years of that abuse. Never really checked to see if it worked, but then realised it had a bunch of numbers in it I needed. Powered it up after 3 years of being a toddlers toy (hate to think the abuse it experienced), and everything worked perfectly.
Menu was snappier than most of the current batch of phones as well. And battery life was considerably better. Progress, eh?
Oh my, what a good chuckle you gave me this morning. A telco company backing their product for any extended period of time...for free?...Tried to get my mind around the concept, but seems it is harder to grasp then imaginary numbers.
I think any major corporation that says "We stand behind our product" is really saying "We stand behind you, please bend over, this wont hurt a bit".
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
"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