October 6th, 2004
The New York Times has recently taken notice of the crippled Motorola V710 phone from Verizon Wireless (via George Kelly):
Bluetooth, of course, is a short-range wireless
cable-elimination feature. On a cellphone, it offers four
juicy features:
1. You can do your talking on a wireless Bluetooth headset,
leaving the phone in your pocket and both hands on the
wheel.
2. You can use the phone as a wireless Internet antenna for
a laptop or palmtop, making Internet calls from
anywhere–without even taking the phone from your pocket.
3. You can sync your computer’s address book into the
phone, saving you the trouble of having to re-enter them.
(You can also sync the address book to the dashboard
computers of certain Toyota Prius, Lexus, BMW or Acura
models.)
4. You can shoot files back and forth to other Bluetooth
gadgets. Thanks to this feature, you can take pictures with
your Bluetooth phone and then transfer them wirelessly to
your Mac or PC.
The V710’s page at the Motorola Web site sums it up like
this: “From wireless talking to wireless synching, this
phone makes it happen.”
What it doesn’t say is: “But Verizon makes it NOT happen.”
Verizon, it turns out, has turned off features 3 and 4. If
you want to sync your address book with a computer, you
have to buy a $40 cable. And if you want to transfer
pictures, you’ll either have to send them by e-mail or use
Verizon’s Pix Messaging service–25 cents per photo. (You
can’t transfer pictures via the phone’s removable memory
card.)
“That’s Verizon for you,” wrote one disgruntled customer.
“They want you to pay them so that you can send your own
photos to yourself.”
“The v710 is targeting technophiles,” wrote another.
“Crippling these features is an act of bad faith that
undermines the desires and expectations of the core
customers for this very product.”
Well, to paraphrase a famous Verizon spokesman, VZW has “failed me for the last time”. However, since I do not have the power of the Dark Side (contrary to popular belief), I can at least direct V710 users over to what could possibly be a new hope.
Filed under Gadgetry | Comment (1)
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