With android phones, if you are surfing the net, listening to music, or using the gps and someone calls, you'll get the call dialog up on the screen and the ring. If you accept the call it pauses the data session.

Menno.......

Those android phones sound amazing, but my track record shows that I use the cellular for talking, and most of that talking is done on speakerphone.

Thus, Verizon is sending a new LG VX-8360 to me and I will return the LG VX-5600 Accolade with the bad, bad speakerphone and the too-low volume.

Cross your fingers for me while I hope that my conversations on the LG VX8360 speakerphone will be clear and loud enough.

The other night I called a Take Out restaurant on my LG VX5600 Accolade and the fellow at the other end kept asking me to repeat what I was ordering. The Accolade does not work for me and I am surprised that it gets such high ratings in the reviews.

-Lorna

Basic phones, unless they are Push-To-Talk capable devices, will have crappy speakers.

The best basic phone speakerphones at the moment are:
Casio Rock
Motorola Barrage
or Samsung Convoy

Because they are all push to talk phones, and thus the speakerphone is considered important

For all other entry level (and most mid range) devices, handset makers include Bluetooth instead.

The ONLY other time (except for PTT phones) you'll find a decent speakerphone is on a device that is made to play music, or on high end smartphones (again, for music)

Most companies found that a good quality speaker phone wasn't selling devices, and was just adding more to the cost, unless the phone was used for music, and then the speaker could sell the...
(continues)

Menno, I am feeling like some wind got knocked out of me. I sure hope that my speakerphone won't be that bad.

I do have a Bluetooth earbud from my first cell phone, a Nokia, but those earbuds are good for people who are constantly on the phone, unlike me.

Thanks for sharing that information, even though it is somewhat discouraging. I appreciate your honesty with civility.

Lorna

Menno,

You wrote: "Voice isn't profitable anymore, data is."

That's very true. But even more profitable, because it costs the carrier virtually NOTHING, is text messaging. It's outrageously priced and should be provided as part of the basic calling plan. People wouldn't be so teed off at the mandatory $9.99 data package for the newly renamed "feature phones" if that were the case.

Just because SMS costs 'nothing' to transport doesn't mean it should be free. When you go to a movie do you expect to get into the movie for free because it costs 'nothing' for them to show the movie to you? Do you demand free popcorn because it costs 'nothing'?

Now, please explain how SMS costs VZW 'nothing'...

Hehe, on that note, I used to work at a movie theatre; we paid approx. $8.00 per bag of popcorn seed, and each bag of seed lasted approx. 60 Large-size bags of popcorn. We charged $5.50 each per large bag of popcorn.

Now, on that note, the theatre had to rent any movie it wanted to show, and the money used to rent the movie was very rarely made back in ticket sales. A large part (%40, according to corporate) of the concession sales went to paying off the cost of having the movies in the theatre.

Despite this, corporate still made a ton of money, and those of us actually running concessions made minimum wage. Gotta love corporate life!

When I use to go to the movies I would basically spend all day there, pay for one movie and watch a double feature!

I would not choose the lg 8360! The MOTOROLA BARRAGE has the best speaker phone, and no rip off data. People don't listen! 🙄

Your saying what I am saying. Just because the upfront cost is very small doesn't mean that the backend doesn't cost money. They had to build the network, and they have to build future networks..

Oh, yeah. I wasn't trying to prove a point or anything, just saying. But you are correct. 🙂

Haha.. This is PS. We are not allowed to agree on anything. 😛

I disagree, I feel that we can agree on things.

Archer Bullseye,

When I go to a movie and use the bathroom, I don't expect them to charge me extra for its use. All it costs them is the minimum wage worker to clean it, some water, toilet paper, and electricity for the lights.

Since you asked, here's what David Pougue, the Tech columnist for the NY Times had to say last year about text messaging cost ripoff:

TEXT-MESSAGING FEES Why has the price of a text message gone to 20 cents, from 10, in two years? There was no big technology shift. There was no spike in the cost of electrons.

And speaking of anticompetitive: Isn’t it a little fishy that all four big United States carriers raised their text-message fees at essentially the same time?

Furthermore, why do text mess ...
(continues)

Really? One text message uses 61 MILLION times as much data as an equally sized email message?

I call bull. If I send an email at 20kb, I do not believe the text version is 1,220,000,000kb (Or, 1.22 TERABYTES) of data.

I understand what said blogger is saying now. I still believe his calculations inaccurate, but he wasn't stating the data cost of a text to email, it was the monetary cost to the customer. Sorry about that.

Because it is in customer's nature to be pissed off, no matter what the cause. If it wasn't required data on multimedia phones, they would still be complaining about required data on blackberries.