I’ve been with Verizon Wireless since … oh, the beginning of time practically. My current phone is the Blackberry Curve 8330. It’s cute. It’s pink. It is also discontinued. Verizon has moved on to the Blackberry Curve 8530, which is a lovely shade of lavender and quite a lot smaller than this one.
This wouldn’t be an issue, except my much-loved little 8330 has decided to give me problems (again). A few months ago, it was the screen that screwed up. Because they no longer have my phone in the store, they had to FedEx me a new phone from corporate and then I had to activate it at home and FedEx my old (broken) phone back to them.
Now it’s the trackball. It will scroll every direction except UP. Left, right, and down, I’m good. Heck, I can even do diagonals. But UP? No way.
I took it in to my local Verizon store last night and they told me that sometimes they have extra trackballs laying around and they could pop it out and replace it but that right now they didn’t have any extras and to call or stop in again later. (UGH.) They also told me that as of February 12th, I’ll be down to 1 year left on my previous 2-year contract, which means I could get a new phone at the new 2-year activation discount. (Of course, making my contract period 3 years by doing so.)
So, I’m weighing out the options …
- Go back in and see if they (a) have gotten any extra trackballs and can fix it, or (b) if they can do the FedEx replacement thing again. (Can I tell you how much I don’t want to do this, especially being that I’m going out of town Thursday and would like to have a functional phone?)
Make do with my broken phone till February 12th and trade it in on the Motorola Droid. I’m not a huge fan of the Droid, but I have a few friends and coworkers who seem to love theirs. I am a fan of the Android operating system, I just don’t care much for the Motorola Droid itself. It feels cheaply-made to me (compared to an iPhone, for instance), and it also feels clunky and unpolished. The squared off edges and QWERTY keyboard on it just make me think of my original LG “enV” from 5 or 6 years back.
Take option 1 above, then hold out till the Nexus One comes to Verizon (rumored “spring 2010″). Again, the Android operating system, which is great, but a much more slick piece of hardware. I know there have been some complaints about Google not offering support for the phone, but by the time it comes to Verizon, I anticipate that will have been resolved.- Take option 1 above, then hold out till the iPhone comes to Verizon. It’s been rumored off and on and off and on again. It may never happen. But have I mentioned how much I want a freakin’ iPhone!? (HELLO, Apple-fangirl here!)
Buy out my Verizon contract (currently waiting to hear back from customer service on the exact fee to do this) and move my number to AT&T and get an iPhone. I’ve been wanting to do this for quite some time. I even talked about doing it as a birthday present to myself next month … maybe I ought to just DO IT. (Only problem being, my whole family is on the Verizon network and will be peeved at me for screwing up their “in-calling” … hmph.) The one other bummer being that there’s pretty strong rumors that there will be a new iPhone coming out this summer, though whether it will be on AT&T or Verizon remains to be seen.
So what do I do? I’ve been lusting over an iPhone for … well, since they came out. I’m with Kevin Rose in his assessment that Palm and Blackberry are pretty much dead and that Android and iPhone are going to rule the smartphone marketplace. I’ve been waiting for the little nudge to bite the bullet and get the iPhone. Maybe I’ll just go for it…
