Cell phones!

[mountmccabe]

I find it weird that that paper had so little information but then again I don't believe I've ever gotten a paper bill. Their website and the My Verizon page should have a lot more detailed information.

But, damn, you gotta hope something is off there, because that is a ridiculous bill.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Maybe they charged you full price for your phone?  Maybe it never got back to them?  That would be a nightmare.

[davy]

Man, I have heard nothing but bad things about Verizon in re: billing and the resultant (lack of) customer service.  I've known a long list of people who have had something like this happen to them.

I've been with Verizon for 4 years now, and I love 'em to bits and pieces. I'd previously been with T-Mobile, and they were awful about billing and customer service. It's been smooth sailing with Verizon.

[elpollodiablo]

I've been with T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T and the only one I would absolutely warn someone against would be Sprint. T-Mobile was great, but their network was (is?) kind of small; AT&T's network is notoriously rocky in urban areas, great in smaller-to-midsize cities, and has great customer service. Sprint has possibly the worst customer service system I've ever had to deal with in a company of its size.

[jm]

We're all over the map here!  Heh.  My lady has had Sprint for... a longish time, and loves it, and I've had nothing but positive experience with T-Mobile (the lady who sold me my current phone was kind of rude, but that officially makes her the only even remotely rude employee I've ever dealt with there since I signed up five years ago).

[morgan]

Maybe they charged you full price for your phone?  Maybe it never got back to them?  That would be a nightmare.

I returned it to an actual store, so I don't think that's the issue, though I wouldn't put it past them at this point. Seriously, they have done absolutely everything as wrong as possible, and I will be saying horrible things about them to everyone who will listen for years.

[Ignatius]

T Mobile has the best billing policies and customer service I've ever dealt with at any company. They've probably waived about three or four hundred dollars worth of legitimate fees and charges on my account.

I occasionally have to work things out with my dad's verizon bill, which is an absolute clusterfuck because he gets cable, internet, long distance and cell phone service from them. It's always seemed to me that people who complain about companies intentionally bewildering customers with complex menus and processes were nutjobs or bad at following directions. But unless Verizon structured their automated phone system and the web page account stuff without any planning whatsoever, it genuinely seems like they don't want me to access the bill information, remove packages and services, etc.

[Good Intentions]

It's always seemed to me that people who complain about companies intentionally bewildering customers with complex menus and processes were nutjobs or bad at following directions. But unless Verizon structured their automated phone system and the web page account stuff without any planning whatsoever, it genuinely seems like they don't want me to access the bill information, remove packages and services, etc.

This type of stuff really happens. A while age here in New Zealand the telephone monopoly's CEO admitted i a shareholder's meeting that they make their bills intentionally confusing so people don't realise what type of bogus fees they get charged.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Yeah Verizon's automated phone system is the most frustrating thing.

But Morgan. I would just call.  Once you get a person on the phone, their live help is actually usually pretty good.  Just do the pressing zero fuck you thing.

[morgan]

Thanks, Knucks. Will do.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Also, other than a few hiccups that were fixed to my liking, I've been quite pleased with VZW for four years or so now. Not to take away from your right to hate them with a Passion, just thought id echo Davy

[Greg Nog]

So apparently I hadn't been getting any voicemails or text messages from anyone from the last five or so days.  I got them all at once, suddenly, this morning, including an increasingly-panicked series of voicemails from my ladyfriend, who thought I wasn't responding to her.  This is on Verizon, and is the first major problem I've had on Verizon; I did not have any problems this large when I was on T-Mobile.  I called Verizon to bitch about this, and they offered a credit of 23 cents.  Then, after I angrily pointed out that T-Mobile had been much much better than this, they gave me a credit of six dollars.  So!  So far, T-Mobile is winning the battle of The Two Cell Phone Companies I Have Used.

[jm]

OK, six dollars is bogus, but 23 cents is hyper-bogus.

[davy]

23 cents?! Why offer anybody 23 cents?

[Ignatius]

T-Mobile is just beating the hell out of the competition in the battle of The One Cell Phone Company I Have Used.

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

my nokia n97 drowned today - i was really getting used to having 48gb of memory for my muzaks. are there any other non-iphones (preferably android) around with that kind of memory? or should i just get a 32gb microSD?

[elpollodiablo]

So the wifi where we're staying is pretty jank, and over the last few days stuck inside I've burned through all of the TV and film on my notebook. I was bored, flipping through apps on my phone this evening when I remembered that the Netflix app can stream movies over 3G. Just kinda made me pause. Every now and again these devices reaffirm their amazing-ness for me.

[DCDave]

So the wifi where we're staying is pretty jank, and over the last few days stuck inside I've burned through all of the TV and film on my notebook. I was bored, flipping through apps on my phone this evening when I remembered that the Netflix app can stream movies over 3G. Just kinda made me pause. Every now and again these devices reaffirm their amazing-ness for me.

So this is #firstworldpr...solutions!

[YojimboMonkey]

All you people who are ahead of me in such things and currently use a phone that only has touchscreen controls, how much of a pain in the ass is that?  Looks like the sliding phones with an actual physical keyboard that are available from my provider right now don't really meet my other needs in a phone so since my current phone is in the process of dying, I'm going to have to probably get a touchscreen-only phone.  I am uneasy about this.

Ah fuck, looks like the app I pretty much depend on for my job isn't supported on Windows Phone 7.  It's best for me to use a Windows phone for various reasons, and earlier Windows phones aren't available anymore.  Fuck a cell phone anyway.

[Ignatius]

I'm getting a Nexus S as soon as the UPS man comes. Though I don't need a smart phone, I could not resist a special offer on the price coinciding with my contract renewal and the death of my old phone's battery.

Except for browsing the internet and gmail and stuff, I have no idea what I can/should use this machine for. LPTJ, in your infinite collective wisdom, teach me how I can get the most out of my new toy. It's Android as fuck, apparently.

[Thermofusion]

When I'm checking out this site on my phone, roughly 1 out of every 3 pages gives me a pop-up that says: "This forum is Android Native! Click OK to learn more about Tapatalk for Android." It then sends me to the Android Market, where it searches for some long string of words until the Market app crashes. This is all highly annoying. Is LPTJ trying to sell me something?

[Greg Nog]

Yeah, it got Tapatalked?  I downloaded the app, and didn't like it, and now I get those pop-ups too when I try to browse the site on my phone.

[Thermofusion]

It got the shit Tapatalked outta it, not to put too fine a point on it

[mountmccabe]

I like Tapatalk and haven't used my (phone) browser for this site since.

And Iggy, you can do pretty much anything you want with yr phone. Listen to music (3 (aka cubed) is a good music player, Amazon mp3 has that streaming thing going,) or podcasts (I use Listen because it syncs with Google Reader.)

You can use System Panel to see what yr phone is doing (it is like task manager in Windows) and also archive apps you like so that you can revert to them if you don't like future updates.

You can get the weather (The Weather Channel, Radar Now, etc) or manage your Flickr account (Flickr Companion) or, I'll bet, yr Picasa account if you go that way. You can read books (Aldiko is what I use but you can go for Kindle For Android or whatnot as well.)

You can use services like Yelp! to search for business and attractions near you and read reviews, you can use something like SportsTap to follow popular sports (or one of the soccer apps to follow soccer,) Kayak to search for flights/hotels/etc and (the old, better version of) NYCMate to see public transportation maps and schedules for NYC.

GPS Status can be used as a spot marker, level, shows battery power and temperature, magnetic fields and also is, you know, a compass/gps.

You can play a ton of games. Like Scrabble (WordFeud (I am mountmccabe) is the best for Android, Words With Friends works like shit for Android but lets you (be frustrated by not being able to access it while) play(ing) games with iOS folks. Do you want to play Texas Hold 'em Online? Pai Gow? Solitaire? Armored Strike, GalaxIR and Set are three games I recommend (though the last of those is just because I enjoy the card game itself; it's an app imported from iOS so it looks a little ugly and doesn't use all the fun things Android lets designers do.)

Wander the Android Market and find more fun/useful stuff. Like, say, Geek Clock, what is letting me having an analog Metric Time clock on my wall.

[Ignatius]

thanks mccabe! Boss!