However, this entry is not about me airing my grievances against the Palm Treo 700p again. Instead, I’m pretty excited about getting a new mobile device this Wednesday when my new BlackBerry Tour 9630 is delivered! Verizon Wireless has been sending me special offers in the mail every couple of months for about a year or so. I went to the bricks and mortar store and asked them about one of the offers that seemed to be in contrast to my current contract with the wireless company. I was sent an offer for an early upgrade discount even though my “New Every Two” promotion doesn’t come due until March 2010. The guy at the brick and mortar store told me that when customers have excellent payment history, they are sometimes given special offers such as additional minutes that they can activate during a certain time period or the ability to upgrade their phones before their contracts expire.

I pay my Verizon Wireless bill as soon as it hits my inbox, so I guess I fall into the category of an excellent payer. Frankly, after paying my bill a few weeks early each billing period for the last few years it’s nice to have my service provider honor that commitment.

The early upgrade offer (which I could only use via the telephone sales department – couldn’t use it at the brick and mortar store) allowed me to pick up a BlackBerry Tour 9630 for the two year contract price of $149.99. For arguably the best BlackBerry device on the market, that’s a pretty decent price point. I’m going to spend the next few days reading the fan sites for BlackBerry users (one of my roommates says that CrackBerry.com is a good one). It’s pretty exciting to get a new device and to get one that is highly rated by most, if not all, of its users.

Once I get the new BlackBerry and use it for a little while, I’ll let you all know how it works!

However, the writer makes an interesting point:

E-mails and text messages and BlackBerrys and all their digital cousins may have given us the illusion of freedom — we tell ourselves that we are unfettered by traditional offices, that we can go anywhere we please — yet in the end they have created a nation of Robert Hylands. We’re never off the clock; that cell phone may ring at dinnertime, that allegedly urgent e-mail may arrive at 11 p.m., that instant message from the regional manager may pop onto the screen when we’re on vacation with our families.

Like almost everyone else who works in a professional setting these days, I have a way of accessing my e-mails from my “home office” (which consists of a desk in the corner of my bedroom and two bookshelves on the side of the desk). And the truth is that when I get home from work, aside from my Yahoo and Gmail e-mail accounts, I also open up my work e-mail account. On a typical day, there are two or three e-mails delivered to my work inbox during the hour long commute home. Sometimes those e-mails are urgent, but most of the time they aren’t pressing at all. Yet, I still have to look.

It’s the ease of the access that’s the problem; the fact that you can access this information in the blink of an eye and that, generally, the information contained in the e-mail can be processed quickly. That’s the problem. That’s why I check my work e-mail as soon as I get home and frequently while I’m at home.

The next big problem is the integration of BlackBerry phones and other smart phones into the work day. One of the reasons that I initially purchased my Treo 700p (the “p” stands for “piece of garbage”) was so that I could access my work e-mail from anywhere. However, once I realized that this meant I would always be connected to the office and once I realized that I essentially didn’t need a smart phone because I was never so far away from a computer that I couldn’t check my e-mail, I turned off the internet on my phone. Turning off the internet turns off the ability to be constantly connected.

However, I do find it interesting that with all of the advances in smart phone technology that I’m already planning for my next phone to be a BlackBerry. I’m on the Verizon Wireless network, but I refuse to pay Verizon Wireless for access to the internet when I already pay my cable company for access and when my office has wi-fi access. So I’m waiting for a wi-fi enabled BlackBerry phone to be available on the Verizon Wireless network before I get a new phone. In essence, I’m preparing to be constantly connected to the office when I really don’t want to be. But I digress…

Most of my co-workers are wrapped up into this “always connected” thing, too. It’s not uncommon for an e-mail to be sent after 5:00pm and for a response to come back around 8:30pm. Frankly, I think that it’s nice that some of the lagging issues that we deal with at the office can come to a conclusion after hours – after we’ve all had some time to process different solutions. However, I think we’ve all subconsciously begun to cut back on the amount of after hours work that we’re performing for the company.

And, honestly, cutting back on after hours work is probably the best thing for today’s worker. When you consider all of the stresses that are wrapped into simply having a job there is little reason to want to bring any of that back to your home with you. The home should and can be the refuge – if we let it.

Earlier this week I received an e-mail from Verizon telling me that my “new every two” has kicked in. For the non-Verizon readers out there, this is a plan that the company has where after two years the customer has the option to get a $50 – $100 discount on a new phone. Now I have a decision to make – which new phone should I get? There’s no chance in hell that I’ll get one of those crappy smartphone/PDAs that caused me so much trouble. Let me state emphatically once again that the Palm Treo 700p is a complete disaster of a phone! Stay away from it!

Right now I use my 4+ year old LG VX8000 phone, which I really like. The camera phone is only 1.3 megapixels but it takes great pictures whenever I use it and the call quality is crystal clear. The speakerphone works perfectly as does the video recorder and voice recorder. In it’s old age (4+ years is more than a life time for cell phones these days) it has become a little stodgy and unresponsive at points, but it’s still better than that overpriced piece of crap Treo 700p.

Anyway, what I’ve learned is that I like the LG brand of phones and that I’d prefer to stick to their brand. The problem is that looking on Verizon’s website, I don’t really care for the LG phones which are being offered. There is one phone that is only a slight upgrade from the one that I currently use (I think it’s the VX8350 or something like that). I figured that if I get that phone, I can still keep my current phone on standby just in case the new one sucks. Plus, with the “New Every Two” discount, the new phone would be free. Can’t really say no to that deal, can you?

At some point this weekend I’m going to go for the new phone. I just hope that everything works out better than when I got the disaster Treo 700p “smartphone” two years ago. Of course, after the debacle that was the Treo 700p, I don’t think anything could be worse!

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It’s a joke. This phone is a damned joke.

So I called Verizon Wireless a little while ago and to make a long story short, there’s nothing they can do to help me with this phone. After some discussion with two folks who, by the way, were very pleasant I asked this question: “I have a phone that I can’t use, I can’t replace, I can’t return, and I can’t fix. So are you telling me that I have a $500 paperweight here?” And God bless the Supervisor I was talking to because without actually saying, “Yes,” she said, “Yes.” That’s skill right there!

She made a point about what other business allows you to return a device months, even years, after you bought it? A clever ploy on her part which I’m sure confounds many people, but I came back with the fact that there are lemon laws in place where if your purchase is faulty you can return it. After reminded her that this would be the FOURTH replacement for this phone in an 18 month time frame, she dropped that argument. But she still saved Verizon Wireless some money because in the end – and without actually saying so – she suggested that I dump this device in the garbage. And there you have it, folks. I have a $500 paperweight sitting on my desk. If you’re interested, I’ll let it go for a mere $400…

At this point, I’m not sure whether or not I’ll stay with Verizon. It’s extremely insulting to have them come back at me with, “There’s nothing we can do. Sorry.” I’ve been a loyal customer who pays his bill EARLY for almost a decade and these bums can’t do anything for me? That’s not right. It used to be that the customer was always right – within reason. I believe that I am far within reason on this issue and that Verizon is trying to save themselves from having to give back a few bucks (or even from replacing this phone) from the consumer. It’s a shame, really.

Apparently my business isn’t worth much to this company. But of course, everyone I know has Verizon so if I go to a different carrier my bill will undoubtedly go up due to the fact that I’m on a new network.

I’m incarcerated by my mobile company!

And now I put this out to you folks – what do I do with my phone? Do I bag it up and demolish it with a hammer? Do I box it up and send it over Verizon Wireless and tell them to keep it? Do I donate it to some group when I know that it doesn’t work? Let me know what you think!

I’m being held hostage by Verizon Wireless.

The problem this time around is that my touchscreen seems to work on all parts of the screen, except the middle. So this means that any time I put the stylus on the center of the page, the phone doesn’t recognize it. And what’s so bad about that? Well, the obvious – I can’t get this thing to work the right way and I spent over $600 on the package when I purchased it.

But through some no-good online help, I’ve managed to reset my phone and gotten it stalled out where it asks me to “Use stylus to tape center of target one last time.” And where does this target appear? That’s right – the exact middle of the touchscreen!

So I have a stalled out, piece of garbage phone. Not only is this the worst phone that I’ve ever purchased, but I am going out of my way to dissuade other people from buying this piece of shit. I’ve already gotten two people to stay away from this phone (and the now-tarnished Palm brand) – here’s hoping that this post gets more people to stay away from this brand.