Samsung’s TouchWiz interface really just adds shortcuts to commonly accessed functions. There is no comparison of this “link” with a true facebook application. The links open a web browser while the applications are complete solutions.

With this Verizon phone I am missing my iPhone apps like twitterific, tweetdeck and a real facebook application. Interaction with the mobile sites sucks compared to true applications.

What’s the difference? With my iPhone, I can open the facebook app and upload a photo, video etc. With the Verizon phone I must email a photo to facebook then log-in via the internet to browse the site. m.twitter.com is a nightmare so horrific I might as well abandon my twitter profile.

Still not worth the huge cost difference and poor coverage of AT&T but this TouchWiz interface is a misleading selling point. The touted social networking widgets are nothing more than links. Simple shortcuts to a web address. Lame, lame, lame.

Wow, copy Apple much?

Physical Features: My first impression of the device is, it’s hefty. The Samsung Rogue is a tall, thick phone of substantial weight. The camera lens, flash and mirror protrude slightly from the back meaning every time I set it down, the weight of the phone rests on the camera lens. The plastic outer shell has a cool-looking carbon fiber aesthetic.

The Rogue slides open to reveal a full qwerty keyboard that I found much easier to use than a touchscreen-only keypad but not quite as easy as a cramped Blackberry keypad which I attribute to the depth, texture and spacing of the keys. A deciding factor in choosing the Samsung Rogue is the accommodating combination of touchscreen interface and physical keypad. This phone is very easy to navigate! Many operations can be completed with the phone closed via the touchscreen. The control is reminiscent of an iPhone/iPod touch interface in many ways. (Like rolling wheels for choosing dates…)

Around the outside of the Rogue is a Charging port, Memory Card Slot, Camera Button, Volume rocker, full-sized Headphone Jack, an On/Off/Lock button and a multi-function rocker. Below the screen are the send and power keys flanking a centered “home” button.

Samsung Rogue side view

Turning on the phone, the touchscreen has an iPhone-like strip of primary functions on the bottom with ‘Dialer’, ‘Contacts’, ‘Message’ and ‘Menu’ buttons. There is a tab on the left side when clicked opens a widget dock, not at all unlike a hidden OS X dock. The widgets are easily rearranged to ones liking. Clicking a widget opens that widget’s functions or options on the main screen. With this Verizon version of the phone, there are several pre-installed apps for things like Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Messenger, YouTube, etc… Some apps remain open while using other phone operations and can be dragged back to the widget dock to close.

The speakerphone isn’t too loud. Video and music play at an acceptable volume but the sound is not sufficient for speakerphone calls in a moving car.

I find that everything is easy understand and navigate for someone new to the phone. Again, the combination of physical and touchscreen interface is a real pleasure. Comparing the physical keypad and touchscreen functionality to the singularly important trackball on a Blackberry, I’ll choose the Samsung Rogue’s combo any day. IMO, where the Blackberry has a steep learning curve the Samsung has none.

Limited to Verizon Applications this phone isn’t an iPhone but it sure does resemble the ease of use and intuitive control. The keyboard better be worth it’s weight because the weight is significant. I’m worried about scratching the camera lens and I wonder how long before the slider feels sloppy; mine is tight but the demo at the Verizon store was a lot looser.

Samsung Rogue Bottom

Leaving out functionality of the apps, reception, overall speed, speed of web access and use of the phone I just wanted to impart some of my initial thoughts about the Samsung Rogue’s appearance and operations. The question that remains for me to learn is will this phone’s added functions (keypad, internet access, larger screen, accelerometer, etc..) be worth it’s weight? It is the heaviest phone I have ever carried.

• Will I still feel a need to bring an iPod to work? (yes)
• How long will the battery last if I plug this phone into an AUX port on a boombox?

Though my calling, texting and online usage are on the low-end, my monthly cost for unlimited use is $60 less than my iPhone plan. Over a one year contract with Verizon, I am saving in excess of $700. (Initial costs, including a new microSD, card are equal. My monthly cost savings are due in part to Verizon’s IN-calling)

On the website it says: “You can set up Auto-Refill and guarantee service continuity”  which is a falsehood. I had setup and provided a credit card, which was charged before my 30 day contract expired. Though I have paid $60, been under contract less than 60 days and have remaining minutes; I have no service. They took my money and turned off my phone.

If it were guaranteed continuity with access to my credit card, why is my phone off?

Today, I will contact StraightTalk, the Better Business Bureau and my Attorney!

Dastardly Bastards!

UPDATE: 3:30PM

After visiting Verizon and buying a new phone I called StraightTalk.

Here is the actual progression of my Straight Talk experience:

I bought the phone and card on July 28th, activating my service with Straight Talk, giving me 1000 minutes until August 27th.

The website offers the ability to enter a credit card for Auto-Refill. When you enter your credit card, they will immediately bill you the monthly fee. This will change your activation date, something I did not and still do not understand. [I entered my credit card in advance of my expiration date of August 27th in order to "be prepared" when my minutes expired.]

I lost the remaining 17 days because they billed me on the 10th of August, resetting my activation date, regardless of the fact I had approx. 17 days left. [I got 43 days for the price of 60 days]

This morning my phone was dead. While I was at Verizon, StraightTalk billed my credit card and reactivated my service because today is the 10th. With their website access to “my account” shut down for the past few weeks I have been unable to turn off recurring billing or change my account status.

After calling Straight Talk directly, I deactivated recurring billing, deactivated the annoying message at the beginning of each call that says: “Time remaining for this call is 6 hours and 12 minutes” and after 26 minutes on the phone, got a refund for today’s additional $32 charge for the next month.

Outsourced customer service always takes longer to deal with, doesn’t it? Thank goodness I bailed on this company, though it will cost me much more, there’s a reason it’s worth paying the difference.

Purchased as an interim provider while Verizon got some decent hardware in stock, I regret the waste of time and money, though I still recommend StraightTalk to those few people who don’t use their phone much.

1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30MB of data – can’t be beat for $30. Just make sure to sign up online and not use the prepaid cards because the two forms of payment conflict. They ripped me off for 17 days of service.

Where I live, the company is Cablevision and I recently switched from AT&T to Cablevision’s promotional Triple Play offer of $99 plus taxes, fees and other charges for internet, telephone and television.

The television part of this completely sucks! Finding a decent show to watch is damn near impossible. There is a super-long list in the guide, which takes several clicks of the remote to access, passing a page with advertisements on it. Instead of highlighting or filtering the channels that have access to, I see all the channels on cable, 9 times out of 10 I select a channel that I don’t receive and I’m left scrolling from 1-700 or just settling on anything to watch other than the guide.

The quality of the TV is absolutely atrocious. I get digital distortion on the best of the HD channels. Some shows on popular channels can’t even be viewed clearly. My Optimum Online service is like watching small mpegs on a giant screen TV. Streaming Netflix is superior to my television service.

Why so many advertisements for a pay service? There are ads on the TV guide, ads on all the shows…and…. on to the internet service:

The reason I’m writing this right now is because of the search.domainnotfound.optimum.net redirect. This is an underhanded low-life redirect to optimum’s affiliate relationships, forcing anyone who leaves the TLD off when typing in a domain name to suffer an unwanted page of affiliate links, which btw can be unrelated to the domain name entered.

At least with AT&T’s DSL if I type in “google” it goes to “http://google.com” and not to “http://search.domainnotfound.optimum.net/cablevassistsearch_keyword/ws/results/Dns/google/…”

The only problem with the phone is that instead of being a separate cable to the pole outside my house, my telephone signal travels on the shared coax. Now my phone is not only dependent on the cable company fixing their equipment when a storm comes knocking down trees but also the internet and cable modem. That’s a lot of dependence on new technology that is proving to be full of issues.

I’m going to drop the TV service because I can’t stand paying for so many advertisements when the quality of picture is so poor with distortion.

The most annoying of issues is: Every time I send a text message, I get a confirmation that the text is delivered.

Here’s how it goes: I send a text and sometime between two and twenty seconds later I receive a text message. The text is a “delivered” confirmation and it’s incredibly annoying. If I don’t read the worthless text my phone will keep reminding me I have a new message in my inbox. This means for every text I send I have to wait for the delivered message and clear it. This is such a pain in the ass I am switching back to Verizon.

As if the annoying “delivered” texts aren’t bad enough, there’s something even worse happening now. Every call I make is preceded by a message that tells me how long I have to make a call. Here’s how it goes: I place a call and as the call is connected a computer voice tells me “you have 10 hours and 52 minutes for this call”… WTF!!!!!

What I touted as a worthwhile cell provider is now such a pain in the ass I will gladly pay to avoid these issues. Sorry StraightTalk, you have some serious issues and I just can’t fool with my primary communication device dealing with your hacked service.

I will say that my phone has worked fine in many parts of America, thanks to the Verizon Network that StraightTalk uses. Do I feel like paying twice as much to not get a “delivered” text after every single sent text message? Do I feel like paying twice as much to not hear how long I have to make a call? Sometimes being a cheapass doesn’t pay.

I think the straighttalk plan is a great deal, although I now feel like this ’service’ is more suited to people who don’t use their phone much, like senior citizens and recluses.

After a week of traveling, installing dozens of iPhone Apps and learning the ins and outs of sending email, writing notes and browsing the web on the iPhone, I returned it to The Apple Store for a full refund.

Before I head down for the return, I bought a Straight Talk Razor via Walmart.com and paid for Next Day shipping. I clicked to activate and Port Existing Number and after about an hour my iPhone lost the number. The automatic activation failed and I spend a very long time with a Straight Talk CSR who eventually clicked the right buttons.

I’ve gone back 12 years in technology to a polyphonic clamshell but it’s durable, practical and working on Verizon’s network for only $30/mo.

That’s right, calls to 411 are free. 1000 texts and 1000 minutes for $30 plus 30MB of data transfer. When I turned on Bluetooth my Mac synced all my contacts for me. Thanks.

The iPhone, though used to “keep in touch” limits my life experience. I’ll never have to ask for directions again. Keeping a journal in a moleskin is a lot more real than struggling to type on a touch keyboard when the return key, the M and the space bar are so close. I’m going back twelve years until Verizon stops offering phones that are missing functionality.

straight talk moto box

Costs:

My Verizon plan; 400 minutes + text + tax = $55-60/month

My iPhone AT&T plan; 900 min + iphone + text + tax = $125/month

My Verizon network Straight-Talk plan 1000 min, 1000 texts +sales tax – $32/mo.

What’s missing is the ability to post on facebook, look up info on a website and reply to emails while at work… but I think I’ll survive. Especially since I own an iPod Touch and enough folks leave their network open that it doesn’t take long in just about any urban/suburban setting to pick up a signal. Each month I am saving $100 which means before one year, I’ll save up for a new Macbook. Since I’m being an old fart, they should still call them Powerbooks. ‘Cause ‘macbook’ sounds that other word for “happy” if you know what I mean.

I bought an iPhone 3Gs and I’m returning it to the store tomorrow.

The following is my draft but I’m publishing it now since I may not have much time to finish/update this immediately.

–
I’ve returned from traveling with my iPhone for a week and decided I don’t need or want an iPhone as my cell phone. Here is a short list of some of the things I liked and some things I didn’t like about the phone.

I like:

1. Visual voicemail - no more calling in and entering a pin to hear your messages. That’s nice.
2. Simple Sync with Mac laptop.
3. Contact Links – Google a restaurant and click on their telephone number to call it. – That’s cool.
4. Contacts Data Page – click to phone, text, email, etc…
5. Nice big screen for visual involvement – movies, sharing pics, etc.

–

I didn’t like:

1. Camera on iPhone 3GS is awful.
2. Keypad – Constantly bumping the Return button. painstaking!
3. AT&T service is just too expensive.
4. Battery life on iPhone 3GS is bordering on worthless without A/C nearby. In the heat of Nevada my battery lasted an incredibly short time, while indoors with moderate use I could get several hours from it.
5. Too much process – Too many clicks to do anything.
6. Who actually needs a compass on their ‘phone’?

Here’s a list of 1/2 of the Apps on my new iPhone:

• Calendar
• YouTube Videos
• Contacts
• Camera
• Maps
• Voice Memos
• Weather
• Stocks
• Notes
• Clock
• Compass
• Calculator
• Messages
• Photos
• iTunes Store
• Streaming music apps
• Facebook access
• Twitter access
• Yahoo Messenger
• News feeds
• Dictionary
• Skype
• Games

While away from home, when a phone is my only link to the world, I was able to use many of the ‘apps’ on the iPhone.

1. Email – communicating for work and personal (on my small level)
2. Maps – The GPS and Search functions are #1 best resource on the iPhone.
3. Voice memos – for recording of inadmissible evidence.
4. Facebook – wasting my time and privacy
5. Camera – not even ‘web’ quality shots. yuck.
6. Photos – to have and to behold
7. Twitter

–
more iphone hell,

One of the limitations for me are my Verizon IN-calling friends and family.
When I switched to Cingular for the Razor, I never had a minute to roll-over because my friends were on VZW.

In order to get a safe, but still less than I use now, plan of 900 min. with ATT it will cost me just over $30 more ea. month.

Yeah, because I can stick with my 450 min plus in-calling of over 600 additional. adding the blackberry service for $29.99.

With the iphone I’m going to have to pay $105 plus 12% plus other small fees for a whopping $120/mo.

An upside is, when you’re paying $120/mo the ETF of $175 is easy to swallow, so really there is no minimum contract period.

Ok, so I made the decision to stick with VZW and I go to crackberry.com and I see the #1 application is called iBerry which….. turns your fucking blackberry into an iPhone skin/function (makes the Storm look like an iPhone) Reading down the list, like the 5th most popular one is an application that adds a “slider” to the screen so it looks like an ipod when it’s off.

How is that supposed to help? The Bberry I’m looking at is missing Wi-Fi…. but is always online with the blackberry service. Tim says you need Wi-Fi to DL/UL at internet speeds not phone data speeds.

I’m still pissed about the whole adventure. I want a data phone, but hate the crippling VZW does, yet distrust AT&T even more. What to do….

_kim

I’ve come to one of those biggest purchase decisions of my next two years kind-of-thing; I need a new phone.

My computing history: Apple User since 1985. Typing to you on my blackbook and occasionally update from my 16GB iPod Touch. Don’t go near Winblows, even though I have XP pro on this Macbook for the occasional missing wares (like iphonebrowser, ironically)

My cell phone history: Verizon customer for over a decade with only a 1-year drop when the Razor came out. I switched to Cingular for the GSM only version of the V3 Razor. More irony,  on a trip outside of the country (where they have GSM), instead of turning on international calling Cingular turned off my account altogether. Not only could I not use the phone for a month but since it was off, there were no voicemails when I returned home. I have always used a phone, not a smartphone. I have never paid for a data plan in addition to text messages.

Right now, I am still using the LG VX-8700 which is as fashionably good looking as the day I bought it, years ago.

I have looked at lots of phones. Don’t care to look at any phones, just want a new one because it’s time. This LG is getting old.

I’m a carpenter, not an office guy. My phone has been through piles of sawdust, light rain and been dropped on stone more times than countable. It’s a kick-ass telephone. Go LG. I love their products.

I would love to use an Android device but I am not trailblazing, I need a phone to make calls with all day long. I found straighttalk.com offering the ideal plan for $30/mo but I’d have to go back six years to a Razor (1 of their 3 phones). Still StraightTalk as I read, uses the Verizon CDMA Network – so try and beat that plan.. plus there are no F-ing monthly fees when you buy a prepaid card for $30 plus state tax. (Just visit Montana and buy 12) That’s TWO years for $750.

24 months Regular Phone with Texting and Fees:
StraightTalk – $768 [$30 + tax]
My Verizon plan – $1320 [$40 + $10 + tax]

24 months Data Phone with Texting and Fees:
Tour Price –  $2160 [$40 + $10 + $30]
iPhone – $2760 [$60 + $15 + $30]

It is possible to get the iPhone for only $5 more per month than the same plan on Verizon, but I switched back to Verizon because so many friends and family were IN-calling.

Should I, Stick with Verizon and get great coverage everywhere! or Move to Cingular, up my plan to more minutes to cover my IN-calling bonus?

I am a Mac User. I have few problems with my Apple products. It comes down to AT&T which I don’t have a drop of faith in their coverage and disagree with paying more for the same.

I’m interested in the Blackberry Tour or the iPhone. I’ve ruled out most of the other options like; Pre, G1, Nokia 71 and other touchscreen phones.

I like the physical keyboard. I like Verizon Network and the pricing is less per month for me due to IN-calling.

I filled out the form on Apple.com but haven’t clicked commit yet! what to do… what to do. I’ll update this soon.

_kim