As you’ve seen in my Verizon Centro Review, my normal personal cellphone is a Green enV on Verizon Wireless. I love my phone, however, the external LCD has started to fade on it.

So, off I go to the Verizon store expecting to walkout with a replacement phone. What I got was a piece of paper. Continue Reading

While we’ve all been talking about the success of the Palm Centro which carved out an impressive 2 million unit market share for itself in the $99 smartphone market, something has been quietly happening at Verizon. Slowly but surely many of Verizon’s top selling smartphones are now priced the same - or lower - than the Palm Centro. As outlined in the August 1, 2008 Barron’s Tech Trader Daily, Verizon has slashed prices on six of their most popular smartphones by 20% to 47%. These moves are likely in direct response to the recent iPhone 3G release. Still, suddenly Palm Centro finds itself no longer occupying a unique price point in the market. How much longer can it be until Palm is forced to market the Centro as a $49 or $ 29 smartphone? Almost as interesting is the rapid drop in the price of Blackberry’s which until recently were almost always premium priced.

Barrons

Usually phones on Amazon are priced a good deal cheaper than the carrier’s own web site. Not so with the LG Voyager. I just noticed that the Verizon web site has dropped the price to $149 a compared to the $199 that Amazon is still asking. Also noteworthy are price drops for the Samsung Glyde and LG Env - both of which have moved to $149. With all these cheap phones, you’d think carriers were expecting some competition soon..

LG Voyager
LG Env
Samsung Glyde

Verizon adds the Motorola Q9C to their online smartphone lineup beginning tomorrow (give it a few more weeks to hit the retail stores). Key differences between the Motorola Q9C and the existing Q9M are that the Q9C has expanded 128 mb of memory and support for VZ Navigator. To summarize the differences succinctly “m has the music crap and c does not“. Cost will be $299.99. Customers who sign up for a voice and data plan at the time of purchase get $100 off via instant rebate with an additional $50 mail in rebate bringing your cost to $149.99. PS - Sprint has this same model (Motorola Q9C) for the same price but if you grab it under their awesome SERO plan - you’ll pay zilch for data and also receive unlimited SMS and MMS.

Link: Verizon Wireless
Link: Sprint SERO (use savings@sprintemi.com as your login referral email)

Pope Benedict is scheduled to end his U.S. visit today with an outdoor Mass at Yankee Stadium. In order to meet the expected high demand for cellular service, Verizon Wireless is one of the carriers who will make extensive use of COWS - a.k.a - Cellular On Wheels. If you attend any large gathering these devices are common ways to boost the cellular capacity of nearby towers. You’ll frequently seen them in use at NASCAR events where an extra 100,000 fans gather for the big races - and simultaneously are calling their buddies back home to ask if the TV camera caught their shirtless sweating image in the stands.

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