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What a rip off.....

The Droid, as with the Blackberry, costs an additional $30/mo? What if I don't want data, e-mail, etc. I just want the phone, but I'm being forced to pay for an upgrade to get data. This is a complete scam and just another way to suck every dollar out of people.

Thanks Verizon!! Contract is almost up....it's time to switch to another carrier.

Comments

AndroidOnly

I think you will find that all carriers (not just Verizon) require the additional purchase of a data plan when purchasing a smart phone. Now whether that is right or wrong is a different question. More customizable plans would be awesome.

ailuv2walk

Lol.. I have a slightly different problem. The voice service isn't of much use to me. I would rather pay for just data and text and a minimal voice plan. Also, why is the consumers still have to pay for text separate from their data plan?

Brox

Well i agree with it being a rip off that any carrier makes you do it .There may be a phone you really like and can't get it because you can't afford the extra $$$$$$$$

Ghees_Mail

The only carrier that doesn't charge an additional fee for data is Sprint. They have a plan that includes unlimited access to all their services for $99. Wish Verizon would do the same but they say Sprint is not their main competetion, AT&T is so they are competing with their plans.

mpafr012

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile all charge a $30 for smartphones. The new generation phones are data hogs. Sprint includes this cost in the SEP for $99. A Droid without a data plan is useless as it needs data to do it's thing. You want a dumb phone buy a dumb phone.

mole644

I just wish you could use the droid on the connect plan. It has unlimited date, but its not compatible, I dont get it.

kevin12345

I'm with A*&* now. Don't have to pay for data if you don't want it with them. Only iphone needs data plan. Atleast you can buy a smart phone with them and opt out of data.

supitsmike

Every provider aside from Sprint and other crappy ones (i.e. Metro PCS) have a data plan. It's just the way it works.

techspert

kevin12345 wrote:
I'm with A*&* now. Don't have to pay for data if you don't want it with them. Only iphone needs data plan. Atleast you can buy a smart phone with them and opt out of data.

If you go to AT&T's website, all their smartphones require a data plan and those plans start at $30/month. No different than Verizon.

techspert

Wiletoo wrote:
The Droid, as with the Blackberry, costs an additional $30/mo? What if I don't want data, e-mail, etc. I just want the phone, but I'm being forced to pay for an upgrade to get data. This is a complete scam and just another way to suck every dollar out of people.

Thanks Verizon!! Contract is almost up....it's time to switch to another carrier.

Then buy the phone at full price from a third party retailer and activate it over the air. I think you can do that and get around the data plan requirement. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

reallyniceguy

LOL why would you want the droid to is it as just a phone? That would be pointless LOL I guess your one of those who wants to be flashing their phone aroind to other people and make them think you are some sort of sophisticated person? If you want a basic phone, stay away from "smart" phone.

Butthead

You're incorrect about getting around data requirement doing an OTA device change. The data plan is tied to the device type, so once the esn populates, data plan it is..

All carriers are moving to requiring data plans for smartphones. Sorry.

WildatHeart

I had the same experience. I don't like giving Apple my business and that's why I chose Verizon in the first place. But, if I'm going to have to pay the Apple pricetag anyway ... may as well jump in the pond with everyone else.

techspert

WildatHeart wrote:
I had the same experience. I don't like giving Apple my business and that's why I chose Verizon in the first place. But, if I'm going to have to pay the Apple pricetag anyway ... may as well jump in the pond with everyone else.

Nevermind the fact that Apple gives you less bang for your buck in hardware and nickels and dimes you on things like battery replacement compared to any other phone. The dealbreaker for me is that you lease the iphone, you don't own it. It's one thing to replace the phone on warranty with a refurb, but if you send it in for a new battery, they simply send you another "refurb" with a new battery that you don't know how many times it bounced off the floor by the last "owner". F- that. No other cell phone manufacturer I know has THAT kind of pricetag.

supitsmike

WildatHeart wrote:
I had the same experience. I don't like giving Apple my business and that's why I chose Verizon in the first place. But, if I'm going to have to pay the Apple pricetag anyway ... may as well jump in the pond with everyone else.

That's like saying "well because Nike shoes are great tennis shoes, I might as well dress with baggy pants and long T Shirts because a lot of guys dress that way."

That doesn't make any remote sense.

Droid is an amazingly powerful phone. You can make it yours, what you want it to be, the specs on it are ridiculous.

edllorca

I found out today about the dataplan requirement too. It is what I call blackmail business. Verizon is starting to act arrogantly toward its customers and doesn't relaize that that is the fastest way to become #2 or worse. If I want a droid and no data plan what does it matter to them? If they want me to have a dataplan they should make it worth my while not blackmail me. that is what true business and competition is about not this whole crap about phones only being available from this venrdor or that and now worse even the dataplan blackmail. Frankly I am not going to renew my contract now and may switch to another provider.

Another dumb thing I saw looking into the droid was about applications. I went to android.com/market to check out apps and saw only a few with no access to much information about them but there was a note that said you have to access the store via a handset. That's brilliant. On the one had I have a computer with a two 21" screens and a fat dsl line on the other hand you have a 3.7" screen with a slow expensive pipe. Which of those two do you think is better? Wh is the GENIUS that said no they can't research or buy apps from their desktops? Get that guy fired and everybody else that approved that idiotic idea.

Geez Verizon, get a grip here you have completely lost touch with reality on this one, after all the jerkaround with the plam pre! No wonder sales of the droid have started slowly...Verizon is working hard to prevent their customers from getting what they want.

techspert

edllorca wrote:
I found out today about the dataplan requirement too. It is what I call blackmail business. Verizon is starting to act arrogantly toward its customers and doesn't relaize that that is the fastest way to become #2 or worse. If I want a droid and no data plan what does it matter to them? If they want me to have a dataplan they should make it worth my while not blackmail me. that is what true business and competition is about not this whole crap about phones only being available from this venrdor or that and now worse even the dataplan blackmail. Frankly I am not going to renew my contract now and may switch to another provider.

You're half right here. You should be permitted to pay for retail for the device and opt to not subscribe to a data plan, or pay per megabyte. But when you sign the contract and take advantage of the subsidized price, I see no problem with the data plan requirement. They're absorbing $360 up front so you can get the phone at $199, and if you're an NE2 customer, you can get an additional $50 discount. If you choose to switch providers, know that AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile all will require you to pick up a data subscription with a smartphone. Good luck.

MacDaddy

Cheap Soloution, Buy yourself an Ipod touch (WIFI) and a cheap Flip Phone and your good to go.

timwingram

The phone does have wifi on it so you could use the cheap fat pipe of the dsl connection also to sync and almost anything you wish. I dont know if the GPS would work since it looks as though it goes to the internet to find things like that and if you are in a car it wouldn't work. My problem is that they are wanting to charge $30 a phone for data for each phone. Right now I have the smartpack from Alltel and 4 phones cost me $199 a month and with the plan they have it would cost $300 a month that is an extra $2400 over two years for the same internet I have on our touch pros. DSL $19.95 a month(unlimited computers) Internet shouldn't be this pricey

EricSeipel

The thing about all you people that i dont completely understand is, why do you want a phone whose main selling point is [Exchange support/POP/G-mail(with push?)], [Google Maps/Navigation], [Mobile web browsing] yet don't want to pay for a data plan that takes advantage of those features?

Yes, I realize there is a WiFi connection... that eats battery for breakfast. If your just looking for a PDA, then get a PDA. someone Mentioned the ipod touch, i like the HP iPaq hx2750, and palm has some also.

You say "but i want the cool apps!!!" a vast majority of them need data of some sort to work. "Hey let me scan this barcode to see where i can find it cheaper... crap acme grocery store doesn't have wifi". "I wonder how my football team is doing, lets check out the app... oh wait the train home dosent have wifi"

For the people that think its stupid to have the appstore accessed from the phone, this is at least partly a security thing so that people don't pirate paid apps. you will not that there is no inherently easy way to get your apps off of the phone, that is a design feature not a flaw.

Before you flame me, how about you think about what i said, instead of just blindly yowling.

somegirl

edllorca wrote:
Another dumb thing I saw looking into the droid was about applications. I went to android.com/market to check out apps and saw only a few with no access to much information about them but there was a note that said you have to access the store via a handset. That's brilliant. On the one had I have a computer with a two 21" screens and a fat dsl line on the other hand you have a 3.7" screen with a slow expensive pipe. Which of those two do you think is better? Wh is the GENIUS that said no they can't research or buy apps from their desktops? Get that guy fired and everybody else that approved that idiotic idea.

http://www.cyrket.com - browse the full Android App market from your pc. Seems to be experiencing a high load at the moment (Hm, wonder why...) so it's a little slow, but it DOES exist.

element22ag

I don't understand this thread - its complaint is like saying you're outraged that you just bought a high end laptop and found out you also have to pay for an internet connection. To me it just makes sense that you'd have to pay for data for a phone that runs the internet. And whats the deal with wanting this specific phone as just a phone? Thats like buying a Porsche and only driving 35 with it.

timwingram

My complaint is that I already have data on my phone and to change from touch to motorola they want 30 dollars extra per phone. 4x 30 is 120 more than what I am paying now. I have very high end pc's and they all run off high speed internet. Many pc's on data connection. Yes I know it is mobile internet but still they are way overpricing. Data is not that expensive to provide. Verizon , ATT and most all the phone companies are the internet they pretty much own it.. (or at least 60% of the connections)

gwhitbeck

i had a thread about this too but i was actually somewhat confused at that time. i thought the $30 was for nothing, not realizing it was an actual data plan that included 5GB of data transfer per month.

it is kind of goofy though from this point of view: since it has wifi, why couldn't i just use it wherever there were hotspots and not get the data plan? for me at least, that would be an "ease into the extra $30". i could decide if i want it or not without immediately taking the plunge and forking it over.

however, now that i own it i see that the data is really a part of this system. so in a previous post the comparison was getting a laptop and then finding out you need to pay for internet service makes a lot more sense to me. plus skipping from hotspot to hotspot would suck.

i can use it at work, at someone's house that doesn't have wifi, on the road for gps, etc.

youknowit

that phone probably costs $600 for verizon to get it from motorola. They sell it for $200. Verizon is negative $400 already.

They would never make a profit if you weren't forced to get the data package. Its business, they're in it to profit.

You don't need it to survive, you really don't. Are you complaining to caddilac that their cars are too expensive? Its not a necessity by any means.

rjones

I'm wondering why anybody would want a DROID without a data plan. The data connection is what the DROID is all about because it gives access to the Web and Google's search capabiities. It's an expensive toy if all you need is a game player and phone. There a many other devices that fill that bill for much less money.

timwingram

I already have plans with data on them from alltel. They had a package that had data and it only cost $200 for four phones.

With the price of 4 phones and adding over $100 extra per month it would cost me over $3200 in a two year period.

Plus with this phone you give them all kinds of marketing information so they can sell you more stuff. This is an advertisers dream. Oh yes it is nice to be able to have gps on a phone for free. But you are giving up privacy also in the same fashion and paying them to take your info your habits and all sorts of stuff. These guys at google or very smart.. Probably smarter then many NASA engineers. Think about this they can tell the goverment or us how bad the flu is just by the number of people that search for flu. They pass that on to the drug makers to sell you anti flue medications. Oh put the birthdays in the contacts.. They will be able to pop up and say it is your friends birthday would you like to order flowers? Well yes I will thank you... So nice and easy. ( I dont mind giving this up makes a better and easier life for us)

Think of the new amazon kindle book reader they give you for free ( I say that lightly) internet access. They pay for it by selling you books. Data is cheap enough to do this.. Now google wants to give you the books but they want your info to do this.

(From the Book Free Chris Anderson)

This was some other random thoughts. :smileyhappy:

youknowit

I used to be an alltel agent and blackberries used to cost 300-400 dollars at cost. So then the retail price is $450 and a the subsidized price to get you to buy it is $150. Also i bought a windows based phone for cost and activated unlimited data and messaging on a connect pack 3. So i'm in no hurry to change.

Blackberries can't do that on a connect pack 3 though. They have to have a legit data plan, and if you don't you won't get internet. I'm sure verizon wouldn't mind you paying cost plus $50 to get a droid and no data plan.

youknowit

tim,

how many minutes a month do you need? Are you on the smartchoice 89.99 or 109.99?

timwingram

Yes that is the price they charged you as an agent but that is not what they cost them....

Right now I have the Smartchoice with 4 phones 199 a month I believe I have 1200 mins.

youknowit

yea your getting screwed. You would be about $260 a month. Using the Select family plan which includes messaging and then add 4 data lines would put you at $260. That gives you 1400 minutes. Thats about as close as you can get.

Cody21

Does the $30 "fee" include text messaging or Mobile email? Or would I have to pay per message or buy an additonal Text plan and/or email pkg?

Thanks

timwingram

I am not saying. That data has to be free.. Just not a rip off.... However with the capabilties of the phone it could be free and they still could make money at it.. Think of the power if I sold flowers and I had everyones birthday in the world with the addresses. Where you could click say yes and the flowers be delivered by fedex the next day or your local florist same day. This is just one example (this is a low cost example) Well think of it if you are buying a car or anything like this. This phone tracks behavior.

Yes I use these phones for personal and to get business email and yes sock it to the businesses that provide jobs.. It is really quite amazing lets charge businesses more because they are business. Even if the business doesn't recieve any more email than a standard user. I will also say some personal users send more emails then many businesses. But when I charge people for my services they say.. hey that is to much if I make 5% off an item.

All I am saying is they are really ripping people off with the high cost of internet per device. I know you have to have internet for the full function of the phone. That is where they get you. And yes profit is good we have to have it to survive..

I can go into more detail here but such is life... But that is enough of my open mouth.. :smileyhappy:

ivorycruncher

Well, again, these phones are a lot more expensive than standard dumbphones. They have to covered the cost of the phone somehow through the rate plans. With smartphones, they can account for some of the additional cost through the data plan. I would honestly be all for having a no-data option for those that truly want it, but then you would probably be paying more like $350-400 for the phone, not $200. Also, I don't know if there's technically a way to cut off all data flow through the cell network, meaning you'd be paying per megabyte, which can add up quite fast.

absolutchele

I too would like a droid without the data plan and the ridiculous additional charge of $30 per month. Why? Well...

I would like a phone.

I would like a phone with a good camera.

I wouldn't mind being able to access the wifi at home and at several of my favorite spots with my cell. (the droid can connect to wifi - thus you can use it without using the verizon data-plan)

Why should I carry around my ipod to connect to free wifi when I could use my cell?

As for someone trying to defend forcing customers to pay an extra $30 a month because the phone is so cheap... An ipod touch starts at $199. Really, how much cheaper is the Droid Eris? oh wait, it's not!!!! Plus they get the extra cash from you for the accessories and the monthly fees.

willanaya

absolutchele wrote:
I too would like a droid without the data plan and the ridiculous additional charge of $30 per month. Why? Well...
I would like a phone.
I would like a phone with a good camera.
I wouldn't mind being able to access the wifi at home and at several of my favorite spots with my cell. (the droid can connect to wifi - thus you can use it without using the verizon data-plan)
Why should I carry around my ipod to connect to free wifi when I could use my cell?

As for someone trying to defend forcing customers to pay an extra $30 a month because the phone is so cheap... An ipod touch starts at $199. Really, how much cheaper is the Droid Eris? oh wait, it's not!!!! Plus they get the extra cash from you for the accessories and the monthly fees.

you want something "like a droid" without a data plan, try a pda.

you want a phone with a good camera, try a Lg enV3

access wifi at home or at hotspots, try a pda

why should you carry around your ipod to connect to free wifi when i could use my cell? because you are complaining too much about it and no matter what you will never be satisfied with this great piece of technology.

as as for the ipod touch being cheaper than an eris.......does your ipod touch make phone calls too? no? well there is your reason why an ipod touch is cheaper. dont compare apples and oranges.

you know, i have a dedicated mp3 player that cost me$100. and i too am upset that my motorola droid is more expensive than it. get it? apples and oranges

djnonsense

If you have problem paying for a data plan then smartphones aren't for you. Total waste and pointless to buy a smartphone with no data. If you can't afford $30 a month maybe you should be buying a cheaper phone.

gerio

kevin12345 wrote:
I'm with AT&T now (It's okay, you can say it here..). Don't have to pay for data if you don't want it with them. Only iphone needs data plan. Atleast you can buy a smart phone with them and opt out of data.

Wrong. Dead Wrong. Just try it. I dare you. I know better.

Geri O

gerio

WildatHeart wrote:
I had the same experience. I don't like giving Apple my business and that's why I chose Verizon in the first place. But, if I'm going to have to pay the Apple pricetag anyway ... may as well jump in the pond with everyone else.

If you like a pond where you can't make or receive a simple phone call without a dog and pony show, then dive right in.

I've been for that swim, I caught a liferaft back to shore. Then to the Verizon store.

Geri O

gerio

gwhitbeck wrote:
i had a thread about this too but i was actually somewhat confused at that time. i thought the $30 was for nothing, not realizing it was an actual data plan that included 5GB of data transfer per month.

This is incorrect, and to your benefit.

The data plan for your phone includes unlimited data. It's the air cards and the MiFi card that is capped at 5 gigs.

Geri O

varkie

Sprint also requires a $30 data plan just to clear things up. I just switched back from them after 3 years and they would not sell me a new smartphone without upgrading my plan first. Plus they only have a $150 upgrade allowance after 2 years so the Hero (Droid Eris) was going to cost me $325 ($475 normal price) plus the new 2 year plan. Their cheapest plan was $69.99 per month for 450 anytime minutes, unlimted data and unlimited text. As opposed to $79.99 for my Verizon plan which had 450 minutes and unlimted data only. But Sprints customer service is horrible and you get at least 2 or 3 calls a month from their service center in China trying to get you to upgrade your plan or phone. Sprints network also sucks to say the least. I'm much happier with verizon. I tried T-Mobile for a year too, their network only worked within a narrow corridor along the major interstates ( I traveled a lot between Michigan and Virginia). It sucked having to leave my house and drive the 2 miles to the expressway just to make a call.

bro4321

How about this scenrio?

I'm a twenty year old college student who lives on a campus that has complete wifi coverage. Hence I spend about 90% of my time within wifi coverage.

My original thoughts were like this:

Hmmmmmmmm.... Google's Droid looks nice. *Plays with a HTC Droid phone in a Verizon store* Oh yeah I could get this thing; heck, it even comes with wifi. I can finally replace my ipod touch that I've been keeping in my right pocket for the past two years and just be a left pocket phone man!!!!!!

Oh, I'm required to get an expensive data plan that I would never use.... or need. Nevermind that.

Too cheap you say? It'll cost me what,$250 for a smart phone? Then it'll cost me either another $240 or $720 across my two year contract for a service that I neither want, need, nor use, doubling or quadrupling the price of that phone.

supitsmike

bro4321 wrote:
How about this scenrio?

I'm a twenty year old college student who lives on a campus that has complete wifi coverage. Hence I spend about 90% of my time within wifi coverage.

My original thoughts were like this:

Hmmmmmmmm.... Google's Droid looks nice. *Plays with a HTC Droid phone in a Verizon store* Oh yeah I could get this thing; heck, it even comes with wifi. I can finally replace my ipod touch that I've been keeping in my right pocket for the past two years and just be a left pocket phone man!!!!!!

Oh, I'm required to get an expensive data plan that I would never use.... or need. Nevermind that.

Too cheap you say? It'll cost me what,$250 for a smart phone? Then it'll cost me either another $240 or $720 across my two year contract for a service that I neither want, need, nor use, doubling or quadrupling the price of that phone.

Or how about this scenario*:

I was out with my brother yesterday looking for a place where a party was. He had no idea where to look, yet I used Google Navigation to find our way to the apartment at which we had Bud Light and Doritos watitng for us.

At one point or another, you're going to use the Data Plan whether it be for a second, or not. And think about it this way: Unless the bandwidth in your school along with it's ISP gives wifi at 100mbps+, you can count on the other X amount of students thinking the same thing you are.

Assumptively if you and the rest of your student body roughly share the same schedual, then I would guess that many kids are on that Wi-Fi that you seemingly think is always going to run fantastically. Could you scale that along with Verizon's service and it's 3G? Sure, but that technology, which can send out more mbps, makes the Wifi-and-internet-to-a-student-body pale in comparison.

Either way, you either buy the data plan or you don't. And if buying the Data Plan is too 'expensive' for you then perhaps Android or any phone that can give push notifications isn't for you.

critterpainter

I think everyone is missing the TRUE rip-off. The Droids are a great computer...But SUCK as a phone. The cheapest phone out there performs more tricks than the phone on the Droid. Can I get just the data plan for the droid and re-activate my old razor as a phone and drop the phone service on the droid?? All ANY competitor has to do is show a video if the gyrations one has to go through to call from a sleeping droid while driving.....its NOT SAFE!!!!!!!!!!!! My old razor may not tell me where the nearest gas station is but I didn't have to do a cop check to place a call!!!

Bill

mofia88

You need to learn that smartphones are for smart people.The droid constantly accesses the internet for data. You can run widgets 24/7 with weather,sports, and news updates in real time.The droid is accessing the internet to get that data it does not magically come out of the air.Verizon use to offer pay as you go on smartphones at .015cents / kb.The reason why they got rid of it is because too many customer's not realizing how often their phone was on the internet. I have an eris and it has used 240,000kb in 10 days.I work 10 hours a day and don't have time to play with my phone. That is just base usage for getting realtime info.My droid usage on the pay as u go kb plan would be $3600 for 10 days or about $11000 for a month.I think I would rather just pay the $30 wouldn't you.Great job on verizon's part not letting the customer's screw themselves by getting rid of the pay as you go data plans on smartphones.I would much rather buy a car with that $11000 than pay verizon because I am **bleep** and don't realize how my phone works.

Androidatic

Wiletoo wrote:
The Droid, as with the Blackberry, costs an additional $30/mo? What if I don't want data, e-mail, etc. I just want the phone, but I'm being forced to pay for an upgrade to get data. This is a complete scam and just another way to suck every dollar out of people.

Thanks Verizon!! Contract is almost up....it's time to switch to another carrier.

This phone is built to be connected at all times. I still don't understand why anyone would want a smartphone and not a data plan. Just get an iPod Touch if all you want is wi-fi and apps.

Zehan

critterpainter wrote:
I think everyone is missing the TRUE rip-off. The Droids are a great computer...But SUCK as a phone. The cheapest phone out there performs more tricks than the phone on the Droid. Can I get just the data plan for the droid and re-activate my old razor as a phone and drop the phone service on the droid?? All ANY competitor has to do is show a video if the gyrations one has to go through to call from a sleeping droid while driving.....its NOT SAFE!!!!!!!!!!!! My old razor may not tell me where the nearest gas station is but I didn't have to do a cop check to place a call!!!

Bill

Um....ever think of not making a call while driving period? It's illegal in a lot of places now....for a REASON.

I can't believe you actually argued that the Droid sucks as a phone because it's not easy to use while driving, and therefore is unsafe. Wow.

Heeeeere's your sign.

Mochi

ailuv2walk wrote:
Lol.. I have a slightly different problem. The voice service isn't of much use to me. I would rather pay for just data and text and a minimal voice plan. Also, why is the consumers still have to pay for text separate from their data plan?

I completely agree with you there!!!

ACTrack03

Wow there is a lot of crying in this thread. If you don't see the need for a data plan with this phone then you have no idea what the Droid is all about. It is a mobile mulit-media/information resource with a phone feature. I do agree that it is also a phone and has to act as such but the phone portion is only a small piece of it's capabilities. I inderstand that when you multiply $30 a month by 24 months is $720 but for what that gives you, thats cheap in my book. I didn't even bat an eye when they told me how much the data plan was going to run me even back on my Moto Q or my BB storm and that $45 back then for unlimited data didn't get me as much as the $30 data package for the Droid can deliver(because of the number of things you can do with the Droid that you can't with the other phones).

GreySeal

I don't usually bother with these type of threads, but what the heck....

Some people you just cannot please no matter what you do. I have lived long enough to have figured that out. Normally, it's just 'water off a duck's back' to me. Just for grins, though, I thought I'd chime in.

There are some people that, if you gave them a phone with a 650 gigahertz processor, 64 gig of computational ram, with a 3 terabyte SSD drive and a 4" display with 2000x1000 resolution, that cost them $1.00 a month without a contract and unlimited dual T3 connections, only weighed 2 ounces, and was waterproof to 300 feet, they would complain that it was a **bleep** and someone was trying to rip them off because it didn't come with a free toaster as a signing bonus.

(ducking for cover) :smileytongue:

supitsmike

GreySeal wrote:
I don't usually bother with these type of threads, but what the heck....

Some people you just cannot please no matter what you do. I have lived long enough to have figured that out. Normally, it's just 'water off a duck's back' to me. Just for grins, though, I thought I'd chime in.

There are some people that, if you gave them a phone with a 650 gigahertz processor, 64 gig of computational ram, with a 3 terabyte SSD drive and a 4" display with 2000x1000 resolution, that cost them $1.00 a month without a contract and unlimited dual T3 connections, only weighed 2 ounces, and was waterproof to 300 feet, they would complain that it was a **bleep** and someone was trying to rip them off because it didn't come with a free toaster as a signing bonus.

(ducking for cover)

How dare they challenge my bread toasting experience?!

innocent93

Verizon isn't doing anything that Alltel didn't do. With Alltel , when I had regular cells on the family plan.

It was $10 a month for the second phone. When we purchased smartphones. Alltel charged an extra $20 per phone

per month.

Verizon is $10 more per line. Yes, it's more expensive than Alltel. .. Alltel wasn't giving you data at no charge.

hol_eliz

Clearly those of you complaining about data plans on smartphones don't understand the whole concept behind smartphones. They use DATA surprise surprise. Even texting is data. If you paid PER MB you are looking at a couple hundred dollars per browsing session. Downloading a single email can burn up a lot of data. Imagine that several times a day, week and month. A Blackberry, Palm, Droid, Windows phone etc is USELESS without data. Whats the status symbol of whipping out a Blackberry or Droid really gonna do for you if all you can do is call on it? If thats all you want to pay for, get a simple feature phone.

hol_eliz

The old connect plan is for browsers that aren't a full html browser. Like the Voyager, Envy phones, Rogue, Alias2 etc. Blackberrys, Droids, SMARTphones offer a full browsing experience, like having a mini computer in the palm of your hand. Hence the need for the unlimited data plan.

unknown

A Droid without a data plan makes no sense at all. Just buy a regular phone.

spotlight00

Why would anyone want a smart phone without the data plan anyway? Pointless! Additionally, I pay for unlimited data with Verizon as a separate package (big deal, it's all the same bill anyway) and pay $20 LESS a month than Sprints "all inclusive" package.

SydneyK

I saw a brilliant analogy for this on another forum:

A smartphone without a data plan is as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle.

palmuser4

Wrong. The problem with today's dumb phones is they are not as useful as an old Palm. That Palm would allow you to put addresses into the contact list, as well as birthday and anniversary reminders....not today's dumb phone. The calendar in the Palm was a very useful date book....much better than any of today's dumb phones. I could read and edit MS Word and Excel files that I offloaded from my PC....no way you can do that with a dumb phone today. You need a smartphone for those basic functions, but you sure don't need a data plan as well, and with the proliferation of free WiFi hot spots, you can do a lot more without a data plan. Most of people I know with a smartphone are paying $30/month for instant gratification. I can't rationalize it, so I carry around my old Palm and a dumb phone.

palmuser4

One more valid point. My daughter has an iPod that she finds extremely useful. Why isn't an iPod as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle without a force fed data plan? Did Apple not think this through, or is Verizon just arrogant?

lewisr13

you're replying to a thread that's over 2 years old. i hate when that happens.

palmuser4

It's still a valid issue, only now Verizon is turning up the wick on heavy users of the smartphone. Instant gratification is going to cost more than $30/month.

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