That would depend on what kind of backup and options you get with Carbonite and your smartphone.
The Verizon cloud will backup your photos, contacts, text messages, and some other things, but it is tied to your Verizon account - if you change providers, the data is useless. And it is tied to your phone - not your laptop or other devices.
IMO, Carbonite is a more flexible, robust, and complete backup system. I don't use Verizon Cloud; for my Android phone I use Google for contacts, and photos, and apps. And at home I use external hard drives for my laptop backup.
