2 years ago (2004) I got what was then the new trend in phones, those with Bluetooth technology that enabled phones to wirelessly connect to headsets and other devices. My wife actually got into this trend before I did but hers had to have a Bluetooth adapter for the phone to work. This was back in 2002 and I remember having to take a deep breath when she told me of her purchase. Her business requires her to be in touch all the time so I had no choice but to agree with her purchase.
Anyway, Verizon, always late to the party, offered the Motorola V710 phone which had bluetooth. Now I'm old school and still remember having to pay 2.00 per minute for cell phone calls. So for me, having a cell phone was a business decision and was really for important calls. I still marvel at how some people can almost have a cell phone built into their heads with the way they're constantly chatting on a cell phone. For me, its all about the message you can send.
Anyway, Bluetooth allowed a handsfree usage of the phone which made driving easier. You can do a couple of things that are cool such as leaving the phone at your desk and going to the bathroom while talking on the phone. I sometimes wonder what the person on the other side thinks of this. Hey, don't laugh, its safer to leave it there as tales abound of phones dropping into places in the bathroom where they shouldn't!
What I liked about the phone was how big it was. At the time the trend was for the smallest phone you can find so it was refreshing to find one that was big and solid. You felt like you had a manly phone in your hand. No wimpy little gadget. My kids laughed at me all the time telling me how big the phone was. Of course I've already replaced several of theirs while I still have mine. It also had a nice, big, bright screen with full colors. A flipphone, the front had a little color screen that was very functional. The buttons were very easy to use and robust. The phone has a camera but as an photographer (my side gig), cell phone cameras are only for documenting on the spot news that you can send to your friends. The quality is horrible. This phone promises a 1.2 mega pixel camera which should be quite decent but thanks to the incredibly terrible optics and horrible pickup, the camera is not worth much. A polyphonic phone, it can play actual recorded music for call assignment. Now here is where I have a beef with Verizon. Though you have access to the phones internals via computer, you can download photos into the phone directly and must use Verizon's photo service. At 10-25 cents a pop, that can be annoying. The same goes for music. Amazingly I found some tools on creating my own sounds which I will deal with at another posting.
The phone works very well as a phone and there's hardly any signal drop. It does seem to use a lot of power as I have long since have had to develop the habit of charging the phone overnight every night. I've recently had to purchase a new battery as the old one was not holding its charge much.
Overall, I do love the V710 which I think is no longer offered. Its descendant, the V815 came with most of these feature and a little improvement in the camera but ws mostly geared towards Verizon's V-Cast which allowed users to experience a plethora of multimedia services including sound and video.
From what I see as well, it appears that from this class of cell phones evolved the Razr phone as it seems to be a slimmed down version of it. Verizon is trying to make me trade in the old V710 for a new phone and the most tempting is the Razr as it wouldn't cost me anything. But I've gotten used to the V710 and won't trade it yet. Afterall, it performs the most important function which is to make a phone call. If something happens to it I may change but for now, I'm keeping the old bag.
