My two year cell phone contract with Verizon was up for renewal last week so I held my nose and signed up again. They have a great network where I am and most of my friends and family are on their network so calls to them don't count against my minutes. The sales people at the Verizon stores and kiosks around here have always been good to me and have been knowledgeable about the products they sell. Since I'm a Flash developer I'm also very interested in creating little Flash applications for delivery on cell phones (more about that later). That barely offsets my disgust with Verizon for crippling perfectly good phones. My last phone was the V710, which Verizon lost a class action lawsuit over for advertising that it had certain features that were in fact disabled by Verizon. The RAZR V3m that I picked up when I renewed my contract was designed to do some very cool things but the folks at Verizon figured they needed to disable them.

The feature that they disabled that really puzzles me? "Vibe then ring". That's my favorite setting when I'm out and about because most of the time I catch it before it rings.. but sometimes the vibrate isn't enough and I need the ring. But most of the features they disabled relate to getting things (mp3 files, photos, ringtones, etc) on and off the phone from a computer. And bluetooth features.. Most of those features were crippled (I'm assuming here..) to get people to sign up for the $15/month Vcast service that allows you to download ringtones, songs, and video (and other stuff).

Here's my response to that for those of you with RAZRs and are verizon customers:
How to view Youtube videos:
** watching videos will count against your minutes **
You need to have the $5 "mobile web" package to do this..
- Go to Menu>Get News & Info
- Select the Favorites tab
- Select Add Favorite
- Put "tinytube" in the Name box
- Put http://tinytube.net in the URL box
- Scroll down and select the Add button
Now when you go into your favorites you should see tinytube listed.
Once on the tinytube site you can select videos to watch. Start with the low bandwidth versions and see how it works. The higher bandwidth versions take much longer to download.
Here's a couple other links you can add into your favorites:
- http://www.google.com/gmm (google maps)
- mobile.google.com (will give you the option to search, map, mail, etc)

There are loads of other sites out there that give you tools similar to what Verizon wants you to pay $15/month for. So rather than subscribing to their Vcast service you can just get the $5 mobile web service and use what is freely available on the web.


One of the best features I had with my v710 was the ability to use it as a modem when I traveled a few times a year. The connection was slow, but it was fine for checking e-mail from the airport. I didn't use it enough to justify one of the wireless cards and the $60/month data plan, and using the v710 like this was in a "grey area" for Verizon. Some Verizon folks I talked to said it was fine since it just used my minutes up, while other Verizon folks said no way. Verizon has tried to put a stop to that with their new EVDO phones since the data connection is much faster and directly competes with their $60/month data plan.
It is very possible for you to use the V3m as a modem for your laptop. It might get your account cancelled (yes, you would need to pay the early termination fee) and other nasty stuff, but despite Verizon's best efforts it can be done and it's not too hard. Google for v3m tethering and/or DUN (dial up networking). Disabling EVDO on your phone before making the connection is the current trend to try to sneak under the radar.

You can dig around on the web and find all the info and software you need to re-enable the stuff that Verizon disabled on the V3m.. it can be fairly tricky.. or you can go to sites like
http://www.cellcables.com/motorola-v3m-razr-Verizon-usb-data-cable-drivers-software-free-ringtones-wallpapers.php
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZrwbarnes67QQhtZ-1
but be very careful.. making these changes may void warranties, may be against the service contract from Verizon, etc.. because doing this means you can do what the phone was designed to do for free but Verizon wants to charge you extra $ for.



Lots more info here http://mark.cdmaforums.com/V3C-1.htm