Mon 13 Nov 2006
For some reason, canvassing afflicts me with a palsy, or at least it seemed that way after I had dropped my cellphone for the sixth or seventh time in ten days of last-minute GOTV. And on the eighth or ninth time, on that cold, cold election morning at oh-dark-hundred, the case actually popped open a little bit, and when the phone rebooted, all the screen colors had gone all wonky. Lucky for me, I had realized a couple days earlier that my “New Every Two” (read: we’ll rope your dumb ass back in for another unbreakable contract with a discounted phone) period had come up and I could get a fancy new cellphone for free. I was finally entering the twenty-first century: cameraphone, here I come.
Unfortunately, in the pre-election haste I didn’t do enough homework on my selection, and on Wednesday I received a nice Samsung that would do just about everything I wanted except talk to my computers. I went out of my way to select a Bluetooth model not so I could become one of those constant-earphone-wearing douchebags (though I probably will become exactly that kind of douchebag), but so I might be able to sync up my contacts and appointments, and maybe even use the phone as a cellular modem when a hotspot wasn’t handy. Sure enough, Samsung is so not supported by Apple’s iSync or any other protocol on my MacBook. Pig and an elephant DNA just won’t splice, you know. Within minutes over beers at the Vortex, on the other hand, I had Kristen’s Motorola RAZR being best of chums, ready to sync my personal data and connect to the internet.
Time to exchange the phone.
Good thing Verizon, as bad as its customer service can be in so many other ways, offers a rather no-questions-asked exchange on new phones within 15 days. All I have to do, according to the customer service reprezentin’ative, is pack it all back up in the original box, slap on the included pre-paid shipping label, and take it to FedEx or call them for a pickup. Once I have a tracking number and it’s in FedEx’s system, I just have to call Verizon back with the info and they’ll go ahead and initiate my order for the new phone.
Just call them back with the number and they’ll send me the new phone.
CALL THEM BACK ON WHAT, GAWDDAMMIT?
November 13th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Douchebag is one of my favorite words.
November 14th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Do they have payphones anymore?
November 17th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
I can’t decide if I am happy you got a phone that does what you want it to, or surprised that Motorola GIVES A SHIT ABOUT SYNCING WITH MACS.
Although, since Moto “participated” in the creation of the first iTunes-compatible phone, I shouldn’t be surprised that they swing that way.
The Razr is a good phone, enjoy.
November 17th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
I notice K’s Razr hasn’t been cracked or killed in a couple years despite other people’s warnings that the Razr is “delicate.” How’s yours? I was thinking of getting some kind of skin or faceplates for it.
I gotta say, it feels GREAT in the pocket (that is, feels like NOTHING), but it’s going to take some getting used to holding, both for width and thickness.
Oh and for the record, yes, it sync’d like a charm with the Mac. It also seems the firmware has been updated since K’s to allow for multiple fields on a single record in Contacts; two minutes of bluetoothing with Hendershot the iMac here and I now have everyone’s phone & email address, as well as my next month’s worth of appointments. I will have to try the mobile internet access while I’m in MS.
November 18th, 2006 at 8:21 am
ha! you said firmware. you dirty talker you.
November 25th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Good point, Marc; I wouldn’t know where to find a payphone right now if I had to. I tried calling the Verizon 800 number on Skype, but after a half-dozen attempts in which the call basically fell apart into scattered, unintelligible snippets of sound, I gave up. Verizon’s system seems to hate VOIP. Bastards.
D, I hear you’re getting a “firmware upgrade” of your own, no? :-P