For those of you who firmly believe that Verizon plus Motorola plus touchscreen equals pure, unadulterated bliss, heads up: we have a bit of information that might be of interest to you. phoneArena has scored a screen shot of what appears to be some promotional material for Moto's upcoming
MING-esque doohickey, the
Krave ZN4 -- and it looks like we'll be shelling out about $150 on a two-year contract for the honor of carrying one in our knockoff Louis Vuitton backpacks. Not a bad price for a phone clearly designed to rest toward the upper end of Verizon's non-smartphone lineup, we suppose, and we'll admit that it's looking better in this dolled-up promo shot than it was
last time we saw it. Separately, they've landed pricing for the Moto VU204, a basic flip that's probably not going to turn as many heads as the Krave; that one is going to go out the door for $29, and you'll get three free with the purchase of the first for the ultimate four-pack of mediocrity. We don't have a solid line on when these are coming to market, but the Krave's
still a possibility for this month.
posted Oct 2nd 2008 1:28PM
Is that thing Ming2?
never again will I buy a motorola phone.
my KRZR has not been reliable. I'm already on my 3rd one and I've had it for about 1 year. the sensor to tell if the phone is open or closed stops functioning after a few months.
unacceptable.
Neither am I.
After a Motorola Q and Motorola RAZR I am never buying another Motorola phone...ever!
I can understand your frustration. My wife went through three KRZRs in two years. However, my KRZR has never had a problem, never needed to be replaced. Same thing happened with our last Motorola phones before we got our KRZRs...hers needed to be replaced a couple times and mine was fine for the whole 2 years of my contract.
I'm either thinking that my wife is really, really hard on her phones (banging around in a purse, etc.) or that she's been unfortunate enough to get hit with lemons while mine are fine.
I was initially going to get a plain ol' MOTO (their slide phone) in the middle of this month when my contract is up for renewal, but I must admit I'm a little curious about the Krave.
Wait a sec...looking at other pictures, what's the deal with that...flip-up shield? Blech. Not really interested anymore after seeing that.
whoa ... they spelled it with a "K" ... kinda like Mortal Kombat circa 1994.
It's $150 after a $50 mail-in rebate. Since most rebates don't go through, it's really $200 with a 2 year contract.
Funny, every single rebate I've ever sent in in my entire life (46 years) has "gone through". If a rebate doesn't go through it's typically because the person sending it in hasn't followed all the instructions. But it's so much easier to blame the company.
Well, count yourself lucky. In the last 2-3 years many companies have been investigated by various people and organizations including the FTC, Eliot Spitzer (when he was Attorney General) and others, from CA to NY. All, if not most, have settled. Some of the companies are Samsung Electronics America, AT&T/Cingular, CompUSA (hurt them pretty bad), Q.P.S. Inc, Soyo Inc, and InPhonic among others.
Cingular/AT&T advertised rebates but sent out Visa "rewards" cards instead of checks (without mentioning this), which were bogged down by long stipulations about use. A federal court in CA ruled against them and stated that the cards were worth less than cash or checks since they couldn't be used as freely (Faigman v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 2007 WL 2088561 (N.D. Cal. July 18, 2007).) . Meanwhile, InPhonic's rebate policy required claims to be filed between 120 and 180 days *after* purchase. They were investigated by the D.C. AG's office and went bankrupt. Then you have gems like these:
"Samsung Electronics America [...] agreed to pay $200,000 to 4,100 consumers who were denied rebates because they lived in apartment buildings."
"In September [2007], Dean Takahashi, a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, discovered over 1,300 unopened rebate requests in the dumpster of a San Jose rebate-processing company."
"Last year [2006], a rebate company called Parago, which handles rebates for electronics retailer Circuit City, applied for (and received) a patent for its rebate-processing system. Parago described the system as specifically designed to induce a large amount of breakage [unfulfilled rebates]."
That's just a small sampling of the kind of stuff going on in this industry. And all this sounds legit to you?
Geez dude! I really touched a nerve. Sorry. I don't think I researched my senior high school project that much. All I'm saying is that I've never (really, never) had a rebate not returned. Now, some have taken quite some time but all have come back but they all have made it to me.
Interestingly, my Q9c is about a year old now. No issues. And I'm not a light user either, use about 8000 minutes per month.. Got my rebate on time as well.
This phone has too many vowels.
I've actually been fortunate enough to have played around with one of these, and their custom-Moto/Verizon UI....isn't half bad! I mean, it's Verizon, so...but much nicer than the OS's that LG has been putting on their touchscreens.
The "shield" has a faint copper wiring in it, so thin that you can't see it but here's the kicker: you can use the touchscreen THROUGH the shield! The UI is a little restrictive because part of the screen is blocked off by the earphone thing on the shield, but still cool nonetheless.
Since when does Verizon offer a mail-in-rebate "debit card"? I got a check from them not even two weeks ago...
Tell you all what: the KRZR is a crap phone; my opinion is that it was a rush job, like LG's Chocolate. However, overall, Motorola is comparable in reliability to Samsung. I should know. I do Verizon's warranty work, and I keep a meticulous record of every phone that I or someone else replaces that I hear about. LG is far, far worse than any other brand I've dealt with.