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Where is the outrage over how much this thing costs? The device itself costs like $50 less than the iPhone (yes, Ballmer, fully subsidized with a 2 year plan). Then, a regular plan, without any texts or data and only 450 minutes is $60 (For a regular phone plan, that's absurd!) To get unlimited data it costs at least an additional $15 a month. It costs and extra $10 above that to get such features as TV. Now, if you happen to be made of money, this might not be a problem, but then why don't you just get both an iPhone and a Voyager? Heck, why don't you buy me an iPhone while you're at it?
 
GPS, UMTS battery life depends on many factors

Batterie life would be horrible, meabe on the next gen or 3rd... who knows.

But we can always dream....

Sher

PS: this Voyager is very an bad and ugly copy of the Iphone, yack !

Actually, you would have no idea about the battery life until we see the implementation. The new model SiRF Star chips are amazingly power efficient compared to their ancestors. And besides, at least for most use cases, the GPS is not going to be used for hours at a time.

People always bring up how 'smart' Apple was to keep the iPhone EDGE only. I partially agree, however, what drives me crazy is the endless barrage of blanket statements about 3G/UMTS battery life. And actually, in most cases (at least on Cnet.com), the tested battery life comes out on top of the manufacturer's specs.

Just to remind some people:


LG VX9800 5.5 hours (tested) evdo
Motorola Slvr L7c 5.0 hours (tested) evdo
Palm Treo 700wx 5.8 hours (tested) evdo
RIM BlackBerry 8703e 5.2 hours (tested) evdo
Sony Ericsson W850i 7 hours (tested) UMTS
AT&T 8525 6.0 hours (tested) UMTS/HSDPA
Helio Ocean 5.0 hours (tested) EVDO
HTC Mogul PPC-6800 6.5 hours (tested) EVDO

Also, remember how Apple's/partner's engineers keep improving the battery life of the Ipod... I'm sure Apple could easily make 3G work in the iPhone, but they wanted a differentiation point (in addition to GPS) for model 2.
I love the iPhone, but I'm not going to endlessly defend Apple over this or anything else.
 
Actually, you would have no idea about the battery life until we see the implementation. The new model SiRF Star chips are amazingly power efficient compared to their ancestors. And besides, at least for most use cases, the GPS is not going to be used for hours at a time.

People always bring up how 'smart' Apple was to keep the iPhone EDGE only. I partially agree, however, what drives me crazy is the endless barrage of blanket statements about 3G/UMTS battery life. And actually, in most cases (at least on Cnet.com), the tested battery life comes out on top of the manufacturer's specs.

Just to remind some people:


LG VX9800 5.5 hours (tested) evdo
Motorola Slvr L7c 5.0 hours (tested) evdo
Palm Treo 700wx 5.8 hours (tested) evdo
RIM BlackBerry 8703e 5.2 hours (tested) evdo
Sony Ericsson W850i 7 hours (tested) UMTS
AT&T 8525 6.0 hours (tested) UMTS/HSDPA
Helio Ocean 5.0 hours (tested) EVDO
HTC Mogul PPC-6800 6.5 hours (tested) EVDO

Also, remember how Apple's/partner's engineers keep improving the battery life of the Ipod... I'm sure Apple could easily make 3G work in the iPhone, but they wanted a differentiation point (in addition to GPS) for model 2.
I love the iPhone, but I'm not going to endlessly defend Apple over this or anything else.

Where ever you go those stats, did they have anything on the iPhone? I would be interested to know the actual battery life.
Do you have a link... I am a little confused, just looking at the first one (LG VX9800 you said it gets 5.5 hours of battery life... I am guessing that means 5 hours of usage? On verizons website it says it gets 3.75 hours of talk time... I cant see them understating their usage that much. Yes talk time might be less than usage but by how much. Usage includes internet etc etc.

edit: and regarding the voyager.. look at the screen size that sucks up a lot more batter then the little flip phones. Not sure how many on there are flip phones but the first one is.
 
I want the Voyager, but because it doesn't work with the Mac I wont be getting it. Nice job, verizon :rolleyes:
 
Where is the outrage over how much this thing costs? The device itself costs like $50 less than the iPhone (yes, Ballmer, fully subsidized with a 2 year plan). Then, a regular plan, without any texts or data and only 450 minutes is $60 (For a regular phone plan, that's absurd!) To get unlimited data it costs at least an additional $15 a month. It costs and extra $10 above that to get such features as TV. Now, if you happen to be made of money, this might not be a problem, but then why don't you just get both an iPhone and a Voyager? Heck, why don't you buy me an iPhone while you're at it?

Actually if you put in 8GB of memory to match the iPhone capacity it is $70 more expensive then the iPhone.

Where did you get the plan rates. I went to verizon and it was $40 for the plan only then 15 for the interenet (lower package with no tv) and 15 for unlimited IN messaging and 500 extra ( the closest I could get to my package of unlimited data 200 messages and unlimited IN messages)

So the total monthly came out to be $65/month with out the use of all the VCAST features like TV. This is equal in price to my iPhone plan that has unlimited IN messaging and 200 whenever messaging.

Now the cost of the phone is $350 dollars then plus the $170 dollars(check your local verizon store) for the 8 GB memory to match the iPhones memory capacity and you come out to $470 compared to the iPhone price of $400.

So from my understanding you are paying for money for a phone with half the batter life capacity which will be even more effected at times of using the 3G, a smaller screen with lower pixels, no real multi-touch or even touch screen for that matter, bigger in size, and a crippled browser?

Also from what I have been told you have to pay $5/month extra to get the mobile email but when I was looking it seems like it came with it, any one have any details on that?
 
Actually if you put in 8GB of memory to match the iPhone capacity it is $70 more expensive then the iPhone.

Where did you get the plan rates. I went to verizon and it was $40 for the plan only then 15 for the interenet (lower package with no tv) and 15 for unlimited IN messaging and 500 extra ( the closest I could get to my package of unlimited data 200 messages and unlimited IN messages)

So the total monthly came out to be $65/month with out the use of all the VCAST features like TV. This is equal in price to my iPhone plan that has unlimited IN messaging and 200 whenever messaging.

Now the cost of the phone is $350 dollars then plus the $170 dollars(check your local verizon store) for the 8 GB memory to match the iPhones memory capacity and you come out to $470 compared to the iPhone price of $400.

So from my understanding you are paying for money for a phone with half the batter life capacity which will be even more effected at times of using the 3G, a smaller screen with lower pixels, no real multi-touch or even touch screen for that matter, bigger in size, and a crippled browser?

Also from what I have been told you have to pay $5/month extra to get the mobile email but when I was looking it seems like it came with it, any one have any details on that?

How does the Voyager not have a touch screen?
 
Actually if you put in 8GB of memory to match the iPhone capacity it is $70 more expensive then the iPhone.

Where did you get the plan rates. I went to verizon and it was $40 for the plan only then 15 for the interenet (lower package with no tv) and 15 for unlimited IN messaging and 500 extra ( the closest I could get to my package of unlimited data 200 messages and unlimited IN messages)
So the total monthly came out to be $65/month with out the use of all the VCAST features like TV. This is equal in price to my iPhone plan that has unlimited IN messaging and 200 whenever messaging.

You're right. For some reason I was looking at the select price (unlimited texts). Good point on the memory though.
 
I was playing around with my friend's voyager just yesterday. He said he was disappointed in it. i played around with it for about 5 mins or so. and let me tell you. ITS A VERIZON EN-V WITH A TOUCHSCREEN. that is all. the OS is virtually the same. nothing special. But I will admit that it is the best phone on verizon.

Its a good phone but people just hyped it up and now it has to live up to all these high expectations people have imposed on it, which i think is unfair. if you look at it from an ubiased perspective and stop comparing it to the iphone, then it is an excellent phone.
 
How does the Voyager not have a touch screen?
it does not have multi-touch and from what I understand the browser(which is not even a full browser) can not be used by touch only but instead u have to use the wheel or nub to use it to its full potential, whatever that is.

Its a good phone but people just hyped it up and now it has to live up to all these high expectations people have imposed on it, which i think is unfair. if you look at it from an ubiased perspective and stop comparing it to the iphone, then it is an excellent phone.

your right in saying that but the big picture is that Apple is forcing new phones on the market and new expectations from consumers, it is changing the cell phone market just like it changed the MP3 market. But again people so far have not been able to match it let alone "kill it". But the thread is regarding the voyager "killing" the iPhone, so in this case it needs to be compared to the iPhone and in that case in many instances it is inferior.
Now if u start a voyager only thread and asked how it compares to the other cell phones and if it has made a step forward it would be unfair to say no because it is not like the iPhone. In that situation i think many could say it has taken a step forward but not as much as the iPhone.
 
I played with one over the weekend, and was left fairly unimpressed. i had trouble nagivating from feature to feature, something that I never had with the iPhone (own neither, but my sprint contract is up in April).

Re: GPS -- I got a chance to play with Garmin's GPS software product over the weekend as well, and that was really good. It's $99 if your phone is GPS enabled, and there's only a monthly charge if you have a Blackberry (as explained to me). But pretty cool if you have the new AT&T Tilt or something.
 
There will never be an iphone killer that has a screen this large in such a small package, except for the iphone 2, which wont be released for a very long time. Every single one attemted so far is either hugely thicker, has half the screen resolution, or in most cases, both...

Those are the iPhones real strengths... I don't even care about 3g, or gps. I've used 3g on an at&t blackjack, and it was hardly noticeable how much faster it was. I care about making the iPhone even smaller, with like 98% of the face real estate devoted to the screen, as opposed to the current ~85% (which, as I just said, is already the best feature the phone has). They can throw in other incremental feature updates like memory, 3g, gps if they want, but if they come at the expense of size it wont be worth it. What i really want is a phone that is even more efficient space-wise. Is it the Voyager? Hahahaha, right...
 
There will never be an iphone killer that has a screen this large in such a small package, except for the iphone 2, which wont be released for a very long time. Every single one attemted so far is either hugely thicker, has half the screen resolution, or in most cases, both...

Those are the iPhones real strengths... I don't even care about 3g, or gps. I've used 3g on an at&t blackjack, and it was hardly noticeable how much faster it was. I care about making the iPhone even smaller, with like 98% of the face real estate devoted to the screen, as opposed to the current ~85% (which, as I just said, is already the best feature the phone has). They can throw in other incremental feature updates like memory, 3g, gps if they want, but if they come at the expense of size it wont be worth it. What i really want is a phone that is even more efficient space-wise. Is it the Voyager? Hahahaha, right...

I was explaining this possibility to my girlfriend and brothers the other day or at least something like it.
I was thinking one upgrade I would like to see for V2 is to basically have the screen the same size but have the upper and lower portions be much smaller in size. Is that kind of what you were talking about?
Your right in the idea that size is very important and I think Apple is smart enough to keep that in mind. and battery is just as important.
 
I was playing around with my friend's voyager just yesterday. He said he was disappointed in it. i played around with it for about 5 mins or so. and let me tell you. ITS A VERIZON EN-V WITH A TOUCHSCREEN. that is all. the OS is virtually the same. nothing special. But I will admit that it is the best phone on verizon.

Its a good phone but people just hyped it up and now it has to live up to all these high expectations people have imposed on it, which i think is unfair. if you look at it from an ubiased perspective and stop comparing it to the iphone, then it is an excellent phone.

Totally agree--I've been saying this all along. EN-V with a touch screen--a repackaging of something else. Here's the thing--the iPhone is out of any league in phone comparisons just like Mac's are on a different level in computing--they're more fun, more innovative, more intuitive, more attractive. The feature sets on most of these phones are the same, but users these days want an experience, not just functionality. In my opinion, the only phone worth buying on AT&T is the iPhone. On Verizon there's a few phones I'd be interested in--that Samsung with the flip up keyboard (740 is it?) the LG 9400 with TV service -- even the new Motorola Razr 9x - these are cool, fun phones that bring an experience, not just functionality. They are nowhere near the iPhone, but I think AT&T is getting a lot of undeserved credit around here--the rest of their phones are at best mediocre--Apple may have saved AT&T from losing tons of customers to Verizon. Verizon for not taking the iPhone=boneheads--if for no other reason just to keep it from AT&T. Things that make you go hmmmm....
 
Makes me wonder -- with 3G and GPS, what's the battery life on this sucker?
It could be anything, depending on the size of the battery. My RAZR V3c got about 3 hours talk time on the standard 740mAh battery (extra-thin, to make the case look nice.) The extended battery is 1480mAh - twice the capacity, but it makes the phone about 25% thicker (it comes with a replacement battery cover, to make room.)

The Voyager is a relatively large device, so they may be able to include a similarly large battery in the standard configuration. Assuming, of course, that keyboard doesn't use up all available space. ...
It is 4 hours usage time..... wow that blows. Think about that.
... Looking more closely, the Voyager standard battery is 950mAh. About 30% larger than the standard RAZR battery, and you've got about 30% longer talk time. So that sounds about right. Its optional extended battery is 1500mAh - about 50% larger. I'd expect about 6 hours talk time with that installed.
LG is stupid for blatantly ripping off the iPhone. This is the problem all iPod and now iPhone "killers" seem to make.
The problem is that they don't copy anything. They vaguely copy the look, so magazine photos look similar, but the similarity ends there. They forget that half of "look and feel" is "feel".

The Voyager is not multi-touch. The screen physical capabilities are the same as any other touch screen - touch, drag and maybe a double-click behavior. That's not innovative. PalmOS did that over 10 years ago. It doesn't have any of the iPhone's PDA capabilities, and there is no Wi-Fi connectivity.

In other words, it's a generic phone, not much different from anything else sold today. Not only inferior to an iPhone, but inferior to a Treo, Blackberry, Q or any other smartphone. Putting a generic phone into a case that looks vaguely iPhone-ish isn't going to impress anybody once they put down the newspaper advertisement and actually look at the phone.
LG VX9800 5.5 hours (tested) evdo
Motorola Slvr L7c 5.0 hours (tested) evdo
Palm Treo 700wx 5.8 hours (tested) evdo
RIM BlackBerry 8703e 5.2 hours (tested) evdo
Sony Ericsson W850i 7 hours (tested) UMTS
AT&T 8525 6.0 hours (tested) UMTS/HSDPA
Helio Ocean 5.0 hours (tested) EVDO
HTC Mogul PPC-6800 6.5 hours (tested) EVDO
These numbers don't say a thing about efficiency unless you also know the capacity of the battery. My 2-year-old RAZR (with EVDO) has comparable battery life when the optional 1480mAh battery is installed.

And, like with my RAZR, solving the talk-time problem with extra-large batteries ends up making the phone bulky, which can be a real problem if aesthetics is an important part of the design.
 
Who dubbed this thing the iPhone "killer"? Everyone who buys this thing is going to say, I should have bought an iPhone.

This phone is for people who would rather use some clone on the Verizon network than the real deal on AT&T.

As a Verizon user, I have no intention of buying this thing and am simply waiting for 3G to switch to the iPhone/AT&T.

Verizon has the best reception/service, but $5 a month for e-mail? An ancient browser? C'mon.

As for this being dubbed a multimedia device superior to the iPhone, all of my media would be a few clicks away from being on my iPhone.

Tracer
 
As a Voyager owner, I want to say that some of you have misconceptions about the device. I’ve been an Apple fan for years because of the simplicity and reliably of their hardware and software. Is the Voyager an “iPhone Killer?” No way. Is it a very good phone? Definitely. Here are my opinions on the two head-to-head.

I was a Cingular customer before they merged with AT&T and Cingular was a total mess in my local area (Philadelphia area). I had constant drops and terrible connections. When looking for a new service, I checked with Consumer Reports and they rate cell service by major city. For the Philadelphia area, Verizon was hands down the most highly rated service. After being a Verizon owner in this area, I could never imagine switching back. Not even an Apple product could make me switch.

The Voyager does work with OS X, but not nearly as nice as the iPhone. I can connect to the Voyager via Bluetooth and send/receive pictures and music. I cannot natively send/receive ringtones, contacts, or calendar appointments. But by exporting Address book contacts as vCards, I can send the contact to the Voyager. It is a push not a sync, but for me that is more than enough. BitPim allows me to sync contacts, ringtones, and calendar items, so all is not lost.

While WiFi is not an option, EVDO is awesome. A friend was bragging about the speed of his iPhone over my Voyager. Needless to say, I loaded 3 ESPN pages before he loaded the first one. After he connected to WiFi (with a FIOS connection), He loaded the 1.5 pages time while I only loaded the first one. Even without WiFi, on average my Voyager is faster than his iPhone. But remember, I said the AT&T connection is pretty bad around here.

A 5 second change using the QPST phone tools (I’m still not sure the legality of this), enabled DUN/tethering. I understand the iPhone can do this too, but I’ve never seen it in person. Either way, I go back to my point in that EVDO kicks butt and I’d much rather tether through Verizon than AT&T.

I’ve heard complaints about the Voyager being way too big. Honestly, even side-by-side with the iPhone, it doesn’t feel any bigger than the iPhone. It fits perfectly in my pocket or hand.

The Voyager virtual keyboard can’t keep up with the iPhone’s keyboard. But the Voyager’s internal keyboard is hands down better than the iPhone’s.

As a media device, the iPhone is way better for music and video. Unlike an iPhone, the Voyager could never replace my iPod. The only media thing the Voyager has over the iPhone is the MobileTV. I like it, but I can’t imagine using it much so I am planning on canceling it.

The Voyager’s full HTML and JavaScript browser has been excellent. It renders pages flawlessly except for ASP and ASP.NET pages which is routinely chokes on. The browser is not crippled in any way.

The battery is acceptable. I make a decent amount of calls each day and I’ve only had it a few weeks so I search the web a lot (novelty purposes mostly). I charge it every night and that has been more than sufficient. About two days would probably be the max I could go between charging.

The OS is fine. Could it be better? Of course, but I have no complaints in particular. Easy, logistical navigation from feature to feature.

I’m on a family plan, but my portion of the bill is 9.99 for minutes and $35 for data, email, and TV. After the rebate, NE2 discount, and tax, the phone cost me less than $300.

I think the big thing to remember here is that the iPhone is a PDA/phone/media player. The Voyager is a phone/media player. They obviously don't have the same features and one shouldn't expect them to.


I’m an Apple fan, and if it wasn’t a cell service provider thing I’d have an iPhone. I really don’t care which is better, because I’ve been an Apple fan all my life. I took a risk purchasing the Voyager because I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. Even before I ever saw an iPhone, I knew it would fit my needs just because it is an Apple. That being said, don’t write off the Voyager as a crappy, misfit, iPhone-copy. It really is a nice phone and I’d recommend it to anyone.
 
As a Voyager owner, I want to say that some of you have misconceptions about the device. I’ve been an Apple fan for years because of the simplicity and reliably of their hardware and software. Is the Voyager an “iPhone Killer?” No way. Is it a very good phone? Definitely. Here are my opinions on the two head-to-head.

I was a Cingular customer before they merged with AT&T and Cingular was a total mess in my local area (Philadelphia area). I had constant drops and terrible connections. When looking for a new service, I checked with Consumer Reports and they rate cell service by major city. For the Philadelphia area, Verizon was hands down the most highly rated service. After being a Verizon owner in this area, I could never imagine switching back. Not even an Apple product could make me switch.

The Voyager does work with OS X, but not nearly as nice as the iPhone. I can connect to the Voyager via Bluetooth and send/receive pictures and music. I cannot natively send/receive ringtones, contacts, or calendar appointments. But by exporting Address book contacts as vCards, I can send the contact to the Voyager. It is a push not a sync, but for me that is more than enough. BitPim allows me to sync contacts, ringtones, and calendar items, so all is not lost.

While WiFi is not an option, EVDO is awesome. A friend was bragging about the speed of his iPhone over my Voyager. Needless to say, I loaded 3 ESPN pages before he loaded the first one. After he connected to WiFi (with a FIOS connection), He loaded the 1.5 pages time while I only loaded the first one. Even without WiFi, on average my Voyager is faster than his iPhone. But remember, I said the AT&T connection is pretty bad around here.

A 5 second change using the QPST phone tools (I’m still not sure the legality of this), enabled DUN/tethering. I understand the iPhone can do this too, but I’ve never seen it in person. Either way, I go back to my point in that EVDO kicks butt and I’d much rather tether through Verizon than AT&T.

I’ve heard complaints about the Voyager being way too big. Honestly, even side-by-side with the iPhone, it doesn’t feel any bigger than the iPhone. It fits perfectly in my pocket or hand.

The Voyager virtual keyboard can’t keep up with the iPhone’s keyboard. But the Voyager’s internal keyboard is hands down better than the iPhone’s.

As a media device, the iPhone is way better for music and video. Unlike an iPhone, the Voyager could never replace my iPod. The only media thing the Voyager has over the iPhone is the MobileTV. I like it, but I can’t imagine using it much so I am planning on canceling it.

The Voyager’s full HTML and JavaScript browser has been excellent. It renders pages flawlessly except for ASP and ASP.NET pages which is routinely chokes on. The browser is not crippled in any way.

The battery is acceptable. I make a decent amount of calls each day and I’ve only had it a few weeks so I search the web a lot (novelty purposes mostly). I charge it every night and that has been more than sufficient. About two days would probably be the max I could go between charging.

The OS is fine. Could it be better? Of course, but I have no complaints in particular. Easy, logistical navigation from feature to feature.

I’m on a family plan, but my portion of the bill is 9.99 for minutes and $35 for data, email, and TV. After the rebate, NE2 discount, and tax, the phone cost me less than $300.

I think the big thing to remember here is that the iPhone is a PDA/phone/media player. The Voyager is a phone/media player. They obviously don't have the same features and one shouldn't expect them to.


I’m an Apple fan, and if it wasn’t a cell service provider thing I’d have an iPhone. I really don’t care which is better, because I’ve been an Apple fan all my life. I took a risk purchasing the Voyager because I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. Even before I ever saw an iPhone, I knew it would fit my needs just because it is an Apple. That being said, don’t write off the Voyager as a crappy, misfit, iPhone-copy. It really is a nice phone and I’d recommend it to anyone.

very nice! i am going to buy this phone on friday. i am really looking forward to it.
 
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