It sounds like my family is going to jump over to Verizon, but I can't really find a phone I'm terribly confident with. It seems my best choice is the Chocolate, but it also seems that not everyone is exactly happy with it. Just curious if anyone has any personal experiences with this phone. Thanks!

its awesome!

its crazy because the buttons on the front plate have no response. They are touch so sometimes you dont know if you pushed the button or not and you push it again and it advances you twice! Other than that once you get used to it its sleeek

Just got mine today. I want the MP3 Player option. It was between this and the KRZR, but under my plan it was quite a bit more expensive. I'm not really too into phones, so I didn't see the need to go for it.

I didn't get the Chocolate only because it doesn't have speakerphone. When I am driving my car, it is easier to talk on the phone and drive a manual at the same time when I am on speakerphone. So, I bought the Krazr. Does everything the Chocolate does and wasn't that much more expensive. I had a Razr, but I definetely like the Krazr better. I recommend it!

I've thought about the Razr/Krazr phones, but I've been hearing horror stories, so it's got me a little bit scared. The Chocolate doesn't seem to be making so many people quite so angry, plus I'm a big fan of the SD memory - my Wii uses the same format. :D:

Anyway, Fanman, how is it so far? How are signal strength and battery life? My current phone is a Samsung A880 and the battery lasts about 10 hours, mostly because it never has service.

Why not get the unlocked phone of your choice and use that? Thats how I have my Samsung D820

Main problem I have with that right now is the limited time I have back home. Because I have to coordinate this all with my parents, I pretty much need to take care of this either tomorrow or on the 30th. That doesn't leave a whole lot of time for ordering/receiving/activating my unlocked phone.

Beacuse verizon isnt sim based...

Seems really good so far. I currently have the LG base phone. Reception seems pretty good, no problems for me. Screen is nice too. Haven't had any problems with it. I still need to get the music options package (sold seperately (CD, USB & earphones package). Also have to get the Micro SD card for the phone (which has an SD adapter in case you want to use it on a different device.

reception is great, i've went 2 days without charging too. great screen, upgradeable memory, and it matches the interior of my black rx8 :)

reception is great, i've went 2 days without charging too. great screen, upgradeable memory, and it matches the interior of my black rx8 :)
I like the way this is sounding. Pretty much, as long as the battery lasts the 14 or 15ish hours that I'm awake, I'm perfectly happy. How often do you take/place calls? I make about 3 per day max - I really hardly ever use my cell.

I like the way this is sounding. Pretty much, as long as the battery lasts the 14 or 15ish hours that I'm awake, I'm perfectly happy. How often do you take/place calls? I make about 3 per day max - I really hardly ever use my cell.
i think you'll be fine, it has 4 bars as the grid of power, most people get nervous with 2 bars left but thats still plenty. I have it next to me right now and its still displays fully charged, i took it off the charger around noon. To get a full charge is maybe 6 hours at most on the wall charger.

but remember, its an mp3 player, so when i hook it up to my car and start playing mp3's that will use power (so i got the car charger too)

I just got my girl one of those KRZR. She seems really happy with it. So my point would be that if you're not a girl, stay away from this phone lol.

but remember, its an mp3 player, so when i hook it up to my car and start playing mp3's that will use power (so i got the car charger too)
Right. I'm not expecting miracles, but I would definitely prefer a phone that didn't totally blow.

How do you hook it up to your car? If I can do that in a relatively simple manner, I'll probably just get rid of my CDs and grab myself a car charger, otherwise I probably won't make much use of the MP3 player. In that case, I'll probably just use the SD card as my Wii memory card, haha.

same process as hooking up an ipod to the car, just use the correct product thats for universal mp3 players. Trouble is the charger input is the same port as the mp3 output, so you can not charge and play mp3's at the same time.

Hmm, do you use a basic FM transmitter, or is there something better?

Kind of sucks about the charger/output paradox, but I'm sure I can find a way around it. Will the battery still last a good, long(ish) time while playing MP3s? Really the longest I'll ever need it for would probably be around 2 hours of MP3 playing.

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just tired of having a cell phone that's a total piece of garbage.

i think you'll be fine, it has 4 bars as the grid of power, most people get nervous with 2 bars left but thats still plenty. I have it next to me right now and its still displays fully charged, i took it off the charger around noon. To get a full charge is maybe 6 hours at most on the wall charger.

but remember, its an mp3 player, so when i hook it up to my car and start playing mp3's that will use power (so i got the car charger too)

I bought an ac adapter so I don't have to keep buying car charges everytime I get a new phone. I paid $25 for the adapter and am on my 2nd phone so it will pay for itself in time.

the mp3 hooks into the stereo itself. the line connects into where you would connect headphones into a mp3 player. its universal so any device with a headphone jack that outputs musics will work. with the phone there's a seperate product you have to buy to connect everyday headphones up to it (which sucks, but its a way for verizon to make a little more money)

Ugh. Well forgive me for being colorful, but this blows. Thanks to plenty of confusion on Verizon's end, I'm stuck with my shitbox Sprint phone. My parents decided to "stick it to Sprint," after making no progress with Verizon, but they promptly backed down after Sprint said they'd order me another phone of the same model. This has already been done, but to no avail - as you may have noticed, the phone and service both still suck.

See, as far as Sprint goes, I'm paying for a warranty that never gets honored. Every time I bring the phone in, it gets "fixed" and I end up bringing it in for the same problem 10,000 times with an hour wait for "testing" each time. Some warranty. Unless they pull some serious magic out of their collective asses, they've just lost a customer for life, thanks to wasting my time and my parent's money with these moronic issues. God forbid I have a phone that gets service and doesn't wear its battery down within 8-10 hours.

just go to verizon and get your own plan

I thought about that, actually, but right now I'm still looking for an internship. Even if I get one, it's not guaranteed to be a paid internship, so I can't risk having a phone in my own name and then not having any income.

One thing is for sure though, when I do go ahead and transfer to my own account, the bill will not say "Sprint" at the top.

I thought about that, actually, but right now I'm still looking for an internship. Even if I get one, it's not guaranteed to be a paid internship, so I can't risk having a phone in my own name and then not having any income.
very true, wise choice.

I use my Krazr a lot. A whole lot. Texting pretty much all day and then I talk on the phone for probably 2 hours a day. I usually get 1 bar of battery life per day. There are 4 bars, so it lasts about 4 days using it a ton. The battery life is so much better than the Razr it's not even funny. So, not trying to sound like I am absolutely in love with my phone, if you want a lot of battery life, the Krazr would not be a bad choice. Not to mention, this is my 3rd Motorola phone and have never had any problems with them.

It definitely has a learning curve between the heat pad buttons and the tiny keypad. the battery life sucks as well. Turn off your ev network by going to the service menu. To get to the service menu press 00000 after you press ok. This save some battery network. It does work well as an mp3 player if you can get around the safety features once you get that down its fine. I have a full size movie and about 50 songs and have more then half my card to go. I bought a 1 gig card.

I bought mine before the krazr came out but that seems like a little better phone. Basicly a chocolate flip phone it has the heat buttons too but there not very vital. Go to the store and spend a good 5 minutes working with it. and check out the forum sites on the phones

www.cellphoneforums.net
www.howardforums.com

you can get a lot of good info from those places

reception is great, i've went 2 days without charging too. great screen, upgradeable memory, and it matches the interior of my black rx8 :)

Yesss. I got mine in white to match my white 8. :-)

Anyway, I love the phone. It can get annoying with text messaging sometimes but reception is always good, battery life is superb, plus... it's pretty and has lots of neat "I don't need this but it's awesome that I have it features".

P.S. It also makes a good "Swat team gun", for any of you that saw my post about that... :lol2:

Don't forget if you buy from verizonwireless, not an agent, you can return/exchange if you don't like it, without any restock fees or questions or contracts within 15 days. The chocolate is a phone your going to have to get used too. Give it about 3 days before you return it. It's harder to see finger prints on the white chocolate, the red will match your VR 8, the black everyone has, and the green................. Get your own line, why pay for service if you can't make calls.

Well, we finally worked everything out and ended up getting the Chocolate for $70. Now for the good stuff - any suggestions for getting music on the phone? I'd ideally like to do away with cds in my car, so being able to swap songs to/from my phone would be nice. Is there any way to do it without a card reader or their "tunes" kit? I have one in Orlando, but I'm not 100% sure it supports SD, so having a backup option would be nice.

Also, it's quite nice to have a phone that actually works when I'm home.
</shameless jab at Sprint>

I have the chocolate, and so far I enjoy it. Now if I can just figure out what Dill is talking about so I can play my music in the car, I'd be set!

Should have got a treo and call it a day.

I'm pretty sure he's referring to some sort of wiring harness that ends in a headphone jack, thus allowing a direct connection into the stereo. I think I'm just going to grab myself a universal FM transmitter. You'd just connect the headphone attachment and then instead of headphones, you plug in an FM transmitter which broadcasts to your stereo on the station of your choice.

^^^exactly rob, i'll contact my friend to helped install it, but the FM device works well also (and its less of a hassle to set up)

Speaking of which, what the hell size is the adapter's headphone jack? I tried hooking up the FM transmitter that we had lying around and it's like 3x the size of the port. They sure as hell don't make it very easy to use this phone's MP3 capabilities. Oh well, I'm still in love with this phone.

Okay guys, quick question - hopefully I can get some help relatively quickly. I already have an FM transmitter, but it has an auto on/off function. Turns out it doesn't seem to like the Chocolate, so it'll shut down after 60 seconds of playing music, thinking there's no signal. (despite actually outputting a rather clear, loud signal) Anyone know of a decent FM transmitter that actually works with the Chocolate? The iRiver AFT 100 caught my eye, but I see it also has an auto on/off, unfortunately.

Why do they call it "chocolate?"

i believe i have this: http://www.discountcarstereo.com/detail.aspx?ID=445

and this: http://www.discountcarstereo.com/detail.aspx?ID=767


...from what my electrical engineer told me, but who can really trust an electrical engineer

Well, I'm only going to have the 8 for another 6 months or so, so an invasive procedure like that is kind of out of the question. :p:

most likely, great phone though

Yeah, I'm loving it right now. I've never actually been excited about a phone before, they've always just been a headache for me - thanks Sprint! And thanks for changing that, LG!

i believe i have this: http://www.discountcarstereo.com/detail.aspx?ID=445

and this: http://www.discountcarstereo.com/detail.aspx?ID=767


...from what my electrical engineer told me, but who can really trust an electrical engineer

Oiy, that looks like too much work. I need something for my CRV, anyway. Why can't this be easy?

Found one guys. Doesn't seem to be the best thing in the world, but it does what I need it to do - plays music over my 8's stereo. It's called the Monster Mobile RadioPlay - it seems a bit weak and the sound quality isn't fantastic, but I'm not exactly expecting Bose acoustics from a cheap FM transmitter that's running through two adapters. I don't even listen to the radio that much, so it'll make me happy when I need it to.

Update: true to Murphy's Law, something has gone wrong. My FM transmitter won't broadcast to the left speakers. Awesome. Seems I'm never going to get this thing hooked into my car.