Motorola i580

Does anyone know if the i580 (Nextel) comes with a built-in calculator or not? I keep reading different things about this...

Thanks...

Hey Gibralter,

Thanks for looking into it. I saw that it did in a couple of different reviews that are out there on the 'net.

How long have you had Verizon?

That's just the problem, you can't always know who to listen to. It seemed like a reliable source, a site or magazine doing a review and listing features; it escapes me right now which site I saw it on. But you are right, most of the 'major players' I did check out did not list a calculator as a feature.

Why are you switching to Cingular? Have you figured out what phone you like to replace your 710? I like VZW but am not too happy with their pricing. Not so much straight plan pricing but it seems like extra charges always 'show up' mysteriously every month; even after the FCC and everyone else get their cut.

I want to check out Nextel but I keep hearing so many horror stories about it, and it really should boil down to service, before phones. I've seen some of the prototypes for a couple of the 'dual band' phones Sprint has in the works and supposedly the first couple are due out in October. I do like their a la carte pricing for plans (mix, match, customize) and the fact that you can pay 5 or 10 bucks and have your nights start at 7 or 6 respectively. Even if they start at 9 like everyone else, they still end an hour later at 7:00. That's pretty huge, but is it just a ploy to lure people in? Three extra hours (if the service is good) of non-peak airtime is largely significant.

Who the h*ll knows? I may just get some tin cans and a really huge ball of twine.

You mean OUR cellphone company? We'd probably get too many complaints about the call quality being too tinny. LOL!!

I do like your idea about going with the unknown devil, that's a pretty cool way to look at it. That's inspiring about trying the Nextel I guess, I forgot to mention before that I do like the instant connectivity of the direct connect. And if you're in the mood you can really tool on the person you're talking to because of the half-duplex, just say stuff out loud, while he/she is talking. Pretty funny stuff...

As far as spotty coverage, take your 710 with you even when you switch, at least you'll still be able to make a 911 call if you have to.

It's really so weird how two people can get have two totally different experiences with the same entity, in this case, VZW. While I have never really had any bad experiences with customer service, the billing thing is definitely something that has happened more than once. This outta be fun, get this; I was on vacation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago and for whatever reason I recently noticed 01:46 listed in the Roam Calls section of my Recent Calls list. Can't wait to see how that shows up on my bill. Nationwide Long Distance : No Roaming!! Okay...

We'll see what happens. Even though mostly everyone has a cell phone now, it should be interesting to see the technological breakthroughs in the next 5-10 years. So many people are ditching their landlines, I would too if I didn't have an alarm in my house.

Who knows? Save your quarters, you may need to use a payphone someday soon; although, when's really the last time you even saw a payphone? And when you did, I bet it said in huge letters VERIZON!!

Well if I end up trying it, I will let you know my experiences with it, even though we're in different parts of the country; I think you're in Illinois, correct? Sorry if that's incorrect, I thought I read that in your profile, but I've been bouncing around the 'net alot since we've been talking.

That's the beauty of the 2-way too, if unlimited 2-way is embedded in your plan, than you really won't use alot of peak minutes...granted you have enough people that also use it too. If I do it, I'm looking at one of the Free Incoming Plans. Now during peak hours, I won't answer my phone during the day if whoever is calling me doesn't have Verizon; for the most part anyways. With Free Incoming, hypothetically you wouldn't even need caller id, because it doesn't matter who's calling you; it's free, 24-7-365, regardless of if they're calling you from Jupiter.

As far as work calling you, the vibrate/silent thing is a good idea; but also if you don't carry a landline from room to room in your house, it's not that far fetched to imagine not always bringing your cel everywhere either. Specially in the bathroom, ever drop your phone into you-know-where? I never have, thank god, which means I just jinxed myself so I won't be bringing it in there for a long time just because I said that. Alot of times you can say it was charging or off too, most people don't know whether (or why) a cel go directly into voice mail. That, you can blame on the network for sure.

The calculator thing, I actually do use it enough to notice whether it's there or not. Usually it's either to check my minutes or when I'm trying to calculate measurements, etc for house stuff at Home Depot.

This is pretty cool, I just joined this forum a couple of days ago and I'm learning alot and making some friends too. If you ever wanna do the email thing, let me know, but this is pretty sweet as well.

Totally unrelated question : what's the CPF money all about?

Talk to you soon...

I just looked at my 815 and the calculator comes with a currency converter, which means your 710 (the 815's big brother) might too. I have a 710, but not sure where it is so I can't check it out myself. A currency converter is a good thing to have on a cel phone, now if your buddy can only get the PHONE itself to work in other countries!!

I'm looking at the Nextel coverage map now and it has the Pacific Northwest as one page in the coverage book. It 'says' it has coverage in the metropolitan areas (Portland, Salem, Bend, Eugene), near major highways: 5, 205, 84. As it gets into the more rural areas (you guys got cows out there, or just rain?) coverage lessens, but it pretty much does for most companies.

Not to highjack your thread but I've been researching nextel, and up until they merged with sprint they were a top notch company but since their merger things (service being one of them) have went downhill. I said this before but it's just a matter of time before sprint/nextel jump the shark. Also cing has ptt now so the appeal of that feature shouldn't end with nextel, and cin has added the group connect feature to the ptt (which enables you to speak with all your friends at once) cool, no?

Cingular and Verizon both came out with PTT. Most of the reviews I've read said that it couldn't touch what Nextel had done with it to this point. Look at the success rate of C & V PTT, Gibralter didn't even know it was available...that was an advertising thing (or lack thereof) on Cingular's

The reception problems with Nextel have to do with several things. One being the fact that since the merger, towers have to be reconstructed and the way Sprint advertised the whole thing, more people had signed on than the equipment was capable of handling.

The biggest thing addressing this is the 'dual band' (iDEN/CDMA) phones Moto is working on now, with the first ones slated for an October release. You can already find info, including schematics and pics, on the net. Look for the iC502. They're saying that voice and data will utilize CDMA and the PTT will use the iDEN part of it. The future of iDEN is still very up in the air too, as the government has been rumored to be taking it over and it will be phased out by 2010. Another PTT option they've been looking at is being referred to currently as Q-Chat, which is in developmental stages by Qualcomm.