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DangerZoneDelux posted:Don't buy a Droid4 for $99. I can't believe they are still that price anyway. I wouldn't even take it for free. Could you recommend a good low-to-mid price smartphone and is there anyone here able to offer any kind of discounts? (She's 66, maybe AARP?) Sorry to be such a pain, but she literally just sprung this on me out of the blue. It sounds like they want to change her WiFi number to her new smartphone, and yes she did mention something about "Share data." 4GB? 2/2GB? Something I couldn't understand.
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May 23, 2013 22:22
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Shared data means she gets a pot of data each month and can use it among all devices that are on that account. If she is using one for her home internet, it is extremely unlikely that any of the plans will be sufficient unless all she is doing is checking email and Facebook or whatever. If you can get her to get a separate internet account, then there's plenty of deals to be had on phones. Just a quick glance at Amazon shows me the Droid Razr Maxx for $70, the Galaxy S3 for $50, and Droid Razr M for $0.01.
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May 23, 2013 22:29
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If she is 66 then she is probably just using it for facebook and email since she was using a verizon hotspot before. You need to find out what her current data limit is on her account and just match that. You can log on to the website and find this info. You can also find the data usage so maybe she is only using 1 gig of her 3 gig allotment. Here is the link for that Droid Razr Maxx for $70.00 Just click individual plan to see the price http://www.amazon.com/Motorola-RAZR-MAXX-HD-Wireless/dp/B009P5WWPC/ref=sr_1_3?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=wireless&ie=UTF8&qid=1369344766&sr=1-3
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May 23, 2013 22:36
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Sorry, yeah, it was the Droid Razr Maxx HD, not to be confused with the Droid Razr Maxx. Thanks Motorola.
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May 23, 2013 22:40
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Razr M is the best low end device on Verizon (or, really, any carrier at this point.) Mid range will be S3/Razr HD/Razr HD MAXX High end will be DNA (don't buy the DNA) and S4. There's also very little to differentiate all 3 of these levels. The low end is just smaller and only has a QHD screen, but it has the same internal components as the mid range. The mid range is no slouch, but they are 720p phones, with dual core processors. The high end range are 1080p phones with quad core processors. The only other difference is the S3 and high end range all have 2gb of ram while everything else is 1gb. There's very little that separates performance among these three tiers (at least with currently available apps), it mostly comes down to size and screen resolution.
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May 23, 2013 22:43
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Don Lapre posted:They don't do swaps in store. You should just call in and you will get a refurb mailed to you and you then return yours. Call who? I've called my local Verizon store, talked to 3 corporate people and been stuck in a hell of voice commands for over half an hour and haven't gotten poo poo done. So far one guy just quizzed me for like ten minutes about why my USB port wasn't working and I ended up hanging up
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May 23, 2013 22:51
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My supplemental questions: You mentioned she wanted to get rid of the MiFi, any particular reason why? My opinion is that there is really no reason to do so, especially considering the aforementioned tradeoff(s) to using a smartphone as a hotspot. With the MiFi you get a dedicated device, with it's own battery. For $20 there's almost no reason NOT to have a MiFi on the Share Everything plan. 3rd party retailers should have the S3 for $50, Costco has the Razr Maxx HD for $90, Best Buy has the Razr M for free. I would probably recommend she switch to the Share Everything 6GB plan, which would run her about $150-155/mo 1x Smartphone @ $40 1x MiFi @ $20 6GB Data @ $80 + misc tax @ ~$10-15 Edit: Obviously this recommendation is without any knowledge of what she uses her MiFi for or any kind of usage along with that, so take it with a grain of salt. Just keep in mind that the data tiers are separated by $10 and are multiples of 2, with the base tier being 1GB. 1GB/$50, 2GB/$60, 4GB/$70, 6GB/$80, so up or down +/- 2GB and +/- $10 This OP sucks. Someone needs to rewrite it. SeaborneClink fucked around with this message at 22:58 on May 23, 2013 |
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May 23, 2013 22:51
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ACID POLICE posted:Call who? I've called my local Verizon store, talked to 3 corporate people and been stuck in a hell of voice commands for over half an hour and haven't gotten poo poo done. So far one guy just quizzed me for like ten minutes about why my USB port wasn't working and I ended up hanging up 611 or whatever the verizon number is.
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May 23, 2013 22:57
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Don Lapre posted:611 or whatever the verizon number is. As soon as you posted this I finally got forwarded to someone helpful... sucks I had to get bounced back and forth between Sales & Tech Support like six times but I finally got the phone overnighted. Thanks dude. edit: Jesus I haven't seen the tiers since Unlimited stopped being a thing. God drat am I glad to be grandfathered in on that. It's so nice torrenting discographies on buses and trains at~800kbps  Is the Droid Razr Maxx actually good? In my experience literally every phone Motorola has made that I've used has been garbage but my Dad loved Razrs for some reason and he's thinking about one
Bing the Noize fucked around with this message at 23:31 on May 23, 2013 |
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May 23, 2013 23:17
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The lady loves her some Facebook. I mean, drat. Since getting broadband is looking more expensive than I expected, I am thinking it is correct to stick with the MiFI + new phone option. Thanks for the info, I just need to figure out the data plans. 2GB might not be enough, but 4GB probably would be perfect, if there's a 4GB option. She'd like that Droid Razr Maxx I bet. Thanks, I may be back with a few more questions. Sorry about the rush.
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May 23, 2013 23:20
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ACID POLICE posted:As soon as you posted this I finally got forwarded to someone helpful... sucks I had to get bounced back and forth between Sales & Tech Support like six times but I finally got the phone overnighted. Thanks dude. The RAZR HD MAXX is an excellent phone. I get 2+ days battery life, it works well, and has very minimal vendor overlays on top of vanilla Android. The only gripe I have is that the camera is just "all right." Also, presently, there's a hack for the RAZR M and RAZR HD line that will unlock the bootloader if that is a thing that matters to you.
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May 23, 2013 23:56
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Well, I can say the same for my Note 2 so I'll let him know ~the internet~ thinks it's okay. Thanks.
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May 24, 2013 00:04
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kitten smoothie posted:The RAZR HD MAXX is an excellent phone. I get 2+ days battery life, it works well, and has very minimal vendor overlays on top of vanilla Android. The only gripe I have is that the camera is just "all right." I doubt his 66 year old girlfriend gives two shits about unlocking bootloaders.
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May 24, 2013 00:16
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Endless Mike posted:I doubt his 66 year old girlfriend gives two shits about unlocking bootloaders. I was responding to ACID POLICE who discussed torrenting poo poo on the train, so that may be more up their alley.
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May 24, 2013 00:52
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Argh gently caress this. Turns out I'm not getting overnighted a phone anymore because the Verizon store said it was a cable problem even though the tech support guy I called back said he was going to make sure that didn't happen? I have no god drat idea. I apologize for bitching about my problems in here, but basically, you can;t really demonstrate the problem unless you move around the cable, but the guy at the Verizon store wasn't having it and just gave me a new cable and gently caress off. So my question is do I really have to depend on this guy at the store to take advantage of my warranty? Bing the Noize fucked around with this message at 02:08 on May 24, 2013 |
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May 24, 2013 01:30
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ACID POLICE posted:Argh gently caress this. Turns out I'm not getting overnighted a phone anymore because the Verizon store said it was a cable problem even though the tech support guy I called back said he was going to make sure that didn't happen? I have no god drat idea. If you want a warranty replacement and don't want the hassle just loving lie and tell them the phone won't turn on. Obviously you have to call this in on a phone other than yours, but there's very little trouble shooting to be done with a phone that, apparently, doesn't turn on. They'll tell you to do a soft reset and if that doesn't work, they'll give you the disclosure that if your phone is wet or damaged you'll get charged and then send you a replacement. As an employee of vzw, I do this all the time because those dumbass techs will run you through a bunch of lovely troubleshooting questions that you've already done and even if you tell them you've done that they'll want you to do it again. If I need my phone replaced, I just turn it off and call from a landline and pretend it's not turning on.
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May 24, 2013 04:04
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ACID POLICE posted:Argh gently caress this. Turns out I'm not getting overnighted a phone anymore because the Verizon store said it was a cable problem even though the tech support guy I called back said he was going to make sure that didn't happen? I have no god drat idea. If the first person wont play ball, tell them you'd like to talk to a supervisor, Tell the supervisor the same thing and you need your phone replaced. You're under warranty, make it happen etc. Be persistent, just not a jerk. If that makes sense. I've never been hassled ever and I get my poo poo swapped all the loving time. Also, Do what dude above me said. Just tell them its now refusing to turn on.
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May 24, 2013 04:22
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Okay i have a problem. I have a smartphone and a dumb one on my account, and my mom has the dumb phone. Im grandfathered in to unlimited data on my phone. My mom told me she wants a smartphone. Is there anyway I can keep my unlimited data if I upgrade her phone?
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May 24, 2013 07:15
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Dr Blah PhD posted:Okay i have a problem. Yes, because you're upgrading her line, not yours. Operating under the assumption that it is in fact her line that is eligible for upgrade.
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May 24, 2013 07:18
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kstatix posted:This is odd. It would seem rather backwards and I've never heard of a case so drastic. 66 miles of coverage is huge. What phone do you have? kitten smoothie posted:Yeah, I'm surprised, if anything it's gotten better for me in the last two years. My house is in a dead spot for everyone but Verizon (I don't know for sure why this is, but I blame NIMBYs in the adjoining old-money neighborhoods who don't like towers but still complain their phones don't work). I switched to Verizon in 2011, because it was just the least-bad there. Droid 2, and it's not the phone. No 3G coverage from Wells NV to Jackpot NV, there used to be, bad coverage in Twin Falls ID with extreme slow speeds, flakey coverage from Carlin NV to Beowave, and drops again from outside Battle Mountain to Iron Point, and another dead spot from outside Fernley to almost the 95/I-80 split.
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May 24, 2013 09:49
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Finally got my FIL off of his Verizon GNex. He got it last summer and has had nothing but problems with call quality, static, delayed text messages, you name it. I've spent about 30 hours loving around with this phone including backing up and restoring everything because tech support's immediate knee-jerk solution for everything is a factory reset, calls to CS and tech support, and backing up/restoring 4 replacement devices. Last night, I called again because call quality went in the shitter again and a text message he sent me on Saturday showed up yesterday evening. We went back and forth with all the standard bullshit rigamarole, and he finally brought out this gem "Well, I think you should try and run it in safe mode for as much as possible because... something". He also noted that there is apparently a patch coming soon (on the 30th) that is supposed to address the issues. That was when I snapped (figuratively). I explained that I'm absolutely done with this phone (my account), and that I'm not going to sit and run it in effectively dumbphone mode, that we paid money for it and used a subsidy which we already pay for in our bill and that we simply haven't gotten the value. I said "I'm done. It's time for something else. I'm not spending another minute working on this phone. A promise of a patch down the road is absolutely worthless. All of the troubleshooting and resets you've had me do and done from your end have the ultimate goal of getting me off the phone, but never actually fixes the problem." He tried to head me off "Well, I understand where you're coming from, but getting you a different device isn't my call..." To which I responded "Well, who's call is it to make? I want to talk to them. And I want to talk to them right now." Miraculously, 10 minutes later, I had a Droid RAZR (original) on its way. Finally, I can be done with this loving device. It's no wonder Verizon's never going to get another Nexus, their support of the one they got is utterly loving abysmal.
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May 24, 2013 15:04
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AlexDeGruven posted:
This is phone support for ANY device.. Your tech support story is in no way unique to the GNex, and the Verizon+Nexus issues are completely different. 
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May 24, 2013 17:51
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Ok simple question: You have two phone choices, and they are a) HTC Rhyme b) Samsung Illusion c) Shoot the hostage Which phone (if you could only have one of these two) would you recommend? Cite reasons if you feel like it. Thanks for your help.
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May 24, 2013 19:50
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d) eBay or Craigslist a decent phone of equivalent cost.
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May 24, 2013 19:53
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Based on specs I am thinking she should go with the HTC. She will not be able to perform option d, as much as I would like her to. She needs to keep it simple.
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May 24, 2013 20:16
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Dr. Fastus y'all are going to a corporate store right and not an Authorized reseller right? There are probably some decent resellers but I think I would prefer the corporate stores. So for the Verizon workers any ideas if Verizon has a email, phone number etc that I can report/ask about a dead zone area. I live in a burb of Houston(Sugar Land, Population of about 80k) and there is a weird stretch of highway of around 2 miles that doesn't get any data service or it's extremely goddamn slow. It's just annoying but now a client wants to do more meetings at a hotel in that area. The data card I have is through Verizon and the client uses Verizon as well. Well we had a meeting at the hotel in question and no one had any data access for the entire time. They aren't moving the meeting anywhere else so I told them they are just gonna have to pay the high hotel meeting internet rates. I thought I might try and contact Verizon to see why this happens. I know this is fruitless but who knows. And yes it's not just inside the hotel it's literally all along the road and any bank, restaurant or whatever in that area won't have access to Verizon data.
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May 24, 2013 21:31
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Dr. Faustus posted:Ok simple question: If it's a price issue the RAZR M is free at best buy and amazon, or at least was recently. Seriously both those phones are total garbage.
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May 24, 2013 21:34
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DangerZoneDelux posted:So for the Verizon workers any ideas if Verizon has a email, phone number etc that I can report/ask about a dead zone area. I live in a burb of Houston(Sugar Land, Population of about 80k) and there is a weird stretch of highway of around 2 miles that doesn't get any data service or it's extremely goddamn slow. It's just annoying but now a client wants to do more meetings at a hotel in that area. The data card I have is through Verizon and the client uses Verizon as well. Well we had a meeting at the hotel in question and no one had any data access for the entire time. They aren't moving the meeting anywhere else so I told them they are just gonna have to pay the high hotel meeting internet rates. I thought I might try and contact Verizon to see why this happens. I know this is fruitless but who knows. And yes it's not just inside the hotel it's literally all along the road and any bank, restaurant or whatever in that area won't have access to Verizon data. No guarantee that this will get fixed immediately and might already be a known issue that is slated on a project list to be completed at some time in the future.
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May 24, 2013 23:48
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big mean giraffe posted:If it's a price issue the RAZR M is free at best buy and amazon, or at least was recently.
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May 25, 2013 02:01
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Okay. Here's a scenario I just thought up. I have no idea if it's feasable though. My sister and I (as well as my parents) are on the same family plan. My sister and I each have an upgrade available. I have unlimited data still, she doesn't. She has an iPhone right now, meaning she's already on the smartphone data plan. If she uses her upgrade to get a GS4 then activates it on her line, then gives it to me, I activate it on my line, will I keep my unlimited data and my upgrade, which I can then give to my sister? Aardvark Barber fucked around with this message at 02:23 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 02:20
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You can't 'give' the upgrade away, it's tied to your line.
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May 25, 2013 02:25
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big mean giraffe posted:You can't 'give' the upgrade away, it's tied to your line. Right now online I can transfer all upgrades between lines..
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May 25, 2013 02:32
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Aardvark Barber posted:Right now online I can transfer all upgrades between lines.. Upgrade her line. Reactivate her iPhone Put your sim into s4 Seriously. Every loving page. If you sign a contract on an unlimited line. You lose unlimited. If you buy a phone full price or swap a device out without contract you keep it.
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May 25, 2013 02:38
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Aardvark Barber posted:Right now online I can transfer all upgrades between lines.. Transferring your upgrade uses your upgrade, taking you off of Unlimited.
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May 25, 2013 02:58
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Does anyone have any experience with a signal amplifier/antenna setup for VZW, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Wilson-801865-Adjustable-Wireless-Amplifier/dp/B005OD0FZ8/ref=pd_sim_sbs_cps_2 My family has a home where the cell reception is terrible indoors, and I'm pretty sure it's a combination of steel siding and being in a bowl down by a lake, as well as being a long way from a tower. We can normally get half-decent 3G indoors, but spotty 4G service outside, with good 4G service about 2-3 miles down the road. They use a 3G smartphone for internet service here on the weekends, unless I'm here as well, then we use my 4G smartphone hotspot. we're not sure if something like this would be worth it for the 1/3 of the year they spend weekends here, but I thought I'd research it a bit more. I know the one I linked is 4G only, but it seems like I can pick between 3G boosting and 4G boosting. PitViper fucked around with this message at 20:32 on May 26, 2013 |
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May 26, 2013 20:29
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PitViper posted:Does anyone have any experience with a signal amplifier/antenna setup for VZW, like this: 
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May 27, 2013 03:45
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DangerZoneDelux posted:So for the Verizon workers any ideas if Verizon has a email, phone number etc that I can report/ask about a dead zone area. I live in a burb of Houston(Sugar Land, Population of about 80k) and there is a weird stretch of highway of around 2 miles that doesn't get any data service or it's extremely goddamn slow. Is the deadzone on Highway 6 as your approach the overpass at 90? I always get weird signal issues over there. Sometimes my music will stop playing if I'm streaming and driving through.
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May 27, 2013 15:08
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Pilkington posted:Is the deadzone on Highway 6 as your approach the overpass at 90? I always get weird signal issues over there. Sometimes my music will stop playing if I'm streaming and driving through. Yes sir. It's exactly on that stretch of Hwy 6 from hwy 90 to 59. Data will just stop working completely
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May 27, 2013 21:32
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Is there any information about the "nexus experience" or "developer edition" S4s coming to Verizon? I've read about this on a few sites and it seems like it could be a nice option for someone who may be looking to upgrade their GNex in the near future (me). Everything I've seen about the S4 looks pretty nice and if it were a nexus phone for all intents and purposes, and it had LTE support, I'd be sold. Seems the "developer edition" isn't stock android but would be closer to a nexus than the standard S4.
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May 28, 2013 16:00
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EvilJimmyCarter posted:Is there any information about the "nexus experience" or "developer edition" S4s coming to Verizon? I've read about this on a few sites and it seems like it could be a nice option for someone who may be looking to upgrade their GNex in the near future (me). Everything I've seen about the S4 looks pretty nice and if it were a nexus phone for all intents and purposes, and it had LTE support, I'd be sold. Seems the "developer edition" isn't stock android but would be closer to a nexus than the standard S4. Until Verizon is all LTE and LTE chipsets are universal, i wouldn't ever expect to see another nexus style device.
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May 28, 2013 16:02
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