Verizon gets PN-820 Smartphone out the door
[Thanks, rijc99]
Filed under: Handsets, Pantech, Verizon Wireless, Windows Mobile, 1xRTT, EV-DO, CDMA
[Thanks, rijc99]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Richard P @ Feb 3rd 2007 12:23PM
I just ordered mine for $29.99 online under a business plan
JPhone @ Feb 3rd 2007 12:56PM
It's actually only $99...there is a rebate mentioned in the description that is not included into the shopping cart price.
"Save an additional $50 with a mail-in rebate! (Rebate not reflected in shopping cart price)."
brian clay @ Feb 3rd 2007 6:27PM
Mine is on the way too! I saw one today @ the verizon store, and it felt really solid. I'm sending back my week-old MotoQ as soon as it comes in.
alex @ Feb 4th 2007 6:07PM
Though Verizon launched their Rev-A network, the cities they've officially listed aren't the only places they have Rev-A turned on at. There are quite a few major markets they aren't announcing yet, for whatever reason. See for yourself by checking out a cool new google mashup at http://EVDOmaps.com - a service of http://www.EVDOinfo.com
Treo Cell Phone Fan @ Feb 5th 2007 10:54AM
It's a good price for a smartphone. But the Samsung SCH-i730 and Motorola Q cost only $50 more than the PN-820. They are the better choice, especially the SCH-i730 has a touch screen and QWERTY keyboard. And no one is really making flip-smartphone anymore.
Richard P @ Feb 10th 2007 9:17AM
I have mine! Initial impressions - the hinge feels solid, the keys are firm and the screen is clear and bright. EVDO is great and the voice quality is better than my MDA or MPx220. Video and radio via EVDO are smooth and the quality is good. The tethering option can stream video and hold a Cisco VPN connection.
bbell @ Feb 13th 2007 7:05PM
Great phone for internet web page browsing, at least the sites I need to see. Only drawback I had when I first received the phone from Verizon was that all the ringtones were cheezy music tones! Nothing like sitting in a meeting, forgetting to enable vibrate, and have one "Funky Jazz" go off! After some playing around/navigation in the Windows Mobile OS, I found where all the ringtones are stored and found a "Standard" one to set the phone to. Note, Standard is not available from the RingTone selection initially, only cheezy music mp3s. Therefore, you have to use Windows Explorer to find the Standard tone to enable it to be seen in the ringtone list. After I made that configuration change, everything works great! Though the only other thing I cannot easily find is how to set the phone to vibrate without opening the clamshell?
Chris Reiner @ Feb 16th 2007 11:54AM
anyone know if you can download an ACT database to it?
Morton Fetterman @ Mar 4th 2007 7:11PM
Just ordered. d/l manual, but not clear. As usual VZW no help. Where is start button to set the voice command button and once set, does it disable the orig button?
steve @ Mar 16th 2007 8:10AM
Chris,
Please let me know what you find regarding downloading ACT into it
Thanks,
Steve
steve @ Mar 16th 2007 8:11AM
Chris,
Please let me know what you find regarding downloading ACT into it
Thanks,
Steve
windsorhollow @ Apr 6th 2007 3:19PM
I really want to like this phone, but there are too many nuisances/bugs that make for an unpleasureable experience. I am pretty sure I will return it to Verizon. I have been long waiting for a compact phone that has full featured contacts and calendar so that I can sync to Microsoft outlook. All the other PDA's that are out there are too bulky. So when I saw this unit I was like... "ahh finally". Anyway, I read some reviews on this site before I bought the phone, and was psyched at what was being said... However, after using this phone for a few weeks, I wonder if the previous reviewers were a little star struck initially. So here are my issues....
CONS-
-No ability to adjust keypad light time. It times out waaay too quickly.
- The extremely thin Battery that came with this phone only lasts 1/2 a day!! the specs on this battery are inaccurate. I average about 10 text messages a day, and 5 short phone calls. This is unacceptable!!
-When the phone shuts down because of the battery being low, it looses the current date and time and defaults to 2006 until I hook it up and synchronize to my old WINXP desktop via the supplied USB cable. Not good!!
-No software support for VISTA via "SYNC CENTER". My new HP laptop came with VISTA, and MICROSOFT replaced "activesync" with "sync center". Activesync is not supported in VISTA. What to do now??
-Software menus are not organized well... it takes too many steps to access some frequently used features. UTSTAR which wrote the software for Pantech, needs to go back to the drawing board here and focus on usability. I loved the way my old LG phones operating system was designed!! Hey UTSTAR!! How about a "focus group" or some "beta testers"???
- Ringer is not very loud. Calls are easily missed.
- The camera is basically unusable!! If you snap a photo, the image that is frozen on the screen, is not the one that is saved!! The image that is captured is about two seconds delayed. Why is this??
- I wanted to get a stereo Bluetooth headset to use it as a MP3 player, but a lot of reviewers seem to have problems getting Bluetooth to work with this unit. Oh, well…
PROS-
-nice looking
- bright screen
-compact size
Chris @ Apr 12th 2007 8:18AM
Can someone tell me how to access the standard ring tones? The default ones are horrible.
Also, does the GPS feature work with google maps?
Thanks.
Ken Arnold @ Jun 6th 2007 3:42PM
Just got this phone today & started playing with it. Two quick notes:
1. Works like a charm with Windows Mobile Device Center on Vista. (find it on the Microsoft site.) I haven't tried Outlook with it yet, though.
2. There's an independent wiki for the site, at a relatively obvious url. pn 820 wiki dot com.
Still wondering how to get my contacts over to it. I used Verizon's Backup Assistant on the old phone, but I can't get it on the new phone, nor have I been successful at screen-scraping the Backup Assistant website for my ~150 contacts. Ideas?
-Ken
Mehool @ Aug 1st 2007 10:57PM
Hey, did you figure out any solution as a replacement for Backup Assistant (which does not work with PDA/Smartphones because they don't have Get It Now)? let me know if you could by emailing me at key776 at HOTMAIL dot COM
scorp508 @ Aug 11th 2007 9:53AM
I just screen scraped this last night to get my contacts onto a Moto Q, it requires MS Excel (I used 2007).
Go to the "print all your contacts" list, open Excel, THEN highly the whole list about to be printed, right-click copy to clipboad, go to Excel and paste it. It may take a minute to format it and show up.
Once everything was in there I made a few column headers "Name, Cell 1, Cell 2, Work, Home, Fax, email". Then it was a matter a contact's name and their numbers in a row on one line. They'll probably show up originally with their name and Cell on one line, the work # on the line below cell, the home number on the line below work, email below that.
It took a while to clean it up, and to remove the little images next to the numbers (click on the image, hit delete). Then you'll probably see a bunch of cells that are merged with neighboring ones so they aren't the normal single cell Excel size. You have to clean these up too once you have the numbers all in the right places. Save the document as a comma delimited file.
Open Outlook and do a File --> Import. Map the fields from your spreadsheet to the proper Outlook fields, then import away! Once they are in Outlook you can use any of the various methods to sync them to your phone. I used Exchange ActiveSync so it all happened instantly over the air.
It took a while, but should be a one shot deal. I had 140 contacts and it took me about 30 minutes to do it all.
Peter @ Sep 2nd 2007 4:01PM
I just got the PN 820. I'm surprised that the ring is so quiet -- easy to miss. I'm trying to have it ring and vibrate at the same time, as my old phones could do, but that doesn't seem possible here. Anyone know how to have it ring AND vibrate at the same time?
p
santajim @ Oct 2nd 2008 6:48PM
start - settings - profiles - normal - menu - edit set ring name, ring type, ring volume etc
santajim
ChicagoPhoneNut @ Apr 27th 2008 11:50AM
I've gone back and forth with PDA phones since the first Pocket PC came out. Palm and Blackberry not an option for me. Verizon's customer service, speed and connectivity is consistently reliable and fast -- I get signal where no one else can. Despite WM-6 coming out I still can't stand the bulk of the newer models so after trying to accomplish anything with (1/2 the) Web 2.0 I am now back to my workhorse Pantech 820 which is ideal - sturdy, no software probs / screen issues and it does ALMOST all I need. Already loaded Pocket Quicken & PDF-opener utilities and Sync'ed everything but have yet to locate a full list of freeware/hacks to get it full-view functional. Still seeing "X-ed out" icons instead of visuals. Love the size - Lack of QWERTY keyboard not an issue - use my Bluetooth foldup keyboard when long messages are truly a must. Can anyone help me make the PN-820 the perfect device?