I pit the Verizon Coupe on behalf of America's seniors

The BBQ Pit
1

This rant is not about AARP, who mailed me a membership brochure the other day, despite the fact that I am just barely creeping into my first decade as a working person. I am not a senior, and I suppose I can forgive an organization of codgers their occasional senior moment. This rant is actually for them, so I’ll speak no more of their fumbling ineptitude. Well, for now.

This rant is also not about how phone manufacturers have decided, against all engineering logic, that every telephone must have a camera installed in it. What could go wrong? Just add a small sensor array, some optics, and mix in some extra cruft in the software, right? It’s called feature creep for a reason, douchebags: it’s a bad idea, it makes the phones needlessly complex and expensive, and for the most part the cameras take shitty pictures that are of no real use! You assholes must be related to the people who decided that every car with a CD player ought to have $600 floor mats, on the off chance that I will be tramping $1,200 dirt into the car and I’d want to make sure I had something that really deserved it. As it turns out there is a large market of people who need mobile phones who not only do not want a camera, but who are forbidden by their office’s IT policy from bringing a camera into the building. Anyhow, fuck Verizon for thinking that wanting a phone without a camera must de facto make you a technophobe who needs a phone For Seniors. I’d TXT you to GTOF MY L0N but I’ve got better things to do.

This rant is not about all of that crap. It is about the Verizon Coupe, one of the aforementioned telephones marketed to one of the aforementioned seniors. It happens to not have a camera – one of only two such phones sold by Verizon – and when I was in the market recently I picked one up. It turns out that the Verizon Coupe might have been more accurately named the Doupe, or perhaps the Poupe.

I will now enumerate the various ways in which it is an utter failure.

The Coupe does not have a silent mode, because apparently America’s seniors are not capable of understanding things that happen if they are not accompanied by a beep. The best you can do is tell the Coupe to turn all sounds off, which it confirms with a beep. It confirms everything with a beep. It confirms that you have opened it with a beep. It confirms that you have looked at it with a beep. It confirms that you have selected Vibrate-Only mode with a beep. It confirms that you would like it to stop beeping… with a beep. I considered gouging out the speaker, but the Coupe is a marvel of modern engineering which uses the same speaker for the ringer, earpiece, and the dreaded beeps.

The Coupe has external “shoulder” buttons, like so many other phones, so that you can use your opposable thumbs to pretend you’re changing the settings. Unlike other phones, the Coupe’s shoulder buttons are active all the time, for your convenience. This means that if you put the phone in your pocket, set it down next to something and nudge it, hold it up in a strong breeze, or if a nearly-massless subatomic particle collides with it, the shoulder buttons cheerfully perform a random function: changing your volume settings, activating voice-dial, or switching from “Silent” mode to “Vibrate in user’s pocket randomly as though he had a call” mode.

The Coupe’s voice-dial feature is (by the way) more useless than a headless makeup model, and half as smart. “Call Erica” results in a string of beeps (natch!) and a voice asking me – is that you Doctor Hawking? – if I meant to say “Call America”. No thanks, Steve, I’m already in America. Shut the fuck up Steve, stop beeping. If I wanted to use voice-dial, I’d tell you out loud. If I want to press buttons instead, I’ll give you the finger. Fuck off Steve.

The only saving grace about the Coupe is its mercifully short battery life. A typical user gets about twelve hours of beeping out of the telephone – fewer if the phone is carried in a pocket, where it arbitrarily engages the vibration feature, beeps merrily through the volume settings, and listens carefully for the faintest whisper so that it can ask your pocket lint who it is trying to ring up.

So fuck Verizon for letting this abomination out of quality testing – if in fact, anyone at Verizon can even spell quality (“Did you mean to say fellate me?” “SHUT UP STEVE.”). Fuck them with a Chocolate Moto Razr 9905 Deluxe, with a pink shiny skin, a full keyboard, Puff Daddy ring tones, and Goatse wallpapers for foisting this phone off on seniors, who would presumably run screaming from the nightmarish robot voice, or shuffle off this mortal coil in frustration at its incredibly user-surly interface. Fuck them with the “can you hear me now” guy, wrapped head to toe in barbed wire, phone cords, and service contracts, for not even completing the job – why didn’t you assholes add a camera that makes everyone look like they’ve had hideous plastic surgery, and at least save me the trouble of thinking this was the phone for me?

Like a goat born with two heads, the Verizon Coupe writhes and bleats briefly, makes a pale mockery of its intended function, and with any luck dies before it can be a burden to anyone. I traded it in for a CDM-8905, and I’m now much happier.

2

…Coupe d’ Evil?
Can you hear me now? Good. So lets lower the service a few bars…

3

Forbidden from taking a camera into the building? Fhut the wuck? What top secret documents do they think anyone is going to be able to take a picture of with those crappy cell-phone cameras, anyway?

Otherwise, Word. I had a look at one of those Coupe things a few weeks ago when I wandered into the Verizon store to take advantage of my supposed $100 credit for a new phone (which turned out to be $50 and a mail-in $50 rebate, but that’s another rant). Glad I passed on it.

4

I’d just like to give the OP props on a well-constructed, eminently readable rant.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

5

beep

I don’t have one of those phones but I do have one with the “shoulder” button that of all things is used to take pictures. A dozen pictures of the ceiling of my Jeep that end up in the camera cache is amazing.

6

I really love my Sony Erricsson K800i, I really do. Great MP3 player and camera for my money, especially since I downgraded from the simply horrible Samsung G600 with its supposedly superior 5MP camera.

Only thing is, there’s a sliding cover for the camera, which is nice, except that opening it up activates the camera, even if the keypad is locked. So its easy to turn on the camera in your pocket and even easier if baby is about to pick up the phone and make some home movies :rolleyes:

7

Some people do in fact work on worksites where there are top-secret documents. I used to, and cameras were banned from all buildings on site, even buildings where no secret or top-secret materials were allowed.

I no longer work there, and now I do have a camera phone. I never use the camera- I’ve had the phone for six months now, and never have figured out how to use the camera, just because I’ve not been in a situation where I’ve wanted to.

8

Superb, elegant rant, yes.

And thanks for the heads-up; I am a member of AARP, and Verizon has been pushing this thing heavily with full-page ads for a while now in their magazine. I was wondering whether I should get one for my mother, as it’s being touted as the next piece of essential Senior Equipment, to go along with your jar opener and your bathtub grips and your pill-minder. So guess I won’t. Thanks. :slight_smile:

9

Perhaps a bit of a hijack from the OP since I AM NOT A SENIOR (for the next 6 years or so), but I am almost dreading replacing my current crappy analog cell phone (which can’t do much more than make phone calls) which is on its last legs. No, I don’t want a camera in the phone - I take pictures with a real camera. No, I don’t want text messaging - that’s what e-mail is for. No, I don’t want silly ring tones - a normal ring is just fine, thank you (I will grant that being able to make it vibrate instead of ring is a reasonable feature). All I want is a phone with a decent memory for phone numbers; nothing else.

10

Canadjun, please allow me to recommend the CDM-8905, which has no camera, limited text functionality, and reliably stays in vibrate mode when told. As a bonus, its battery life (making 1-2 calls per day) is about 1 week.

El_Kabong, it turns out that even the presence of regular-old SECRET (lnever mind other classification levels) is enough to banish cameras from a facility. A good 4 megapixel phone camera could get a shot of, say, a classified PowerPoint slide and have it sent to an adversary country before anyone could be the wiser. Also, a photo taken for kicks in someone’s office could accidentally capture a classified doodle on a whiteboard. Some of the defense contractors I work with are just as protective of proprietary data as they are of classified.

11

I just got a Coupe, and the main reason I got it was because it had the least amount of features compared to all the other phones. Plus, it was cheap. I hated my previous phone, which was shaped like a kidney and was fickle about actually ringing when I got a call, or sending it to voice mail, and not notifying me of it.

The Coupe is slim, black, and looks like something James Bond would use. Plus, it doesn’t have those pretty and bright backgrounds that wash out the menu selections. It also enlarges whatever menu line you’re on, so you’re better able to navigate.

But yes, the shoulder buttons are annoying, and every time I take the phone out of my pocket, my fingers touch some buttons and random settings change. Same as my last phone. I wish there was some way to disable them and only have them work when i’m on a call.

12

OK, got it. I recognize that most any company may have proprietary or secret data on site; I was more reacting to the idea that a fixed-focus 1.3 MP camera would be very effective as a spy device. Of course it might under ideal conditions, but it would take some work.

Seems like a USB thumb drive would be a bigger worry, but maybe those are banned too.

Speaking of which,what do such companies do if they issue cell phones to their employees? As noted, nearly all the phones on offer these days include cameras.

13

My company obviously isn’t concerned, as I just got my brand new “standard” Motorola W385, complete with phone. Well, this is actually the second one. The first one they gave me seemed to have some sort of random gremlin where it chose when to ring, as opposed to ringing when someone was attempting to contact me.

14

Yep, they are more or less banned. You can have thumb drives on-site, iPods etc. in your unclassified workspace, but nothing with flash memory, magnetic memory, or an RF transmitter is allowed in the closed-off areas.

Most of the companies in my line of work issue PDAs or “smart” phones instead, and the Palm Treo line includes a no-camera version. Most of the big Federal departments that deal with classified data have a bulk contract with one of the providers – in D.C., I think it’s Verizon – and they probably issue them the CDM-8905 or the Coupe.

15

I had a crappy Sony Ericson W600 that would do all sorts of crazy things in my pocket. The phone swings open sideways, and has most of the buttons on the outside, as wells as some shoulder buttons. It had the necessary key-lock feature, but that would be disabled by partially opening the phone: A simple task for my pocket. It could start up the MP3 player by pressing two buttons, and this thing had some impressive speakers (for a phone). So, I often had tunes blaring from my pants.

By pressing three buttons, my pocket could delete contacts. I regularly pulled out the phone, seeing the “Delete this contact?” screen for “Amanda” (first name in the list). Then one day, Amanda was GONE. I had no way to get in touch with her. :eek: :frowning:

I love my new phone (Samsung 727). No moving parts, all outside buttons are flush with the surface, and to “unlock” the keys, one must press two different buttons in sequence. My pocket has not figured out that trick yet. Plus, its wafer thin, and sleek as shit! It has a camera that I will rarely use, and I am OK with that. Battery lasts two weeks. It is the perfect phone for anyone who wants a “phone” instead of a “mobile-communication-instant-messaging-digital-camera-music-device.” Sure, it can do all that other stuff, but it is not designed for it (tiny screen). Highly recommended.

16

Oh my GOD! I’ve never deleted a contact before, and now I’m glad. I thought it just erased their phone number. I’m so sorry for your loss! Any phone that can abolish people from existence really ought to have better safety features. :smiley:

17

Q-u-a-l-i-t-y. According to the user guide of the Coupe, you can disable the voice commands. I’m not arguing that other shoulder buttons might do obnoxious things in your pocket, but you really can turn that off. And aren’t you glad that Verizon lets you return your phone within 30 days? I know t-mobile only gives you 14 days, or did the last time I bought a phone. Just sayin.

18

At my previous job, they were. There was even talk of permanently disabling USB ports with epoxy on machines used for working with classified data.

In that sort of environment, if you work in a building where people access classified data, you’re quite restricted on what electronics you can bring in. If you want to bring in a tape or CD player to listen to music while you work, you have to take it to security first and have them check it out to make sure it couldn’t be used to record classified data.

At my old job, most employees were not issued cell phones. I wasn’t. You could bring in your personal cell phone if you worked in a building where classified stuff was not handled (there were several buildings like that- no reason to have classified discussions in, say, the cafeteria- if you did, all your cafeteria workers would need security clearances, which take at least a year and tens of thousands of dollars to get). I think most of the people who did on-call work had pagers instead of cell phones.

19

I read the manual and followed the instructions – the shoulder buttons overrode my preferences constantly. I tried several times to disable the voice commands, but every time the right shoulder button was depressed it automatically jumped back to voice command mode, and beeped to let me know, despite being in “silent” mode.

The lady at the Verizon desk where I returned it said that the shoulder buttons should not be operating when the phone is closed, and initially tried to replace my phone with another Coupe, but she demo’ed it for me and the shoulder buttons were operable even with a closed phone. She was surprised and dismayed, and immediately worked to resolve the situation to my satisfaction; she said “Oh, nobody wants a phone that does that.” Maybe it’s a manufacturing defect (a faulty hinge sensor?) and maybe it’s a crappy interface decision, but the fact remains that the phone was – for my purposes – completely unusable.

I am glad that they give folks 30 days – and the customer service reps were great about letting me exchange it for a “non-free” phone that wasn’t part of the package my contract worked on. Nonetheless, I had it back within seven days, because it was pretty much a glossy black vibrating beeping turd.

20

I find this thread kind of amusing, because my cell phone is a three-year old Nokia brick. I’ve no idea what model it actually is. It’s so straightforward to use. If you lock the keys, it can’t do anything until you unlock them again. My grandparents have this crazy flip phone that I do not understand at all. I was trying to use it once to call my parents, and my 72-year-old grandmother had to lead me through it. So many buttons whose function I cannot begin to determine. I know it has a camera and a voice recorder – heck, they might be able to make copies with it.

Give me my brick or give me nothing!