Consumerist
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smartphones
Chart Compares Total Cost Of Ownership For Popular Smartphones
You may think that buying an iPhone with AT&T service is an expensive commitment, and you'd be right. But as this chart from BillShrink shows, your total cost of ownership (TCO) for any of the latest smartphones is going to exceed 2 grand over a 24-month period. In fact, the highly-praised new Motorola Droid on Verizon works out to exactly the same TCO as the latest iPhone. More » -
iphone envy
Meet the DROID, the Latest Chance For Verizon Owners To Express Their iPhone Envy
Motorola and Verizon revealed the mystery device behind its iCan't ad campaign — the DROID, a 3G phone with a 5 megapixel camera, its own app store, a 16gb memory card packed in and a QWERTY keyboard. More » -
ratings
Study Rates Cell Phones By Radiation Emitted
The jury is still out on whether cell-phone radiation is something consumers should worry about. Scientists disagree on whether the low levels emitted are enough to cause brain tumors or other health problems in the long-term. Nevertheless, the Environmental Working Group has analyzed radiation emissions from 1,268 cell phones to see how the levels stand up against government standards. More » -
sales
Morning Deals
- Amazon: Lego sale. 50% off 8 Different Items
- Walgreens: 6 Sharpies for $2 (in-store only)
- eforcity: iPod/iPhone charging cable for $7.99 (down from $43.99)
- DealExtreme: iPod/iPhone charging cable for $3.46
- Woot: It's a woot-off!
- Best Buy: Dynex DX-LCD32 32-inch LCD HDTV $490
- Tiger Direct: Unlocked Motorola RAZR V3 GSM Cell Phone $100
- Buy.com: Kodak Z1285 12 Megapixel Digital Camera $90 Shipped
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interviews
CEOs Who Lost Their Jobs Talk About What Went Wrong
Fortune's new article "Lessons of the fall" is interesting and entertaining for two reasons. First, it
humanizesbrings a human face to the usually remote CEO, in this case the exes at Motorola, Starbucks, and Jet Blue. But more important if you're a wage slave who can admit to a little schadenfreude, it describes how each man was fired from his job. Former Starbucks CEO Jim Donald, who's in his fifties, says the hardest thing was letting his mother know:
More »First phone call was to my mom. Probably the toughest day I've ever faced, ever. Ever, ever, ever! Because moms have a way of putting their sons up on pedestals. I said, "Mom, how are you?" And she goes, "Great. Why are you calling me at ten in the morning?" I just said, "Hey, I just want to tell you, I'm not with Starbucks anymore, but everything is fine."
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complaints
Motorola Flip-Flops On Flap Failure
When reader Stuart bought his Motorola Razr V3XX, he was pleased with the phone but could not understand why the tiny flap covering the charger port was held in place by only 2 fragile plastic hinges. As if channeling the spirit of Nostradamus, Stuart made a startling prediction: This flimsy flap will fail. And it did. Twice. The first time, Motorola happily sent Stuart a new flap. But when the flap failed again 8 months later, Motorola unleashed a volley of red tape that left Stuart stuck. Stuart's letter and Motorola's response inside... More » -
2,600 Motorola employees got an early termination notice today, bringing the total number of Motoworkers disemployed in the past 15 months to 10,000. [Chicago Tribune via DSLReports]
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contact info
Phone Problems? Contact Motorola Executive Customer Service
Reader Chris' phone was swallowed up by the beast that is Motorola's repair department, so he asked us for help. All we had was the main Motorola number that we swiped from Google Finance, but it was enough. More » -
ceo gossip
Motorola CEO: "I Love My Job. I Hate My Customers."
A piece in the Wall Street Journal the other day about Motorola's desperate search for a successor to the Razr reveals a "favorite refrain" of Motorola CEO Ed Zander, "I love my job. I hate my customers." More » -
motorola
Customizing the Motorola Vxxx
Here's a cool guide for hacking your Motorola Vxxx (x being a wildcard) so you can make it show the color styles, shutdown and startup animations, outer text displays, etc, that you want. More » -
time warner cable
Time Warner And The Magical Smoking Modem That Is Entirely Your Fault
Let it be known that if your modem starts smoking after a Time Warner tech was just at your house messing with it, it's your fault for not having their branded router. Reader Paul writes:I live in Columbus Ohio, and have been a Road Runner subscriber for about 10 years. We also have digital phone from Time Warner (TW provides the RR service in Columbus.) Our digital phone service went out on Monday morning. We called from a cell phone, and they sent out a tech this morning to fix it. He did. At around 3PM, 4-5 hours after he left, the Internet and phone service both went out (The Internet had not gone out on Monday when the digital phone went out.) I unplug the modem, plug it back in; standard stuff. It still won't assign me an IP. I call them from my cell phone, and they confirm that it is out from their end as well. The person tells me that I can continue plugging it in/out just to test it periodically. I do. When plugged it in at 4:30, however, I hear a crackling noise, and see smoke. My modem has fried. Smells like crap, freaks my 9 year old brother out
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unlock phones
HOWTO: Unlock Your Phone
Now that your phone is your own, you can unlock it. Depending on the type of phone it is, unlocking can be as simple as getting a code from your phone company, or as difficult as "drilling into a shield over the main circuit board to tap into the right contacts and kicking the phone into a special diagnostic mode to get at the unlocking code." Uh, yeah. Thankfully there are smart people at PC Magazine who can give us the lowdown on the formerly shady practice of unlocking a cell phone.Yay! More » -
motorola
Motorola DVR Possessed By Evil
Laura's DVR is possessed. After months of living with a flickering, psychotic DVR and getting the usual Comcast run around, Laura patiently waits for her 5th replacement box. In the meantime she's suffering through life with a possessed DVR. More » -
motorola
Verizon Sells Customer Impossible KRZR
A base assumption of consumerism is that the product you buy will actually work. This, as we all know, is rank naivete. But it is also apparently naive to believe that the product you just purchased actually exists: it doesn't. More » -
verizon
Verizon Wireless: "You're All Wet."
Katy calls Verizon Wireless when the screen on her Motorola RAZR breaks for no reason. The CSR tells her she must have gotten it wet. Katy points out that for this to have happened, an unprecedented miracle would have had to occur, in which her purse's contents suddenly transmuted to liquid then immediately transmuted back. They strongly insinuate she's lying. More » -
updates
Happy Day of Labor!
Today is a bank holiday for the Gawker Media Network but that doesn't mean that the fickle wheel of commerce stops keep spinning round. Here's some updates on consumer's stories we reported on last week. More » -
complaints
Another Motorola V3i Stops Working For No Good Reason, Wants $175
Independent confirmation and the plot thickens! More »
motorola
New York, 6:05 PM
Thu Nov 12
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