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Wow... Just freaking wow...

I believe anyone who was planning on getting a 1 year plan for Bionic to just get the thunderbolt now for 1 year before this goes into effect, and skip the Bionic. After the 1 year youll get something better.

Yea 1 year TB, then get the Droid 3.

Sounds like a good plan, i think im going to give that a real thinker tommroorow.
 
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Screw Verizon; I'm tired of the crap they are pulling on me and others. They drop the NE2 and Annual Upgrade, are switching to tiered pricing very soon, and now they won't even let you do one year contracts. Sprint gets better phones anyway and is cheaper for me.

From the article: "The need for one year contracts is low." Why the hell are you getting rid of them then? It isn't hurting anything. Sounds like AT$Ts argument for tiered data "98% of our users don't use more than 2Gb."

I might just use my final annual upgrade to get the Thunderbolt then sell it new in box to someone for $550 and pay my ETF with that. Then make some money by selling my Incredible. I heard Sprint is also giving out $125 in credit for people who switch from another carrier. Sound like a plan?

Edit: Sprint doesn't offer 1 year contracts either? Lame. /rant
 
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I believe anyone who was planning on getting a 1 year plan for Bionic to just get the thunderbolt now for 1 year before this goes into effect, and skip the Bionic. After the 1 year youll get something better.

Yea 1 year TB, then get the Droid 3.

Sounds like a good plan, i think im going to give that a real thinker tommroorow.


Not Droid 3, get whatever quad core is out.

One option is best bbuy with their buy back program.
 
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Ermmm Verizon will have to offer a phone that stays viable for longer then a year then. Heck we all know the iphone is updated annually and the bionic doesn't have enough ram to stay current for more then a year.

I've been debating with myself if I should just say screw it and go to a pay as you go phone....maybe it's time to pad my budget instead of Verizons wallet after all.
 
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Wow, I just don't know.

It was my very intention to rock the Bionic for a year, and now that's no longer an option. Part of me wants to do the rash thing and leave for say, Sprint, but, as drdoom pointed out, they do not offer 1 year contracts. Suppose there is TMo. But I have a family plan with 5 lines. Two of which have met their contract. I suppose I'd have to ride the full 24 months before my OG meets it. Even if I held out till Nov, I'd still have two phones that don't meet. If I didn't want to pay an ETF, I'd have to keep each phone until Oct of next year. That's not an option. If I opted to leave now, I'd be paying ETFs on 3 Android phones. Also not an option. Or I could buy the Bionic at full price, which "I believe" is $650, and hope to sell it next year at maybe half that (at best). Still, that's not a very good option.

We've been debating about the amount of RAM on the Bionic since it's inception. Maybe it really will be adequate. Will it be adequate in 2 years, now that's a great question. I've had my OG from day 1, and 17 months in, I think we've finally topped this thing out. Sure, the Droid has exceeded expectations, but it has finally reached it's limitation. With a locked bootloader, can we really expect the Bionic to push as far as the Droid did? Especially considering the fact that quad-core will be out a year from now, and god only knows where Android will be at that point.

With my financial situation, the need of a new phone, and the yearning to not get left behind in a year, Verizon is almost forcing my hand here. I almost have to get the TB (which I do not want), and rock it for a year. And that's pretty much telling the consumer what he has to buy. That's not capitalism or socialism, that's communism. Now I know why they're called "Big Red".
 
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Wow, I just don't know.
With my financial situation, the need of a new phone, and the yearning to not get left behind in a year, Verizon is almost forcing my hand here. I almost have to get the TB (which I do not want), and rock it for a year. And that's pretty much telling the consumer what he has to buy. That's not capitalism or socialism, that's communism. Now I know why they're called "Big Red".

+1

I'm coming from a BB curve with no data, But I know in a year when LTE is really optimized, and apps also are optimized to dual/quad cores THEN we're going to see some truly great phones. Such a difficult decision now.
 
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Ermmm Verizon will have to offer a phone that stays viable for longer then a year then. Heck we all know the iphone is updated annually and the bionic doesn't have enough ram to stay current for more then a year.

I've been debating with myself if I should just say screw it and go to a pay as you go phone....maybe it's time to pad my budget instead of Verizons wallet after all.


EXACTLY!

What is Verizon going to do when iP5 is released? Every year when a new iP is released on AT&T, all of the iP fanboys that bought last year's iP get mad because AT&T won't let them upgrade to the newest one, however the last 2 years (I think), AT&T let iP users upgrade to the newest one. Is Verizon going to do that, for all of the iP4 adopters? If they do, there will be a lot of upset Verizon customers that aren't using the iP and aren't being alowed to upgrade their device.
 
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so, I think I saw someones plan above.....get the TB on the 16th and hope the bionic comes out in the return period...so if you return a phone and get a new one, you get to keep the contract from the first phone? not arguing, just asking because it sounds like this might be our best bet, cause I dont want to deal with another htc battery for 2 years, much less one.
 
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I just wished VZW will come out with some good news for a change. Like give me news that benefits me not them. It's like VZW knew that the 1 year option was going to start picking up since they did away with the NE2 program so they discontinued it because they knew that a bunch of new phones were gonna start coming out.

And what really pisses me off is that their PR team tries to spin like it's no big deal and they're doing for the greater good. At least be real about it and say, "I know you guys aren't gonna like this but we're doing it anyway".
 
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Wow, I just don't know.

It was my very intention to rock the Bionic for a year, and now that's no longer an option. Part of me wants to do the rash thing and leave for say, Sprint, but, as drdoom pointed out, they do not offer 1 year contracts. Suppose there is TMo. But I have a family plan with 5 lines. Two of which have met their contract. I suppose I'd have to ride the full 24 months before my OG meets it. Even if I held out till Nov, I'd still have two phones that don't meet. If I didn't want to pay an ETF, I'd have to keep each phone until Oct of next year. That's not an option. If I opted to leave now, I'd be paying ETFs on 3 Android phones. Also not an option. Or I could buy the Bionic at full price, which "I believe" is $650, and hope to sell it next year at maybe half that (at best). Still, that's not a very good option.

We've been debating about the amount of RAM on the Bionic since it's inception. Maybe it really will be adequate. Will it be adequate in 2 years, now that's a great question. I've had my OG from day 1, and 17 months in, I think we've finally topped this thing out. Sure, the Droid has exceeded expectations, but it has finally reached it's limitation. With a locked bootloader, can we really expect the Bionic to push as far as the Droid did? Especially considering the fact that quad-core will be out a year from now, and god only knows where Android will be at that point.

With my financial situation, the need of a new phone, and the yearning to not get left behind in a year, Verizon is almost forcing my hand here. I almost have to get the TB (which I do not want), and rock it for a year. And that's pretty much telling the consumer what he has to buy. That's not capitalism or socialism, that's communism. Now I know why they're called "Big Red".

I'm in the same situation and I was pondering the same thing today. I really don't want the TB. If I get the TB, I'm just settling because I really wanted my next phone to be dual core and have a qhd display.
 
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As far as quad cores....

Remember when we first heard about he tegra2? was that not in November and it was supposed to be out by first quarter 2011? Here were are in Q2 and the still no tegra2. We might get lucky and see it by mid year but if we apply that logic to the quad cores we are still a year away from those.....either way is you buy the bionic you might be looking in a position where you skip quad's altogether and go to the next big thing....in 2013.

My problem is still with the Ram. If the OG Droid had 512mb of ram it would still be a good phone. That bothers me immensely because my solution to the Bionic was to just upgrade in a year this time.....but now that's gone.....I really think sprint did a good job with the EVO a year later and it's still a very nice phone. I have to think some one at Verizon is skimping telling manufacturers to go cheap on hardware to either spend less on the phone they are subsidizing OR it's to get people to upgrade at 20 months for customer retention.

I have to say Verizon is thinking this out and if I were Verizon I would do it too if I thought I could keep my customers and make more money....the problem is...I don't have any more to give to Verizon. We need some heavy competition to drive prices down :D
 
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As far as quad cores....

Remember when we first heard about he tegra2? was that not in November and it was supposed to be out by first quarter 2011? Here were are in Q2 and the still no tegra2. We might get lucky and see it by mid year but if we apply that logic to the quad cores we are still a year away from those.....either way is you buy the bionic you might be looking in a position where you skip quad's altogether and go to the next big thing....in 2013.

That is a really good point. In fact I was at the Nvidia Booth in 2009 and they where saying that Tegra 2 would be in smart phones in 2010. It's now 2011 and we are just starting to see them, so who knows. The 2010 quote was directly from Jen Hsun Huang (Nvidia CEO) at the booth whom I am in acquaintance with since I work for an Nvidia parnter.

For me, I have no choice. I want the Bionic and will not settle for the Thunderbolt. I pay for a family plan with 5 phones and Verizon has BY FAR the best reception in the areas we all live and work so I will not be leaving anytime soon. I guess if something REALLY good comes out that bests my Bionic by a ton in a year, I am going to have to break down and buy a full priced phone for the first time in my life. We will see I guess.
 
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As far as quad cores....

Remember when we first heard about he tegra2? was that not in November and it was supposed to be out by first quarter 2011? Here were are in Q2 and the still no tegra2. We might get lucky and see it by mid year but if we apply that logic to the quad cores we are still a year away from those.....either way is you buy the bionic you might be looking in a position where you skip quad's altogether and go to the next big thing....in 2013.

First Verizon Tegra 2? Cause doesn't the Atrix have the same T2? That was out in Feb, wasn't it?
 
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After a stewing over it for a bit, I'll probably still go with the Bionic. I can worry about next year, well, next year.

Come July, I'll have 3 upgrades at my disposal and two smartphone newbies to upgrade. I already know I'm handing my OG to my bro. This time next year, I'll probably just upgrade and hand down the Bionic. Besides, by then, one of the DInc's will also be eligible. This may still work out for me after all.
 
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After a stewing over it for a bit, I'll probably still go with the Bionic. I can worry about next year, well, next year.

Come July, I'll have 3 upgrades at my disposal and two smartphone newbies to upgrade. I already know I'm handing my OG to my bro. This time next year, I'll probably just upgrade and hand down the Bionic. Besides, by then, one of the DInc's will also be eligible. This may still work out for me after all.

I was thinking the same, I could always give my Bionic to my father who will NOT use the Bionic for its full potential then use his upgrade if necessary.

I refuse to stick to a single core for my next phone...
 
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I was thinking the same, I could always give my Bionic to my father who will NOT use the Bionic for its full potential then use his upgrade if necessary.

I refuse to stick to a single core for my next phone...

I'm def with ya. I just can't see myself tolerating the TB, even if it is for only a year. I'll take my chances with the Bionic.
 
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