I had been a loyal customer to Sprint since my very first cell phone. I basked in the years of great service, no dropped calls, and high-quality phones. As wonderful as it was to live in this bubble of perfection, this experience left me ill-prepared to deal with the reality of wireless networks.

You must remember when the color trend began to invade the cell phone world. Stuck with the standard black or gray, girly girls everywhere cheered at the revelation of the pink razor. If you also recall, the razor set a new standard for the shape and size of phones as well.

Gushing with excitement, I grabbed my laptop, credit card in hand, ready to purchase my new style of communication. Of course when I checked the site I realized that my perfect carrier was apparently less than perfect. I couldn’t believe that they weren’t offering it. Well I figured that it couldn’t be long before they offered it. I mean you have to be competitive right? So I waited.

I was trying to be patient but I finally broke. I polled people at work to gather data on Verizon’s services. For the most part I received positive feedback, so finally I canceled my Sprint service and opened an account with Verizon, then happily awaited my wonderful pink phone. In my excitement I even joined my husbands account with mine and ordered him a black razor.

A few short days later I received my new phone. My high spirits were only mildly affected by the tiny, barely audible sound of the voices on the other end of the line. The design of the phone was nearly impossible to hold on my shoulder. I grew more cranky when I called my voicemail for the first time and it requested a password and even more after the customer service operator told me that feature cannot be turned off.

When my phone was stolen a couple months later, I was initially saddened but ultimately thankful. Happy to be rid of a phone that I dreaded using because of the strain it took to hear the caller, I barely hesitated at the additional cost it took to get a replacement (since I was still under contract). Let me just say that Verizon has horrible phone choices. Usually I’m trying to decide between a few that I really like and with them I’m struggling to find one that’s kind of close to what I want.

I finally chose the LG Envy (or whatever). I was anxious about how the sound quality would be but after making my first call, my fear was alleviated. The sound is great and I love the full key pad for texting. In fact, I warmed to the whole texting trend because of the full pad. But this is not a happy ending. A whole new set of problems came along with my new phone. Most annoying of which is the way it turns itself off for no reason. No, it’s not because the battery is low or because it loses it’s signal. It literally powers down on a whim. I might be in the middle of a conversation or the phone is just sitting on my desk. I’ll go to make a call and the thing is off! It drops calls all the time with a loud, angry beep. It randomly loses service when I’m not on it and begins chanting “Loss of service” in this horribly annoying, mechanical voice. And this last one is not really a big deal but it’s weird. I have it set to say the person’s name who is calling or texting and it can sound out almost anything, but the simplest name in my contact list, Lyn, it spells! So whenever she sends a text, it says “message from L-Y-N.” It’s totally odd.

My poor husband still has his razor. It takes approximately 2 full seconds after any button is pushed for the action to take place. It’s horrible. I’m thinking about getting us the Blackberry Storm as our next phones. I hope we have better luck with that one!