Samsung SCH-i600 / SP-i600

$499.99 + $25 tax = $524.99 total

If you bought your last phone from Verizon almost 2 years ago you should qualify for the
"new every two" promotion. I think it's something like between 22 months and 30 months after you purchased your last handset.

And my receipt says SPH-i600 also... according to the naming convention that Samsung uses, SPH typically means Sprint (PCS) - 1900 Mhz CDMA, SCH means Verizon (CDMA) - 800 Mhz CDMA, and SGH means GSM. I'm pretty sure Verizon won't be sending us a Sprint network phone, and it's dual mode so it works on both 1900 and 800 Mhz CDMA. Shouldn't be an issue.

Jim, if this rumored $200 rebate is offered tomorrow, post if you have any success getting it from Verizon. I will be pretty pissed off if they give a rebate tomorrow on this...
(continues)

I've been digging for something about this $200 rumor. Here's my thoughts on it at the moment. All the pda/cellphones have a rebate like this:

$100 Mail-in Trade-in Rebate
When you purchase a new Kyocera 7135 between November 1, 2003 and December 31, 2003 and sign up for an Unlimited PDA/Smartphone Calling Plan. You can trade-in your qualifying device and receive a $100 rebate towards the purchase of your new equipment. A qualifying trade-in device is a working i) Audiovox Thera or Kyocera 6035 on Verizon Wireless Network; or ii) BlackBerry handheld, Handspring Treo, Toshiba 2032, Samsung i300, Samsung i330 not activated on Verizon Wireless service. *Corporate liable customers should contact their account manager for details on rebate pr...
(continues)

koan, you may want to check the status of your order on-line. I just called to check on my order and they said the phone would not ship immediately, but that I should have it by the end of the month. They said that it was put on the website too early by mistake.

Great, yeah I just checked online and it says it's been cancelled.

Guess it's time to call Verizon and see if they can start working for me.

BTW: I've found another i600 forum which has more info - http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/forumdisplay/f -33.html

Called Verizon and had an effortless time ordering it with one of their representatives. Fantastic customer service, he was able to work out all the details and it went very well.

He said I should have it by Thursday or Friday. I decided not to pay $15 to have it by Wednesday.

The $100 special offer is only if you sign up for unlimited National Access which is a fairly pricy option at the moment. He said I couldn't get that $100 along with the "New every two" so I just did the "New every two". I got the mobile web option which is only $4.99 a month but according to him is at low speed (not on the Express 1xRTT network). If I decide I want higher speed data I can add the National Access option at any time.

I also ordered the keyboard...
(continues)

From what I have been told, you do not need
Mobile Web for the i600. Since it has IE built
into it, there is no need for the Mobile Web
WAP server.
You may want to double check this to be sure.

BTW, If a phone has a mail-in/trade-in/in-store
rebate, you can combine it with your
NewEvery2 discount. Don't let anyone tell you
that just because there's a rebate on the phone
that you can't use your $100 rebate.
The only time you can't get the $100 rebate is
if you are buying a phone for under $100.

From what I understand you would need either Mobile Web or some kind of National Access. The National Access gives your phone an IP address. But I could be wrong, I'll be sure to figure that out.

You might be right about being able to do the dual-rebate but I wasn't too sure I wanted to sign up for the unlimited National Access Plan anyway. I'll look at the fine print on the offers and decide when the phone arrives.

As far as entering information without a touchscreen, you just need to use buttons/arrows to navigate, like a Blackberry.

For the guy waiting to switch from Sprint, why don't you wait until the 24th so you can get your number ported to Verizon and you don't have to change your cell number.

Can you buy this phone without any additional service requirements? I don't need Internet yet - I simply want the phone/PDA capability.

Yes, you can get voice only service to use it as a phone/pda only.

You can add Mobile Web for $5 a month which will give you the ability to surf the web using voice minutes, but not at the highest speeds.

There also should be a way to set it up to surf the web without paying $5 a month, but you'll need to use a third party portal which might not be as reliable as Verizon's.

Figured out this link:

http://www.samsungusa.com/cgi-bin/nabc/prod/hhcommer ... »

The features page doesn't work, but everything else does, including the interactive demo and the pdf manual.

Have fun!