Free Stuff! Verizon Service and Palm Pre Plus Giveaway

My Life List

Update: The Giveaway is closed, thank you all so much for reading and commenting. The winner announcement is over here.

Hello. Would you like a free Palm Pre Plus, and $300 worth of Verizon Wireless service? Yeah you would. Let’s discuss that further.

As you know, I’ve been partnering with Verizon this month to knock a few things off my Mighty List, and as part of the campaign, I’ve been using a Palm Pre Plus.

The idea was to see if the phone would be useful to me, and to find out whether Verizon would be better than my iPhone service provider. Of course, my iPhone service doesn’t work at my desk and garbles half my phone calls, so I’m a little angry about that. Angry in a “hurl my phone against the wall” kinda way. But I can be demanding when I’m paying through the nose for something that doesn’t work. We’ll discuss that more later.

For now, let’s talk about that giveaway. Verizon is offering a $600 Palm Pre Plus for free. It looks like this:

The winner will also get $300 of free service from Verizon, which looks like this:

Well, technically cellular service is invisible. It’s more something you sense in your soul when you don’t feel like hucking your phone out the window during a conference call. So in that way, Verizon is sort of like inner peace, but with less yoga involved.

I’m not required to review the Palm, and frankly I didn’t plan to, but a few of you said you were pondering new phone purchases and asked me what I thought. So here’s the stuff I liked:

Making calls. Primarily, I enjoy using my Palm as a telephone that will call people when I dial their numbers — people with whom I can have complete conversations until we mutually decide it is time to hang up. I carried both my iPhone and Palm with me while friends got used to my new number, and I can’t tell you how many times I called friends on the iPhone so they’d recognize my number, and then had to immediately call back on the Palm so they could hear what I was saying.

Dropping it in soup. So. Right after I activated my Palm, I kind of dropped it in soup. I was freaking out, thinking I’d have to admit I’m a terrible phone parent and ask for another phone. But then I just dried it off with my napkin and it kept on working. I did have to scrape some dried soup out of the charger port with a safety pin, but otherwise it didn’t even cough. Nice.

Taking photos. The phone takes killer photos, you guys. Here’s what a snapshot looks like straight out of the phone with no Photoshop intervention:

See what I mean? (Bryan took that, by the way. Thanks, B!)

Also, it has a flash! On the phone! Which means you can use it just like a regular point and shoot without having to lug around another gadget.

Making videos. You can record video on your phone. Do you hear me? We are living in the future, y’all:

Typing. I know not everyone agrees, but I like the tactile feedback of buttons when I’m typing. Some people find the buttons too small, but I didn’t have that problem. In fact, I actually used my phone to send email for the first time in my life because the email is so well integrated and it’s so easy to type.

Applying lipstick. Yeah. The phone has a compact on the back:


(Photo from the Palm Info Center, which has a detailed review if you’re looking for one.)

When I first saw it, I was irritated. Like, “Oh, I’m a girl! I want a girl phone that helps with my lipgloss.” Then I used that stupid mirror three times before I even activated the phone. My makeup has been flawless for the last month. Curse you, user testers and your uncanny insight into my demographically predictable needs!

Downsides? Because I use the camera and video constantly, I run the battery down pretty fast, which can be frustrating. So you might want some sort of battery backup if you’re not religious about charging your phone every night. Also, I tend to be an early adopter of mobile applications, and betas aren’t always available on the Palm. I realize that may not be a problem for… most of the world, but there it is.

All in all, this is a good phone on a great service. I actually think it’s a smart choice for bloggers because the camera and video are superior and it’s much easier to type, so you can do mobile updates easily.

The Giveaway

If you’d like a Palm Pre Plus for yourself, not to mention a lot of free service from Verizon Wireless, please leave a comment below promising that you will not use your new phone to text while driving, and that you will not drop it in soup within 24 hours of receipt.

Now for the fine print: You must be 18 or over to enter and live in the U.S. Multiple entries will be disqualified. Comments will be open until Wednesday morning March 31, 2009 at 11 a.m. PST. I’ll choose winners randomly using Random.org, and will announce later that day. Good luck! My fingers are crossed for you.

Published

1,047 thoughts on “Free Stuff! Verizon Service and Palm Pre Plus Giveaway”

  2. Woah 800 comments! I will not text while driving and will try to avoid soup. I also would like to come up with some elaborate torture mechanisms for my iphone when it drops calls (or keeps giving me this garbling hiss noise during ever call…) I miss verizon dearly.

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  6. Pinky-swear I’ll keep the promises you’ve asked us to make, AND I also pinky-swear to get that kicky little red leather case, from the gadget case roundup, so this particular Palm Pre Plus won’t have to brave the elements every day in its birthday suit. Do I completely destroy my chances by admitting that I’ve already settled on “Little Red Corvette” for the primary ring tone?

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  10. I will only text at stoplights. I will not drop the phone in soup for at least 48 hours. I might, however, use the alphabet noodles from my soup to spell out potential texts while driving.

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  12. I promise not to text. I have a HTC phone which is great for a keyboard, but I’m curious to try another phone as there are some things that drive me bonkers – and I have to wait for Feb ’11. to get my next phone. Thank you for posting the give-a-way.

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  14. I promise I will not text as I bike up and down hills in San Francisco, though now that google maps has bike routes it will be hard not to plan en route. And though an avid soupmaker, I don’t plan to put any electronics other than an immersion blender into my soup (key word here being “plan”).

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  15. I’ve actually really wanted to try the Pre. I’ve heard good things, and I too often feel the need to chuck my iPhone out of the nearest window.

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  16. I promise I will not text while I drive, nor will I drop my phone in my soup. In addition, I promise to finally get one of those nifty little phone protector-covers which my current cell phone sorely wishes I had invested in.

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  19. I’d love to see if a palm pre plus fits in my lifestyle. I promise no soup in the first 24 hours!

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  21. I’ve never broken a phone before, and i swear, my cell phone now bears more than a passing resemblance to a Zack Morris phone.

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  22. Please choose me! my husband won’t let me get a Droid b/c “it’s too expensive”. I want an iPhone, but I prefer Verizon.

    I promise not to text and drive and I hardly ever eat soup while on the phone.

    Thanks!

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  23. I most solemnly swear that I shall not text whilst driving nor shall I drop le Palm whilst partaking of the soup. Promise promise. ***crossing fingers***

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  24. I would love to receive the phone and plan! Although I am 25 years old and am looking to become a manager, I am still on my parents phone plan. And when I was in a different state on a business trip, even though I paid my parents on time, they did not pay the cell phone company on time. So I was without a phone. In a different state. On business.

    Yeah, I’d really like the verizon coverage.

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  26. I’ll bite. I really need a new phone as my current one is falling apart (literally… some of the little keys on my Pantech Duo have come off)

    I promise not to text while driving. I don’t even like to talk or answer the phone if it rings while I am driving.

    But I can’t promise not to drop it in food, or in a mud puddle, or off the back deck. I am kinda clumsy like that.

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  28. I promise to try really hard not to drop my new phone in soup in the first 24 hours….. Is that good enough?

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  29. I’ve been *dying* for one of those phones! I was uber jealous when they gave you one for free! Pretty please, pick me 😀 *bats eyelashes and looks cute*

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  31. I would love this phone, because my husband would be SO JEALOUS! OH! Also, my current phone has decided to randomly power off. Is that almost as annoying as garbling calls? 😉

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  33. Totally promise not to drop in soup. Or leave it in my kitchen where the ceiling can cave in on it when the water heater explodes. I’ve learned my lesson.

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  34. I promise and I promise…and I’m a frustrated iPhone/ATT user. Ready to cross over to the other side!

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  36. I, Stephanie, promise I will continue not to text while driving, will continue to use my bluetooth and will use the mirror to check “the cave” for “bats” (read: boogers).

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  37. This is fantastic, so I can promise to make someone else handle the texting while I drive… and also to forgo any and all soup interactions for at least 2 weeks following.

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  38. I promise that I will not use my new phone to text while driving, and that I will not drop it in soup within 24 hours of receipt.

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  39. This would be so great! I switched to AT&T for the iPhone, balked on the purchase and now have crappy service on a normal phone. No texting while driving! No dropping in soup! Thanks!

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  40. As a graduate student, I L-O-V-E free things. Especially things I have to pay for (cellular service) here’s hoping that the random number generator spits out my number.

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  41. I promise not to drop this lovely phone in a liquid of any kind. I’m personally opposed to marinating, basting, “blessing” or otherwise submerging electronics whenever possible. I don’t drive very often, so I promise not to text while operating a moving vehicle. Thanks for the giveaway!

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  43. I will never text and drive and I won’t drop my phone in soup 🙂 and I could really use a new phone that has some gps/maps application since I am new to the bay area. Also, being able to google things and show my boyfriend I am right would be awesome!

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  45. I promise not to text and drive solely because I have two kids in the car at all times. You try to navigate a car, keep two kids happy, and break up fights over what to listen to on the radio. And the last one is between me and my guilty conscious thinking that Wheels on the Bus should be playing and not KISS. Who has time to text in the car with all that going on?

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  47. I promise not to text while driving — hard enough driving with three kids in the backseat!

    Looks like a great phone!

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  50. I promise not to text while driving or eating/making soup. But I can’t promise I won’t text and breastfeed at the same time…

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