I stopped at the Verizon kiosk in the mall and got talked into a Qualcomm QCP 2035a. Kyocera has recently bought the cell phone division of Qualcomm. So, I guess it’s really a Kyocera QCP 2035. The phone was selling for $99.00, and the guy sold it to me for $49.99. He said that it was a one-day only thing. I half expected him to open his jacket and reveal a bunch of wristwatches, but he didn’t. It came with a regular charger. I bought a car charger ($29.99) and a belt chip ($24.99). The salesman threw in a hands-free headset and my total with tax for the phone was $112.06

Next I had to contract a year for the service. It’s $40.00 a month and includes 400 anytime minutes and 500 night and weekend minutes. I have no more roaming charges or long distance charges. Features that come with the phone are call forwarding, 3-way calling, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, check billing, #Pay.

So far I’m having a great time with the phone. Verizon’s Mobile Web provides you with your own personalized web site that you can access from your handset. An email account is provided, or you can access other POP3 email accounts. Also available is a personal organizer for scheduling, addresses, important events, etc. I was able to sync my Outlook with the web site, and I now have all of my information available from my cell phone.

The web sites that are available are separate from regular web sites, but there is a world of interesting data. You can make stock trades, shop, and check sporting events, weather, and lots more.

When I cancelled my Alltel (GTE) service, the girl was very nice but told me that I was probably making a mistake because Alltel’s signals were stronger than Verizon’s. I’ll keep everyone posted if I have any signal problems.

If anyone is interested, I have a LGC-300W ($126.87) phone for sale. I have a leather case ($21.34), charger and car charger. I’ll take $25.00 for everything.

My new cell phone number is 813-767-3745 and my email address at Verizon is mcpease@VZW.com. u