Verizon Wireless offers help on smartphones, but...

Some buzz that Verizon Wireless is launching something called Smartphone Resource Center. This Center on their site is supposed to include smartphone specs, training videos, FAQs, and comments from other VZ customers. This is a step in the right direction. We hope that customers find it useful. It is so important to simplify and 'decode' what the carriers say in their mass media campaigns. The way carriers and their phone vendors pump out barely improved and slightly modified 'new' phones every month is peculiar, and more helpful to the companies than to their customers. Until we see it, we have reservations about whether a company-owned site with such info will offer an improved way for its customers to figure out what they want. Without such understanding & decision making criteria, customers walk away thinking they got a cool latest/greatest phone at some sweet deal, and the carriers accomplish their true goal of either taking someone away from a competitor or renewing a contract that locks you in for another two years.

Of course, one of the good things with the explosion of information on the internet is that there are some good 3rd party (non-carrier/manufacturer) sites/blogs that can help you catch up to everything service providers throw at you. There are many 'established' blogs and info centers online that pump and dump information, but search for some new ones that offer a fresh perspective without sounding overly technical or complicated, and always get more than one side to every topic.

Tell us what sites you use and we will add them to our list of "recommended" sites.