Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

======= A few words of advice - Added on 2/20/2014 ========= * Some people who bought this phone are disappointed and complained that it doesn't work at their house while their old Tracfones worked fine. This phone and the current crop of Tracfone Androids use CDMA technology (model number ending with "C") and use Verizon network. Their old phones use GSM technology (model number ending with "G") and use AT&T or T-Mobile network. Even though Tracfone may say this phone is available for your area, check with local friends and family to make sure there's good Verizon signal where you plan to use this phone before buying one. * There are now over 700 answered questions for this phone, covering many subjects. If you have a question, try searching the Q&A and most likely your question had been asked and answered. Click on "See all xxx answered questions" below the box where you would ask a question. On the next screen, there's a box to "Search Questions and Answers". Put in a keyword of your question (gps, blinking, tranfer, music, etc) then click Go. If your question hadn't been asked before, you're welcome to ask your new question. * If you take time to read through the comments of this review, you'll find detailed instructions on how to transfer your contact list to the Valet using bluetooth, how to find your unit balances, how to use the Power Control widget to toggle on/of Wifi, GPS, data, bluetooth, how to automate the PIN/password when calling voicemail. Now, on with the review....... =========== Part 1 - Added 10/12/2013 ================ I just received my ZTE Valet today. I played with it for about 4 hours and so far I like it. I've been customizing it, downloading apps and testing them. It runs every app that I have on my Galaxy Tablet and just as fast. I tested it as an Android device, using my home Wifi. Haven't activated it yet, so haven't tested it as a phone, except testing the supplied ringtones which are very few. I'll provide an additional review once I've had a chance to test it as a phone. I transferred my contact list over from the LG840 using bluetooth. Piece of cake. I ran a couple of aviation/navigation apps using the built-in GPS receiver. It's very good. Sitting in my house about 6' from the window, it picked up 7 satellites. ========== Part 2 - Added on 10/14/2013 ============ This part of my review focuses on how the Valet performs as a phone. I activated the phone on Tracfone web site according to the included instructions. It went smoothly. Got assigned a new phone number with Verizon. You'll need to activate the phone with a time card, or a credit card to buy time, or transferring time from another Tracfone. The Android phones don't come with the typical 20 "starter" minutes. I set up voicemail by holding down the "1" key on the dialpad, then followed the instructions to record my name, greeting, and select a PIN number. I live in the city and on a high elevation. The phone usually gets 4-5 bars out of the maximum 6 (haven't seen 6 yet). Sound quality of calls is very good. The volume is also good. The phone has a lot of features: speaker phone, mute, call holding, forwarding, conference calls, etc. There's a small LED near the top of the phone. You can set it up to blink if there was a missed call or incoming text message. This is helpful because you don't have to "wake up" the screen to see if there was any missed call or message. When you receive a call, there are 3 options: answer, reject (goes to voicemail), or text. If you select "Text", it switches to a screen where there's a "Quick Response" message that you customized previously (like "Can't talk now. Call you back later") and you can fire off a quick text message to the caller. The contact list has all the typical features: multiple phone numbers, email address, different ringtone, etc. You can assign multiple contacts into Groups. That makes it easier if you typically sent text messages to a group of people. You can also "join" multiple contacts into one entry. I get calls from various sales people and fund raisers. Since the phone doesn't have an "Ignore" list, I joined those people into one contact named "Unwanted" and assigned a low-volume "ding" ringtone to it. When the battery level gets down to 15%, you're prompted to connect a charger. It takes 2 hours to bring the battery from 15% to 100%, using the supplied A/C charger. You can also charge it by connecting to a PC USB port, although I haven't tested to see how long it takes to get a full charge. The phone appears to use very little battery when it's on standby mode. I turned off Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, Data, and used the Task Manager to shutdown all tasks, only the phone function is on. For the last 10 hours, the battery level went down 1%. So, it may live up to the advertised standby time of 11 days. I hope this is helpful. Feel free to post questions or comments. See the Questions & Answers and the comments below for a lot more technical information.