The Verizon Wireless website has remained largely the same over the past five years, although it recently received a small makeover. The functionality has remained largely the same, but it has a better look and feel when navigating it. Today we’re going to look at the process of purchasing a phone on their site, selecting a plan, and we’ve included a tip on how to save money on your bill.
You begin shopping by going to the Verizon Wireless website and entering your zip code. Entering your zip code lets Verizon offer you the most accurate pricing information, since prices vary by region. Once you’ve entered your zip code, Verizon takes you to a portal where you can choose what kind of device you’re looking to purchase. This includes items such as smartphones, basic phones, tablets, netbooks and more. For the purposes of this review, we’ll be looking at the process of purchasing a smartphone. So, from the portal, we select smartphones.
Once on the smartphone page, you can browse all of Verizon’s available smartphones. It’s at this point that the site loses a little bit of its function. Until now, everything has been clearly marked with large buttons and a very logical flow. The smartphone page comes off as a little redundant, though. You can see eight phones immediately before scrolling down, and six of them are variants of the iPhone 4S or iPhone 4. The other two, the Samsung Stratosphere and HTC Rhyme, are niche phones – the Stratosphere being aimed at users needing a physical keyboard, and the Rhyme is tailored towards a female audience. At first glance, this makes Verizon’s smartphone offerings seem limited, since you’d expect them to present you with a variety of smartphones in the same way that the previous page presented a variety of devices. You can scroll down and view the rest of the devices, but it comes off as disorganized when compared to the rest of the site.
There are filters in place to let you change what’s presented, though. If you know that you want an Android phone or a Motorola phone, there is an option to only show phones based on manufacturer or operating system. Similarly, you can filter the smartphones being shown by what kind of keyboard they have. That way, if you’re only interested in having a hardware keyboard or a phone that flips open, you can narrow down your options like that. There’s also a filter for certain features, so you can view 4G LTE phones separate from 3G devices. Finally, offerings can be sorted by price if you know how much you’re looking to spend.
Once you’ve narrowed down your potential phones to just a few candidates, rolling over them with your mouse gives you the option to compare devices. By rolling over each phone you’re interested in and clicking Compare, then clicking the Go button at the top of the page, you can view the phones you’re interested in side by side. This gives you a look at the differences in appearance, but more importantly, it shows the key features of each device. Specs such as the camera, operating system, memory and contract price are all compared. This can be especially helpful if you are torn between two or three phones.
When you’ve selected a device, it’s time to select a plan. You add your phone to your cart, and you can go back and add other devices if you’re starting a family plan. The screen for selecting a plan lets you customize your voice, messaging, and data options. Unlimited talk and text with two gigabytes of data will run upwards of $100 per month. You can get below this by selecting fewer minutes. Like most carriers, Verizon charges so much for text messaging that an unlimited plan is really the only feasible option.
Here’s one fun hint to save on your plan, though: If you’re selecting an Android smartphone, you can download an app from Google called Google Voice. Google Voice assigns you a number separate from your carrier number, and gives you free text messaging. This let’s you pass on adding the $20 unlimited text messaging plan. If you’re okay with using Google Voice for text messaging, you’ll save over $100 a year by going this route.
From here, the process is simple enough. Once you’ve selected your plan, Verizon will prompt you to add additional features to your account and also show you accessories that you might be interested in. Finally, it will show you a checkout page summarizing your purchase. You can also enter a Verizon promo code on this page. If you use a Verizon promo code, you’ll be eligible to save money on your entire order.
Overall, the shopping experience on the Verizon Wireless website is very pleasing. The recent redesign of the site helps a lot. The icons are large and the website is overall aesthetically pleasing, making the site much easier to navigate. There were no particularly huge hurdles in the purchasing process, and Verizon automatically displaying accessories for the phone being purchased was actually quite useful. Future shoppers should have no problems getting the right device and plan.
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