Verizon has a proposed settlement for the class action lawsuit about the Motorola V710 and it's lack of OBEX or File Transfer support. This is good news for consumers, bad news for Verizon and maybe bad news for Motorola. I question who actually has to pay: Motorola because it's their phone or Verizon because it was them (presumably) who made Motorola turn this feature off.

Even more curious is that now the VX9800 supports file transfer -- but still no OBEX!

They have a claim form that can be filled out now. Nothing will happen until the settlement is final, which is supposed to be on January 17, 2006. But you must fill out the (Verizon's PDF) form and have it postmarked by December 9, 2005! Don't forget. You can get a full refund.

In order to be eligible you have to sign, under penalty of perjury that you are the person it was addressed to (uh? it's a web form? is that anyone?), that you bought a V710 before February 2005, and that you believed it would support OBEX or file transfer, and that you own another device that supports OBEX or file transfer or you hand intended to purchase such a device. (Emphasis mine.)

That's relatively loose, really. I certainly hoped that the V710 could have that feature. I never got around to trying any of the firmware leaks that got around as I didn't totally trust them. But I didn't use the phone long and now I have a phone that has file transfer -- from Verizon! (And there were disclaimers everywhere that it didn't support OBEX -- which it doesn't.) I also had a Bluetooth PC Card back then and I have a Bluetooth-enabled PC now. And I purchased the phone the day it shipped -- almost literally. (Just like the VX9800 -- and neither were cheap, nor were they easy to rationalize. But maybe this will get me a refund on the V710 that will cover the VX9800 that has the feature the V710 was missing? Cool. ;) )

So don't forget to mail your claim form in on time!

More information can be found here at Verizon's site.

Posted by Shane on September 30, 2005 10:03 PM | Permalink