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The Casio G’zONE from Verizon is the rugged newest edition to the business line-up offered by the mobile carrier. Built to MIL-STD-810F standards, the small orange phone is built like a tank. While it comes with the standards you expect from Verizon, the special feature for this phone is its PTT (Push-to-Talk) feature that can be added to the calling plans.
The Tech Herald spent some time pushing buttons with the G\'zONE. (IMG:Verizon)
The G’zONE is a phone geared strictly towards business. There is little aside from the PTT option that a normal consumer would want from this phone. While the G’zONE does offer V Cast, the base design is more for the tough-as-nails cement worker or welder on a high-rise steel skeleton than a college kid planning a party.
The idea that supports the rugged compact design of the G’zONE is the MIL-STD 810F standards testing and compliance. MIL-STD-810F is the newest revision (Jan 2000) of a series of standards that are used to test hardware to various conditions.
For example, one MIL-STD-810F standard is Salt Fog (509.3), which monitors a device to see if it will fail or rust if exposed to salt fog. Another example is icing or freezing rain exposure to see if the device can deal with extreme climate changes. The G’zONE is also MIL-STD-810F compliant for water, shock and dust resistance, immersion, vibration, salt fog, humidity, solar radiation, altitude, and low and high temperature storage.
(Some great examples of stress testing for the G’zONE using the MIL-STD-810F are over at Andy Kaiser's Web site.)
Here you can see the phone in the sink, notice that it still gets service. The signal did improve, but the steel sink did offer some resistance, and it had to scan for service a few times when underwater.
The phone, as mentioned, is built really well. The display and keypad are decently lit and offer little-to-no glare when working outside. The specs for the main display (2-inch, 240x320 TFT) as well as the external display (1.2-inch, Mono STN) are certainly decent for the phone's size.
The G'zONE also comes with a built-in 1.3 mega pixel camera, onboard flashlight and compass, as well as other Verizon-branded features such as the ability to use VZNavigator, along with ample internal storage that can be boosted to 8GBs with a microSD card.
As the phone is focused on business, the following Bluetooth profiles are supported: headset; hands-free; DUN (dial-up networking); object push (for vCard); object exchange (phonebook access); generic audio/video distribution; audio/visual distribution protocol, and audio/visual control transport protocol.
While not the central feature of the G’zONE, V Cast was tested during this review. The problem is that, unlike past Verizon reviews, V Cast was not so impressive this time around. The first V Cast test centered on video, with CNN picked to offer up video goodness; the “in the news now” video was selected and played in both horizontal and vertical viewing modes.
The video images were not as clear as previously seen, and while the 240x320 TFT screen is great for displaying menus and text messages, the video was hard to see properly, and any text in the video was distorted. Likewise, the sound was choppy and distorted no matter the volume settings; this issue appeared again when the V Cast music settings were tested. V Cast, bad marks or not, is something that would be called “hit and miss” on any phone not really centered on the service.
The G’zONE is a business PTT phone offering, pure and simple. Push-to-Talk is offered as an upgrade to service contracts for a monthly charge of $5 USD per line. The PTT service uses the company’s Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) network to carry the PTT signal and, along with Casio's G’zONE, the V750 from Motorola is another option for PTT service.
The good side to this is the network. During testing, PTT was used locally as well over long distances. The coverage and service worked great locally. Over a distance, a PTT-only conversation was held with a person in Michigan (The Tech Herald is in Indiana, for the purpose of distance marking).
There is a bit of a learning curve when using the PTT service. When talking, if the microphone is too close the person on the other end will hear you cut in and out. After you get the hang of using it however, the curve goes away.
The real problem is the “Barge” tone used to alert a user to an incoming PTT message. While in a quiet area, the “Barge” tone is clear and loud. However, while on a construction site, the tone could hardly be felt at all. Likewise, the speaker issues discovered with the V Cast test also resulted in many missed calls.
The test consisted of setting the G’zONE up to both vibrate and ring at full volume with the default ring tone sent with the test unit. In a loud environment, the phone was neither felt nor heard when a call came in. However, there are alternating lights (purple and green) when a call is waiting to be answered, and the external display screen offers a visual cue, something the site workers say they use with their existing PTT phones.
(While not a part of this review, the 12-person crew that was questioned, and who allowed The Tech Herald near some of the project area, were all using Nextel phones.)
Battery life was solid, lasting 60 hours on standby (no usage at all) and delivering over 200 minutes of talk/PTT time.
The PTT service from Verizon, as tested on the G’zONE, is a great start if Verizon wants to compete with the king of PTT, Sprint/Nextel. The phones are seriously built like tanks, and you can feel it in the hard plastic case. The PTT is affordable, and would serve a roaming technician or small construction crew well. Based on testing results, the best use of the new service and the G’zONE phone would be to issue them to the sales team in an office, or teams that are constantly in communication but are often situated off-site.
For trade workers such as construction, electricians, plumbing, etc., the PTT service would also make a good source of contact, depending on the job site.
Overall, the Casio G’zONE and the PTT service from Verizon is a great base. Expect new phones and improved sound and notifications in the future as Verizon is unlikely to give up without a fight in a PTT vertical. Right now the Casio and Motorola PTT phones are $129 USD after rebate. Again, the PTT service is an extra $5 USD per month depending on whatever Verizon contract you happen to be using.
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