Verizon's had a lot going on, from delving into netbooks, to chatting up Microsoft and Apple for new devices.* * That's a lot of fodder for gossip, most of it all in one shot. And predictably, it requires users to partake in the waiting game, to see if any of these actually pan out. Well, at least if/when the device(s) do land on The Network, users will be able to sound off about them. (Well, sorta.)

A new user review feature has been activated on the VZW site that allows customers to rate their handsets. The feature uses a star rating scale (similar to PhoneDog's), with one important difference: The carrier manually approves reviews, which could take up to 2 days.

To rate a VZW phone, users must log into their My Verizon account and pick the handset for review. When the page loads, people can choose from 1 through 5 stars for Ease of Use, Display, Features, and Battery Life. There's also an area for commenting on the device's Pros, Cons, and Comments. Sounds good, and it's great that the company has finally given customers the opportunity to honestly weigh in on its products, but with the long, manual approval process (and a lack of explicit criteria for filtering), there's a concern that Verizon will eliminate all but the positive ones. That would hardly be useful for shoppers, and only serve to tick off would-be reviewers.

I hope that's not the case. But Verizon, I guess only time will tell if you really can hear them now.




[Via PhoneArena]


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* * VZW IN THE NEWS (summary):

If you saw Aaron's post about Verizon potentially partnering with Microsoft for a new iPhone killer, or saw Noah's poll about whether Apple will join forces with the carrier, then you know that Verizon's been a busy bee.

Seems like the Verizon PR team has been working overtime. The news media have been buzzing about all sorts of stuff, including:

• a USA Today report about a potential VZW-iPhone coupling for either its 3G system or, more likely, on its upcoming 4G/LTE network. (CDMA, it seems, is hardly a contender, given the crazy logistics it would require to make that work.)
• a BusinessWeek story about the carrier courting a cheaper ?iPhone Lite? or Apple-branded multimedia gadget, which would be equipped to play music, photos and hi-def vids, in addition to making Wi-fi calls. Sound like the much-rumored tablet that Apple is supposedly prepping for release? Maybe so, but it's hard to say since the deets are coming from unnamed sources, which means they?re still in ?rumorland? at this point.
• and The Wall Street Journal's coverage of talks between Big Red and Microsoft about a new  touchscreen iPhone competitor based on WinMo early next year. (For more details, check out Aaron's post about that here.)
• (I didn't even mention Verizon's foray into netbooks.)

Big Red, you sure do have your hands in a lot of pots. I just hope all this pans out in favor of your subscribers, instead of just getting their hopes up for no reason. But whatever you end up launching on your network, at least users now have some way of reacting to the new device(s). That is, if your new rating system is legit.