This morning, Verizon announced a new 4G LTE phone to their growing family, the Pantech Perception. As one would expect from anything released by Pantech, this phone should be considered mid-range when compared to today’s smartphone standards. It sports a 4.8″ HD (720p) Super AMOLED display, 8MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, and 16GB of storage. 

Verizon continues to hold out on giving us any sort of official release or pre-order date for their version of the Samsung Galaxy S4, even after almost every other major carrier in the U.S. has announced an in-store date. The only thing we know for sure, is that it’s coming in May and you can sign-up through their site to be notified of future happenings. Not much, right? Thankfully, we have Best Buy. 

This morning, we wrote up a recap of Verizon’s new Device Payment Plan since it went live today for smartphones and could be an option for those looking to upgrade phones earlier than the new 24-month upgrade cycle. Specifics on keeping unlimited data or how this new plan affects your current contract were a bit murky, though, so we reached out to Big Red’s PR team to get deeper clarification. We’ve heard back with what I would consider to be good news. 

The “maintenance” update for the Motorola DROID RAZR M that was approved by Verizon last week as build 98.15.66 started rolling out to users over the weekend. It’s not Android 4.2, but does improve WiFi connectivity, voice volume, camera features, in-call audio while using headsets, video streaming, and more.

The update is 80MB in size.

To try and pull the update yourself, head into Settings>About phone>System updates.

Cheers Rich and Adam!

Last week, we broke news on a new device payment plan that Verizon was planning to introduce on April 21. Since today is April 22, naturally that new plan is now live, so we figured a recap of the dirty details was in store. With upgrade cycles moving to 24 months yesterday, and 1-year contracts long gone, many of you will be looking to other options for upgrades, this being one of them. 

Today is April 22, so that means many of you may find adjusted upgrade dates included in your Verizon Wireless accounts. In fact, you may have found them to be up to four months later than you had previously penciled in on your calendars, thanks to a new policy change. 

After somewhat of an acknowledgement yesterday on Twitter, Verizon is fully confirming their plans to carry the Samsung Galaxy S4 with a new sign-up page. It only says “coming soon,” but you can add your name to their list to be informed of new information as it becomes available. The device is coming in May to “America’s largest 4G LTE network,” according to their official Twitter account.

Most of the rest of the big carriers in the U.S. are getting the Galaxy S4 before the end of April. To find out the latest on your specific carrier, check out this post.

Sign-up.

Cheers Jeff!

Verizon is determined not to allow anyone to catch them in the race to cover the entire US with 4G LTE. Today, they are lighting the towers on five new markets, so more customers can enjoy the awesome speeds that LTE provides. Beyond the new areas, they are expanding in others throughout much of the northeast. They are trying to shadow their 3G network this year, and it’s looking like they are well on their way.