ok to all... I was a owner of a i760 for almost a yr. I had the first one and had a bunch of blue blotches apear on the screen. Sent that in and got a refurb. Then everytime in a call it would mute spiradically so the other person couldnt hear me. I called tech support back and they stated that they would get me into a new 6800 becuase they didnt have any more 760's to hand out. I told them I really didnt want that due to it being almost a 3 yr old phone or so. I said the xv6900 is the newer model and should be more comparable.

The agreed, Went to the store and they still tried to pawn me off a 6800, fought a little called back to verizon corporate and they put a note on my account for the 6900 ( lesson learned if they say a certain phone make sure they mark your account with the actuall model )

I have had this phone for a little over a month now and i am blown away. I went through pdahaven.com and use nsffan;s 6.1 ROM for verizon. It is actually a bell rom but now i have rev A. tethering for free, full gps built in and m2d screen setup that is absolutly nuts.
I love the fact of the much increased memory from the 760
Battery life seems to be in the difference area between the extended battery for the 760 and standard.

I use coo tech touchpal as my primary txt input method and love it. The standard htc one they give uses tx9 input which was really nice too but I abreviate things alot so it was up and down for me.

The touch screen having the smooth all the way accross feel rather then re-cessed into the housing is awesome for txting.

It is way lighter and smaller than the 760 and jsut as fast also. I think overall quality is pretty on par with the 760, maybe a little cheaper plastic is used but overall I am extremly happy with going with this phone.

Also another nice feature is you can charge and sync jsut by using a mini usb to usb connector. So no matter where I am if somenoe has a computer and i need to charge my phone most people have the cable from another device like a camera to use.

Just wanted to put in my info and let everyone know to push for a 6900 and you will be really happy.

Dont go with the 6800 yes it has a hardware keyboard but imo the screen doesnt look half as good as the 6900 and dont forget to say to verizon it is a much older phone than the 760 which the tech guy argued with me that the 760 was older, basically love when they get argumentative on something they clearly dont know.

Nice review, but some people don't pay for EVDO and need wifi... which the 6900 lacks.

Not sure about contract, but it is NOT affecting my NE2.

There is a reason i quickly asked for an i760 back. The keypad on the front was/is essential. The speed at which the i760 and 6800 changes from portrait to landscape is about equal... The micro sd card size limit on the 6800 is good and the wifi was equal. The way you change from airplane/vibrate/wifi/ etc was nicer on the 6800 as was the scroll wheel. The sliding keyboard is opposite on each phone. The i760 feels way sturdier as does the sliding function. The speaker on the 6800 sucked!
When i received my 6800 i was instructed to send back in my i760 w/in 10 days as was the case when i received my i760 back. There was no plan changes just phone swaps.
Not a whole lot of improvement from 6.0 to 6.1. I have had it running w/o turning it off for a week and no problems. I am not running any 3rd party aps yet on 6.1. There are a few minor things but not enough to risk bricking it.

Does anyone foresee a tactical (not ethical) problem with waiting until Verizon gets its act together and releases a better phone, THEN trying to upgrade to 6.1 and, in the event of failure, demanding a Palm Treo 800w, Samsung i770 / Saga, Samsung Omnia, HTC Touch Diamond, or even Blackberry Storm? A store near me basically has the vx6900 as the ONLY WM6 phone in the store. Unacceptable. I realize Verizon/Samsung might fix the software problem before most or all of these phones comes out, but it might work...
Also, does anyone know differences between Saga and AT&T Epix? Considering making the big Red to Blue switch...

nope... that's my plan!

Me Too!!!!

So are they officially giving i760s as replacements again or are they still replacing with a different phone?

Different phones from everything that I havve heard. I know my local VZW store told me that they would never carry the i760 again.....

Don't know what to do.... I think my warranty is almost up (as in days left if anything), but none of the replacement phones sound appealing (if only more vzw phones had wifi!).

Any ideas?

Well, the Epix is silver (just like my Q lol). Really cool looking. And it seems a lot more squared off much like the old blackjacks, but I like it's looks and form more than the Saga (i770). Functionality and features seems to be identical apart from appropriate 3G radio. Both have 320x320 touchscreens and optical mouse/Dpad, wifi b/g, bt 2.0, aGPS, 3G. Epix has 256Meg ROM/150 Meg RAM, certified for 32G SDMicro cards. I don't have the dimensions of the Saga off-hand but it looks longer, wider, and thinner than the Epix (4.6x2.4x.5) AT&T offers more multimedia stuff with it's data plans than VZW does, but that's about the only difference. Same rip-off pricing and data caps for data and tethering options.

I was thinking of going to the Palm 800w on Sprint since Slorizon is being it's usual ploddy self getting these new phones out, but now I think I like the Epix better. And 3G HSDPA just came on in my town not 5 days ago which is why I switched to VZW 2 years ago when EVDO came in so I might think about going back. I can only hope their network improved because the TDMA phone I had was lousy.

__________________
My brain is so full of S (Entropy, that is), I don't know anything anymore.

The guy that I talked to at Verizon didnt come out and say, but after I mentioned their training dates on new phones he agreed they were coming.
He did say that VZW has a contract with BlackBerry so they push their phones more than anything else and BlackBerry is their main concern

People I talked to on the phone were worthless... they said they had heard of absolutely no problems with the i760, that it was basically a perfect phone. Tried to get me to *228 when I told them it locked up constantly/has trouble waking up.

Maybe the verizon store will be more helpful... I don't have the evdo issue (but enough others), but my warranty expires in 3 days and I might as well try for a new phone.

I was in the same boat and now I have a 6800 coming to me. I called VZW today to find out a tracking number and the rep told me that they have the I760 in stock and she wanted to overnight me a I760 versus waiting till Monday for the 6800. I said no thanks! LOL I am looking forward to the 6800. Spend one year with it and the upgrade next year. Its kinda like Ne1

For those hoping to get a NEW phone out of this debacle (not any of the current WM6 pieces of crap Verizon offers), check this link:

Hot new phones coming to Verizon next month! (Phone Arena)

Omnia, Saga, AND Touch Pro all coming in November.

Potential problems: Touch Pro might be too high end for Verizon to offer as trade. Where's the Touch Diamond? Also, Saga is the official 760 replacement, but it is a "World phone," meaning both CDMA and GSM radios built in, meaning you need many dollars to get one...

Also, this may be in another thread already, but why does Verizon sell insanely underpowered version of phones? It seems like any phone Verizon carries that is also available on another carrier (Touch Diamond, Saga (Epix), many older models) has more memory, faster processor, more features, etc. on the OTHER carrier's version. Do they say to HTC or Samsung: "Hmmm, nice phone... could you make it totally suck so we can sell it for the same price as our competitor but make more profit, 'cause, you know, it's all about the network, and we, like, don't want cool phones distracting from our above-average coverage..."
Rant over (for now).

My i760 warranty was about to expire, so I went in and got a 6800. Seems pretty nice so far, updated it to 6.1 and the latest custom rom and it's running better than my i760 ever did. Just need to figure out the best way to actually use it as a phone.... I miss front number buttons already!

Take good care of that 6800. Doesn't Verizon give you 30 days to return if not satisfied? Touch Pro (Raphael?) comes out in November and is the 6800's official replacement.

Wow! Didn't even think of that.... but if I return this 6800, what exactly would I get? It was free (as a replacement for the i760)....

I honestly don't know how any of this might work. Essentially, I'm waiting until Verizon releases a new WM6 Pro model (or possibly the Blackberry Storm, but I doubt it) before I upgrade to 6.1. I'm guessing they will offer me the Saga, but I have no way of knowing. I think that is the phone I want anyway.

I'm using the touch flo 2d dialer setup, makes the whole screen buttons for dialing helps a good amount. Plus I used the audio fix for the insanely low audio levels.