My trip to the local Verizon store and what I found.

[Jmthomas1987]

Stopped in yesterday to my local Verizon store (Hastings, Ne) just to see what changes they had made.

Walked in the door and saw between 15 and 20 people in the store, most setting in the que area waiting to talk to someone.  There were 3 Verizon employees on duty helping people.

I started looking around at the display phones.  The only ones you could pick up were the Samsung models on display in this massive Samsung display kiosk, all tethered down, but you could hold them and test them out.

Same went for the Apple Iphones, the two that were on display were tethered, but available to hold and test.

Every other smartphone, what ones they had, were in a plastic shell, bolted to a countertop.  You couldn't hold them or start them because none of the buttons were accessible.  Basically all you could do was touch the black screens since they were all either turned off, or in sleep mode with no way to activate them.

I get they are trying to protect the phones from idiot people bringing their brats along and the monsters tearing things up, but that is more about asking the parents to either control their brats or leave the premises.  You can't run a business with that garbage happening.

They had (2) LG smart phones, (1) Casio Commando smart phone, (2) Motorolas,  and the rest were feature or dumb phones.  That was it.  No Black Berries, no Windows phones, NOTHING else on display but Crapple and Samsucks for testing.

So, just goes to show, Verizon has hitched it's cart to the Apple/Samsung wagon, all other brands and/or OS's are ignored or actively talked down.

Will be seriously looking at switching carriers once the Nokia 950/950XL phones are released and Verizon doesn't have them.  These are business class phones, and should be carried by what is supposed to be the "Nation's Largest Network".