Only had a few short weeks to live with the ol' RAZR.  Unfortunately it appears to have died a most untimely death.  Not sure why it happened, but it would no longer charge the battery.  The phone would work just fine while connected to power, but as soon as it was disconnected it would drop from 3 battery bars to just 1.  And that remaining 1 wouldn't last very long at all.

The obvious "replace the battery" thing was done first.  Had to reseat the battery the very same day due to an "invalid battery" error.  From then on out, no errors, but no charging either.   Alltel then flashed the firmware to the latest version (which, BTW, solved the goofy double copies of the date problem), but didn't help the charging.  It did, however, result in a new error message while trying to charge.  "Unable to charge".  Hmmm, well, yeah, thanks.  Why would have been nice...  Today Alltel finally gave up on trying to make it work and replaced with a "HUE" for us.

The "HUE" is a neat little phone.  Comes with 2 sets of color inserts.  Mine was originally a glaringly bright red.  I immediately swapped that set of inserts for the much nicer dark blue.  It's a flip phone, just like the RAZR.  VERY much like the RAZR in shape, size, features, etc.  As a matter of fact, even the buttons look a LOT like a RAZR.  The only major difference is the outside display.  On the HUE it's oriented longitudinally (instead of laterally) and displays lit lettering (you pick a single color) on a dark background.  Not sure how the battery life is going to be.  The car charger and carrying case kit was about the same price as the extended life battery, so we went for the former.  My weekends almost always have me near a source of DC power, so it's even more useful than a longer lasting battery!

So, I can hear you asking yourself, "any negatives to the phone yet?".  Well, not yet, exactly...  It has this idiotic, flimsy little door that covers the power connector.  I give it 50/50 odds on even surviving the first month.  I don't see how this possibly passed Q&A.  It never should have even made it on the design board that way.  I use that connector 1-2 times every day.  The door's connection to the phone is exceptionally flimsy.  It's going to break, it's just a matter of how quick.  Compare that to the v265 and RAZR that had nice trim little connectors stylishly built in (and NO FLIMSY DOORS)!  That definitely goes into my "What were you thinking?  You were thinking, weren't you?" files...

To sum up, it looks like it's going to be a nice little phone, but only time will tell.  As it stands it has only one flaw that I've noticed, and once that door snaps off, well, that flaw won't exist anymore...