Yes.. It does matter. Many people come here (most probably just lurk) looking for information about what people like and dislike about their phones.

When simply studying the spec sheets of the various phones/providers it is easy to make a mistake (e.g. thinking that the 8830 comes with GPS because 2 of the 3 major providers list it in the specs; the third does not state anywhere that they have crippled it and are selling an inferior product, it is simply not mentioned).

Had it not been for the forums; I might have made a mistake and gone with VZW. I thank this board for making it clear that VZW goes out of their way to provide an inferior phone.

So, yes -- if the forums are to serve as a useful resource, this topic should be discussed. People will not discover the issue if they have to go back to 3 week old threads.

And now that VZW is vehemently denying that they have any plans to put VZN on the 8830 -- the move to cripple the 8830 makes absolutely no sense at all. I could understand the move (though it still annoys me) if they did it to lock people into VZN thus increasing their revenue; but crippling it with no plan to enable it whatsoever -- that is just stupid. Who would want to do business with a company like that?