Can one buy a Droid Eris without a contract?

[cookdav]

I'm a developer, who really just wants a Droid Eris as a smart PDA
(but does NOT want/need to make phone calls with it).

So, can I pay full price, buy it from Verizon, and use its 'wifi' connection to browse the Internet
(i.e. via my existing home Comcast/wireless-router), and NOT get a Verizon 'contract' and data service?

TIA...

Dave

 

[equus]

I'm a developer, who really just wants a Droid Eris as a smart PDA
(but does NOT want/need to make phone calls with it).

So, can I pay full price, buy it from Verizon, and use its 'wifi' connection to browse the Internet
(i.e. via my existing home Comcast/wireless-router), and NOT get a Verizon 'contract' and data service?

TIA...

Dave

Unfortunatley you cannot, I have an eris that I deactivated and went back to Droid this morning, when I go to main screen on Eris it specifically asks to dial the VZW number to get it activated BEFORE you can even progress thru other screens. that's a bummer. I just was going to switch between devices as I still have a contract with VZW. I think this is a NEW trend that some carriers are starting to do which I think is atrocious as they WANT you to get locked onto them. this then will stifle us to move devices between carriers of CDMA or as you mentioned to ONLY use Wi-Fi.
A work around is IF you already have VZW as your carrier, you can purchase an Eris, then swap devices (ESN's).

 

[cookdav]

...which I think is atrocious as they WANT you to get locked onto them. this then will stifle us to move devices between carriers of CDMA or as you mentioned to ONLY use Wi-Fi.

A work around is IF you already have VZW as your carrier, you can purchase an Eris, then swap devices (ESN's).

As I suspected. Verizon still 'sux' (and always will, I guess?)

I don't get how you would call that a 'workaround'? They would then REQUIRE me
to purchase DATA SERVICE (which I don't currently have on my 'dumb' LG-8300),
right?

I think the VZ salesman said that if I got either of the new Google-phones,
it would cost me an extra $30 per month, which I assume would add 'data-plan' for
the proposed Google-phone. (RIght now, I pay about $10 per month, as
the 5th phone on a family-plan, as I don't make/receive many calls.)

 

[ericsmcdonald]

As I suspected. Verizon still 'sux' (and always will, I guess?)

I don't get how you would call that a 'workaround'? They would then REQUIRE me
to purchase DATA SERVICE (which I don't currently have on my 'dumb' LG-8300),
right?

I think the VZ salesman said that if I got either of the new Google-phones,
it would cost me an extra $30 per month, which I assume would add 'data-plan' for
the proposed Google-phone. (RIght now, I pay about $10 per month, as
the 5th phone on a family-plan, as I don't make/receive many calls.)

If ur eligible for an upgrade, buy the phone, resign a contract, add the data plan, then call VZW to have ur old phone activated. Then u can drop the $30 data plan.

If ur not eligible for an upgrade ur choices r a little slimmer. U can buy the phone for full retail, activate it as another line on ur family share as a month-to-month line, and after u get the phone working call and remove it from ur family share. However I don't know if Wi-Fi will still work. I dont see why it wouldn't.

 

[ericsmcdonald]

I'm a developer, who really just wants a Droid Eris as a smart PDA
(but does NOT want/need to make phone calls with it).

So, can I pay full price, buy it from Verizon, and use its 'wifi' connection to browse the Internet
(i.e. via my existing home Comcast/wireless-router), and NOT get a Verizon 'contract' and data service?

TIA...

Dave

Yes u can. See my post above. U can do the second option even if u don't have service with vzw right now. Just buy the phone for full retail, go month to month, then cancel once the phone is up and running. Pretty simple.

 

[toadster007]

If ur eligible for an upgrade, buy the phone, resign a contract, add the data plan, then call VZW to have ur old phone activated. Then u can drop the $30 data plan.

If ur not eligible for an upgrade ur choices r a little slimmer. U can buy the phone for full retail, activate it as another line on ur family share as a month-to-month line, and after u get the phone working call and remove it from ur family share. However I don't know if Wi-Fi will still work. I dont see why it wouldn't.

Are you sure? Won't vzn know that you have a data phone and automatically tag on a data charge to your account? Even if you activate your own phone, you will have to provide the esn number, if you do, won't you deactivate your Eris?

 

[Jared DiPane]

If you dont perform a factory reset, and you just switch your number to a new device you should be able to use it over wifi. I have friends on t-mobile that have done the same thing with their G1 and such.

 

[redman213]

So I had a deactivated eris lying around and I turned on wifi and it worked so yeah IT WORKS...I don't know about the whole entering a valid vzw mobile number to get past the setup screen but you should be able to skip right by it. The deactivated eris isn't mine so I can hard reset it but feel free to if you are ok with "redoing" your settings and apps and blabbity blabbity blahh xP

 

[Jared DiPane]

If you hard reset, you will be put to the activation screen again, wont you?

 

[IzelTokatl]

Hard reset will force you to activate the phone, i've done it twice on my eris each time it made me activate the phone. you may be able to bypass the activation though, never tried.

be careful using the phone without a data plan. you could get some major charges. disable the 3G with a widget, and enable wifi and you should theoretically be fine.

 

[Jared DiPane]

So as long as you had the phone active, and dont hard reset it, you should be able to use it as a wifi only device.

 

[IzelTokatl]

Yes, just disable 3G, so you don't get charged. One problem you may also run into may be the cellular services may not let you on, which you dont care about, but certain processes like the "phone" and some other background process may try to communicate with the cellular network. and will force close at boot.

This scenario also happens when you install too many applications that try to load at boot (after a restart). for some reason have a given set of apps blocks the cellular network process/connection which then sets off a chain reaction of processes to force close. After that the droid works fine assuming you have wifi, from which point you can do things.. (like uninstall some apps or check out the market). I've done it countless times.

again, i've not tried to use the phone deactivated, but I eventually want to do the same thing. upgrade to a Nexus One in a year and give this non-cellular Eris to my son to use as a bad @ss PDA/PDE. I'm hoping I can root the droid, kill the apps that call for the cellular network access so I can prevent the phone from trying to access the 3G (what airplane mode does) but airplane mode blocks wifi and bluetooth. So it IS possible, but not a standard option as it is right now. they let you use widgets to kill wifi, bluetooth, 3g, but not to kill the cellular network complete (part of the airplane mode). just need a way to hack airplane mode and problem solved