With the Verizon Hub, the communications company offers cellular subscribers who refuse to ditch their landlines a VoIP phone that brings Verizon Wireless features such as V CAST Video, Chaperone GPS monitoring, and movie purchasing to the kitchen or living room, while allowing the home phone to communicate with family and friends’ phones through SMS messaging. While it doesn’t offer all the functionality of a cell phone or full-fledged Internet device, for $199 (after $50 mail-in rebate) and a $34.99 monthly charge for the Verizon Digital Voice plan, the Verizon Hub provides compelling enhancements to the traditional family phone.
Design
Measuring 12.0 x 3.0 x 0.5 inches, the Verizon Hub eats up a fair amount of counter space, much of it taken by a thin metal stand that extends the depth to just over 7 inches. However, the large footprint is necessary to accommodate a handset cradle, a large speaker (for the speaker phone), and the 7-inch touchscreen. The inoffensive shiny black casing neither excites nor repels and should blend into any kitchen, home office, or living room’s decor.
The wireless handset has a number pad, dial and hang-up buttons, a speaker phone button, a mute button, and a joystick that allows you to navigate through its menus. Additional handsets can be purchased for $79.99 each and placed throughout the home.
Putting aside the controls on the wireless handset, the unit itself has only a speakerphone button and a volume up/down rocker. A stylus used in combination with the touchscreen is used for all other functions. Unfortunately, the unit comes with only one easy-to-misplace stylus, which rests loosely in an indentation at the top of the unit. The unit also has two USB ports, which currently serve no purpose, but may become functional with a future software update.
Screen and User Interface
The vibrant 7-inch, 800 x 480-pixel screen provides lively colors and sharp picture quality from any viewing angle up to 90 degrees. The display is so bright that pictures and video are clearly visible even from across a large living room.
The simple, touch-based UI has a host of applications but only two main navigation screens: a customizable home screen with widgets for time, weather, messages, and calling features, and a menu screen with icons for each of the system’s applications. The left side of the screen sports three tabs: a Menu tab; a Communications tab, which takes you to the dialpad; and a tab which shows the name of the open application (e.g., V CAST or Contacts).
Icons on all screens are large, colorful, and easy to click with either the bundled stylus or a fingernail. However, dragging scroll bars can be a bit of a challenge, particularly if you don’t use the stylus.
For the most part, the Hub was extremely responsive. However, during several hours of testing, it froze for several seconds a few times and even crashed and restarted itself once while we were attaching a photo to an SMS message we were drafting.
The handset offers an abbreviated menu that you navigate with a joystick rather than a touchscreen. The handset menu has icons for displaying received calls, dialed calls, contacts, voicemail messages, settings, and an intercom feature. All other functions are available from the base unit only.
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