Casio G'zOne Rock / Reviews

As a phone that can go from a fishing trip to the boardroom to the hip pocket of a hopeless klutz, the Casio G'zOne Rock holds its own, but it won't wow people who need better text or Web connectivity.

Read original review at PCWorld.

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The Casio G'zOne Rock on Verizon Wireless appears to be a seriously rugged feature phone, but it's not as rugged as we had wished. It's tough enough to handle a hiking or boating trip, and features six outdoors-centric applications including a pedometer, thermometer, and lunar calendar. The tradeoff, once again, comes in voice quality, making it hard to recommend this phone to anyone other than the outdoor adventure crowd.

Read original review at PC Magazine.

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The Casio G'zOne Rock is military-certified to withstand a variety of environmental hazards, plus it features outdoor-specific applications like a compass and a thermometer. It also has EV-DO Rev. A, Push-to-Talk, GPS, a 2.0-megapixel camera, and more. The Rock is certainly a rugged handset made for outdoor use, but it is so chock-full of multimedia features, you'll enjoy it at home as well.

Read original review at Cnet.

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The processor needs to be improved. I open the flip phone and I have to wait for the phone to react (light up). Delayed key response when texting or dialing (my most fustrating complaint). User interface is minimal at best. When speaking from time to time people have a hard time listening (the mic area gets easily clogged). I've had this phone six months and was ready to give it back after 3 when these problems started to happen. And to add, the docking station that came with the phone is about as cheap as you can get. Used it only once for a reason - too big a hassle to put into cradle for the metal contacts to properly connect. Being an avid Casio G-Shock watch owner since 94', I was excited when this phone came out, and after owning this phone I am completely disapointed.

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HORRIBLE phone... cant wait to get a new one. Piece of sh*t was on the charger perfectly fine. Then It randomly turned off and never turned back. O and because Its a little worn I have to pay $50 to get a new one. And by worn I mean no scratchs on the screen but scratches on the black outing that happens on all phones! Ohhh, yeah it turned off exactly 10 months to the day. I would that is quite a coincidence. Thanks again Verizon for your sh*tty customer service!

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This is not a rugged phone by a long stretch. Have only had it two months, in that time it freezes regularly, takes forever for button inputs to register, and the cradle charger stopped working. This supposedly "rugged" phone dropped from my pocket to the ground and the screen shattered. Although being told by four different individuals that it was indeed a defective phone, it is not being covered under warranty. Save your money and get something else.

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The only reason I got this phone was because it is waterproof. I was spending more on insurance from drowned phones than it was worth. My only choice of waterproof phones at our local Verizon store was this Casio or another brand which was 3 times as expensive and would have required me to upgrade my plan by $30 a month.

The phone is attractive. That's the good point.

Bad points: You can't hold the phone between your head & shoulder because the caller will not be able to hear you. Occasionally, the time freezes on the phone and you will have to open and close to correct. The alarm clock will ring once, you will attempt to dismiss it, the dismiss option will disappear and will sound again in 5 minutes. The internet connection will freeze- freezing the phone entirely- and taking the battery out is the only way I have found to correct it. On occasion the screen goes black requiring the battery option above. Sometimes, when you've closed your phone, assuming it has hung up on the caller- the call is still in progress. I'm sure I'll think of more annoying issues with this phone later.

I have yet to find out if the phone is truly waterproof. I will be a mad little mama if it turns out not to be.

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The charger on this phone failed in the first two weeks and was replaced by the store. The phone microphone became so unreliable and weak at 6 weeks that the phone became worthless without a bluetooth headset. The phone was never dropped or wet....so much for ruggedness. Warranty support is non-existent. DO NOT BUY A CASIO PRODUCT OF ANY KIND IF YOU WANT ANY KIND OF PRODUCT SUPPORT.

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Likes:

Sound quality

Rubberized exterior

1-button flip-to-open

Bright display

Customizable buttons

Included software: compass, sunrise/sunset times (I use this frequently)

Sound quality when using a wired earpiece (I don't use bluetooth stuff)

Dislikes:

Small front display

Thickness is more than most other phones

Charging/data port is a rare type (c'mon Casio, just use a mini USB)

Lastly:

My last two phones were Motorola Razors. The first one outlived its battery, the second one had a depressed "5" key. This is my first Casio and after 6 months it's working fine without any issues.

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I bought the first G'zone model when it first came out. My husband still uses it, he is an electrician, and we live on a lake. You just can't break these phones! I switched to a smartphone, after ruining a few I decided I needed to back to the G'zone.

I have noticed quite a few reviews that mention call quality (especially for the person on the other end) is very poor. I had the same experience at first, until I realized that the mic that you speak into is not at the bottom as it is on most phones....it's up by the hinge on the left side. So, if you hold your phone in your left hand (like I do), or any other position where the mic is covered by your cheek, people on the other end will not be able to hear you! I just adjusted the way I hold the phone and now everyone can hear me great! Not sure why the put the mic in this position.

Overall, I LOVE this phone. It's a step backward in technology from my smartphone, but at least I know I can count on it.

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I had the Casio G'Zone Type S (One of my favorite phones of all time) before the Rock and this is another great phone they have added to the line up. The only con if any is that it can react a little slow some times to the buttons you press and when you have the phone resting on your shoulder to talk to people it's hard for them to hear (angle of the mic). Other than that I give it a 10/10 for durability, reliability, functionality and the G'Z gear is pretty fun to play with. I left it out in my fishing boat the other night and it poured rain the whole night. I went out to get it in the morning and it was still working like new and still had a full battery. That's another great feature of this phone is the battery life. I can easily go 3 days without charging it which is great for trips to the lake on the weekend when you forget your charger. Plus it's pretty cool when you can dunk your phone in a glass full of water and then have one of your friends call it and watch it ring in the glass.

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Let me start out by saying that my previous phone was a Motorola Razr V3xx for reference.

The voice quality seems just fine to me. No problems with what i hear, & no one has complained about how i sound, either. I text a fair amount (probably 200 texts a month or so).

Texting is more of a hassle than my old phone was. Going through the menus to make a new text is a pain, though you can set up a short cut to pass all the menus by. Then you've got to pick out who to send it to by picking a "slot" for that person & then chosing to look at your contacts to pick out the person(s). Then you can fill out the text message. There's also a surprising lack of punctuation marks. No parathesis or semicolon. If you receive a text while you're reading another, it asks you to choose which one you want to read, then you've got to go through the menus to see the one you picked to look at second. Nothing horrible, but inconvenient. It just seemed to me like they needed to make an extra step or two in sending text messages.

Bluetooth works ok. A little shorter range than i'm used to, but not bad.

Reception is pretty good. My office is a metal building & i get better reception than i did with my old phone, though that could be verizon vs. AT&T.

Battery life is fine. It doesn't impress me, but i can go 4 days without charging if i don't talk much. Probably every other day for more talkative people. I like the cradle. Easy to use, so i don't have to wear out the o-ring that seals the normal charger connection by pulling that hatch off all the time.

I don't use the internet features, i can't vouch for that part.

I chose this phone for a few reasons.

1) I have young boys, so i wanted a phone that could take a beating. I read all the reviews i could find on this phone. I believe one even said that they had to use a bat in order to destroy this phone. I don't push limits, but so far i've had no complaints. I've talked on the phone while out in a mild rain, but that's all so far as water resistance. It can take the punishment my 1 year old can dish out, too.

2) I listen to a lot of music, so i wanted a phone that could work as a mp3 player. The mp3 player is pretty good, though not perfect. I got an 8 GB SD memory expansion & it holds all the music i've got & manages it reasonably well. It's not an ipod, but sufficent. You can make your own playlists, too. Speaker quality on the handset amazed me. Completely lacking on the bass end of frequencies, but other than that deficiency it was great. I would have prefered the normal 1/8th" headphone jack instead of the the 2.5 mm, but i bought an adapter & all was well.

3) I use the calendar & alarm to remind me of a bunch of things that i would forget. This is the weakest calandar i've ever had in my cell phone history. The main weakness lies in making events repeat. It has the abibility to make events repeat (i.e. birthdays, or weekly meetings, etc.) however it doesn't actually repeat them. It just does it for the original day that you set the event for. Also you can't classify an event (birthday, anniversary, meeting, etc). It works fine for single occurances, though.

Here's the breakdown:

Likes:

Voice quality, mp3 player, G'z Gear (compass, pedometer, lunar calandar, sunrise/sunset times, tides, thermometer), flashlight, memory expansion.

Dislikes:

Texting convenience, calandar

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I am a home remodel contractor and there are certain features that I value in a phone. Durability because it will get beat up. Push to talk. Flashlight. However, I am a little disappointed that the battery life is relatively short (my previous 3yr old phone had better life). I am also disappointed that there are only a few decent ring tones. It is very unprofessional to have goofy songs and weird ring sounds protruding from my pocket when I am talking to clients, vendors, subcontractors. I can't find non-obnoxious ring tones on the Verizon ring tone page.

Regarding the sound quality. One of my colleagues has the Casio Boulder, it's sound quality is awful, equivalent to an old drive-thru speaker. My Rock has some of the best sound quality I have ever heard on any cell phone I have ever used. I suspect that the many poor reviews regarding the sound quality may be referring to the Boulder.

Likes:

Good voice recognition software.

Heavy duty

Push to talk

Flashlight

Good camera

Water proof

Lots of cool G'zone apps: compass, walking counter, thermometer etc...

Good form factor

Dislikes

Battery life seems short (about 2 days)

- My brother (a Verizon rep) did tell me that cell phone manufacturers are trending to shorter batteries

Comes with a paltry selection of normal sounding ringers

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