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Greetings and Happy New Year - fellow Geeks!

My question posed to the minion is this... for the few of us that are Verizon suc... er, uhn... customers... we noted with margonal dismay of the missing and seemingly non-functional front-user-facing 2 megapixel camera - which was designed for video conferencing. I was wondering IF it is actually STILL there, and if so, is there anything that can be done to make it work... software-wise? I know that Verizon relented to remove its grips on the GPS, and it's rumored to be released some time this month... making it free for us to use with GoogleMaps and LiveSearch... to name but a few. Perhaps this product (did you even know it was there... in the upper right corner - in the black - about 3/4" from the speaker...?!?) is still functional, but software disabled... well, you know...!!!

Hint... hint!!!

By-the-by... had the chance to show off the attributes of VZ Navigator the other night - whilst attempting to find the residence of an emergency call in an area we were not familiar with. While enroute, I smugly typed in the coordinates - and set the device to work. Oh, it was slick out the gate, but s-l-o-w-e-d to the speed of cold molasses - until it froze completely. Only took about 10 minutes - and - to make situations even worse, it heated up the back of the device to the point that I got a prompt that I would have to unplug the phone from the power jack. After all the posturing and chest pounding (hey, I'm a guy... okay? We do that... like peeing standing up and not putting the lid back down.. it's just (SOME OF) what we do) I was humbled to find that my powerful new Omnia wasn't all that.

Kinda hurt...! Know what I mean??

Anywho, VZ Navigator is an expensive endeavor - even at less than $10 a month - if it's not gonna work well. Besides, I can't hear the voice'd directions - even if set to hands-free.

Any comments...?!?