My wife has a Motorola V60s phone with Verizon as her carrier. This
phone has never been any good. People she calls or who call her too
often can't understand her and vice versa, signal quality is marginal
where her friends phones, also on Verizon, have good signal, etc.
She's brought it into a Verizon corporate store more than once to have
it looked at. Each time she is told they fixed it and it behaves the
same lousy way it did before she brought it in. Unfortunately she is
not entitled to a $100 allowance on a new phone until October. She
doesn't want to wait that long, but she doesn't want to pay full
retail price for a new phone either, although she might be willing to
if she could find a good no frills phone that works well and which has
a charger mechanism and connector that is not as fragile as the one on
the V60s.

Is there a no frills phone by any manufacturer that works well on the
Verizon system. She doesn't want or need a camera, an MP3 player, GPS,
fancy ring tones, etc. She just wants to reliably and consistently
make and receive calls. Is there a phone that is universally
acknowledged to be a great no frills phone? What phone comes closest
to that description?

Also, in light of the fact that she has what is basically an unusable
phone can she terminate her contract without paying the $175 early
termination fee? Why should she have to pay for a service that she is
not getting due to a malfunctioning phone?

Any constructive advice will be appreciated.