Cell phones

[Kelshara]

So I have to bite the bullet and get a cell phone for work, even though I really dont want one (yeah I am a tech person who doesn't want a cell phone.. bite me!). I have refused to get one for years so am completely out of date on what is good and not so good. Of course I also have no clue which providers are good here.

Some info:
- I live in the Cleveland area so the reception area would be Cleveland-Akron area with some (very rarely) out of state trips (to Texas, Montana and CT mostly).
- Email ability would be helpful but the Blackberry style phones run quite expensive both for purchase and service.
- Wouldn't cry if it had chat abilities (ICQ/MSN/whatever) since we actually use that at work.
- Camera has zero impact on my choice. I would never use it anyway.
- Brand name is irrelevant as long as the phone is good.

I know there are a lot of knowledgeable tech people here so give me some input! Heard Nextel is only good if most other people I talk to is using it and that AT&D is not all that. Sprint supposedly gives poor reception in the area of our main office.

I was looking at Sony Ericssons T637 with a Cingular connections, but also a few others.

Gimme input!

[Lohrno]

Well, there are better phones than the one that I'm about to reccommend, but all in all, it is in fact a kickass phone.

Go with Verizon (a little pricey but you get coverage in most places. I haven't seen many places that I don't have coverage..) and get a LGVX7000. No email or chat abilities, but has a nice screen, you can actually take video, and record record audio while you're talking.

The best thing though is that it is loud. You might not think it's that important, but it kinda is.

At least I'm happy with that configuration. You can also go browse some mobile compatible pages, and play cool games.

I used to have a Nokia Communicator, but it wasn't very loud, and this phone is better for my work. I don't regret switching though. It also wasn't very loud but could do email and ICQ, etc.

-=Lohrno

[Lohrno]

Oh yeah another thing is I'd be kind of wary of Nokia phones. I've seen them crash a lot.

-=Lohrno

[Siji]

Oh yeah another thing is I'd be kind of wary of Nokia phones. I've seen them crash a lot.

YMMV.

I've had nothing but Nokia phones until I got my most recent one, which is the Motorola V600. Features wise, it's fairly nice. I was rather gung-ho about it when I first found it. However, I've had several problems with it, and over time I've grown to be not that happy with it. Of my Nokia phones, I've liked them all. I did have a Sony-Ericson one (T62u) that I absolutely HATED. Personally, when I get around to disliking my V600 enough, I'll likely be going back to a Nokia.

As for provider, of the ones I've tried (AT&T, Verizon, Cingular) I've liked Cingular the best. AT&T has some nice features and such, but being that Cingular purchased AT&T Wireless.. Verizon.. eh.

One thing I discovered when trying various carriers.. both Verizon and Cingular won't charge you a bill if you return the phone within the first 2 weeks or 30 days (depending on their policy) as long as you haven't gone over the minutes you started with.. AT&T however, will. I was rather upset about that.

[Lohrno]

Yeah my communicator wasn't too bad. The 3589i though is definitely a piece. If you fill up the filesystem, odd behavior will happen. I'd guess it would brick if you tried to add contacts. Hence I'm wary. I'd also be wary of Samsungs. Motorolas are pretty decent though.

-=Lohrno

[Kelshara]

Well the record video and audio aren't high on my list I must admit I'd rank a server emailing me about a problem over that As for Nokias, I know people who love them and people who hate them. They are often not the easiest to use it seems but once you learn them most people love them.

Bring on the suggestions!

[Lohrno]

Get a new Communicator then I'd say. Not that loud, but I had one and it didn't cause me many problems. They're kinda pricey but if you have a dial up ISP you can do full fledged HTML browsing and read pdfs on them. You can also buy an ICQ client for it. The 'mouse' in it is kind of awkward though, and when you're using the modem it's kind of slow but it does get the job done.

-=Lohrno

[Kelshara]

heh can you still get pulled over for carrying a concealed weapon with those things? Freaking lethal weapons.. They at least used to be huge, and unless I can find some insane sale I can get a Blackberry way cheaper.. Both of them are a bit big to use for every-day stuff though. Guess I am asking for the impossible, a fairly cheap, fairly small and fairly useful phone!

[Llaffer]

(yeah I am a tech person who doesn't want a cell phone.. bite me!).

You're not the only one - I've never owned a cell phone, and the longer I can live without one, the happier I'll be.

[Tenuvil]

Kelsh:

I recommend T-Mobile. The areas you are going to be traveling through all have excellent coverage with T-Mobile. I'd avoid Verizon as they have questionable billing practices and their network, though appearing very comprehensive, has holes still in areas that appear on the map as being well covered (as an example, the Mass Pike from Springfield to Boston is hit or miss and dropped calls are frequent there). Verizon's network is older CDMA technology and the sound quality is significantly poorer than on GSM networks such as T-Mobile.

I have this Nokia 6010 phone, excellent no-frills phone with good sound quality, great signal strength, long battery life, built in AIM and ICQ instant messenging tools, and free to boot: http://www.t-mobile.com/products/images ... lass=phone

T-Mobile also has the new Blackberry which looks awesome too: http://www.t-mobile.com/products/images ... &class=pda

FWIW, I've found that my average minutes used on T-Mobile are less than on other carriers. T-Mobile does not round calls up to the nearest minute as Sprint and others do, and does not count a call under three seconds as a completed call. This can add up to serious savings.

Whatever you choose good luck.

[Neost]

I recently got a kyocera se44 slide phone which is pretty nice. I like it mainly for the speaker phone that I use for hands free conversation in my truck. I don't much care for the keypad, the buttons are a bit too small for my large fingers so i often hit a wrong number when dialing.

It has voice recognition that not only lets you record a name to dial a number but will actually let you give it the number to dial in case it isn't in your phonebook. The VR kinda sucks and if I'm running my AC or heat I can't use that with the speakerphone.

It's a touch-to-talk phone and has web capabilities, text msging, etc. etc.

I don't know much about plans. I work for a wireless carrier and never see a bill so i don't pay attention to minutes, etc. etc. I do know I've seldom ever hit a dead spot and i travel in the Cleveland area quite a bit. I assume we sell wireless around there but we're primarily wireline in that part of the country.

[Aabidano]

I've had nothing but good results with Nokia phones, I've worn out 3 so far. LG phones are OK, my only complaint would be that the menus are arranged oddly and the keys are too small for my fingers. I switched to a LG4015 recently, don't care for it but it works well enough. The Siemens phones are pretty nice across the board from all reports, never had one myself though.

I've been really happy with AT&T as a carrier, after being bought\merged with Cingular that should only improve. I've travelled all over the country with no problems. Verizon's decent as well, though you can run into problems if you aren't in one of their core areas. It seems with Sprint you need to be pretty careful based on the are you live or travel in, they range from really good to really bad.

No idea on "regular" pricing, the prices I've looked at have all included employee\partner\vendor discounts. Given the market I'd think they would all be pretty similar.

[Truant]

Asking someone who doesn't live where you live, or where you are going to be travelling for provider advice is generally a bad idea.

In some towns, it would serve you better to have verizon, in some cingular/At&t megaconglomerate, everywhere is largely different.

I'm just recommending you ask around people locally, and then maybe ask some people in the areas you're travelling to.

Listening to someone from another side of the country tell you which provider is best is ludakrist.

[Kelshara]

Yeah when I asked about providers it was more if people had specific bad experiences with the service and not necesarily how the reception is I suppose. I'm pretty free to choose what I want since the company is relatively small and, although has an excellent benefits package, they do not have a cell phone deal.

I'll take a look at the phones that have been listed, thanks for the ideas guys

[Hoarmurath]

My little snippet of advice would be to actually test out the various ring and alert tones before you purchase a phone. All of my work alerts are text messaged to my phone, and one of my previous phones (Audiovox CDM8900) had a horrible selection of alert tones that simply could not wake me up. My current phone (Audiovox CDM9900) has awesome alert tones (not to mention a nice high-res screen).

Also, for what it's worth, I use Verizon, and I've never had a problem with them at all. Verizon was also recently picked by Consumer Reports for having the best customer service.

[Bubba Grizz]

I personally hate cell phones as well. However, I have one for emergency reasons due to long drives to work sites and such. I'll tell you one thing though, and I feel sick about it, I would really like to get a nice phone. Why? Simple base issue. I want to be like all the other tech guys who have phones and such. I went on a call about 2 hours from home and my phone didn't have coverage. I was with some other IT guys and I found myself being embarrassed. I really didn't like that feeling. I still have the old phone because I don't like the plans that are out there now.

I watch the commercials today and they are annoucing all new plan features that I thought they should have had to begin with. That made me believe that they were screwing people this whole time and are only now giving the service that they should have given from the start.