Cell Phones

[Adcadet]

My wife and I are on a 2-year contract which is up here in a few months, and Verizon has their "free phone" deal (basically, $100 off per phone). Are there any cell phones out there that people just love? Or just hate? I'm probably sticking with Verizon, since they seem to have decent coverage here in Minnesota, including Duluth, MN where I'm doing a 4-week rotation (and I might do more up there if I like it) and dont' mind being 4 hours from home.

I'm pondering just getting a new battery for my LG VX400. The battery is just shot, and a replacement will cost me $35 for a standard battery, $40 for a high capacity battery.

 

[Mercutio]

I have an Audiovox CDM-8900 right now. I hate all phones but this one is marginally less annoying than the rest I was looking at when I bought it.

I don't do anything but talk on it - a lot - and I'm glad to say that the talk time is decent (about 5 hours on the extended battery). I'd love to find out how long the standby time is but it hasn't happened that I haven't gotten a call for more than about a day.

 

[Handruin]

I ended up switching over to verizon and I picked up a couple of samsung SCH-a670's. I've been very happy with the phone so far. I wasn't specifically looking for a camera phone, but now that I have one, it comes in handy from time to time. I don't care about ring tones, so I can't tell you how the phone performs in this area. Battery life has been reasonable for me. It's hard to judge because my last phone wouldn't last more than 5 minutes, literally.

 

[timwhit]

I prefer LG phones. I'm on my third model over the last 4 years. They have all gotten good reception and decent battery life. Plus, I like how they all operate similarly, which is a plus.

 

[timwhit]

Oh, forgot to add: these have all been on Sprint's network. I hate Sprint customer service, but I like being able to talk to other people on the network for free, since all of my friends have Sprint it makes sense to keep them.

Though my contract runs out in July and if they won't give me a rebate on a new phone then I may switch carriers.

Has anyone here used any of the MVNOs? Or just the big carriers?

 

[Adcadet]

Anybody use the PTT (push to talk) feature on their phone? I believe this is basically what the Nextel phones use.

 

[blakerwry]

I'm happy with my LG(vx3100) phone as well... I got the most basic model offered with no concern of price, I just don't want a flashy phone.

Battery life and reception are better than any of my other cell phone experiences.

I've dropped my phone more than once and it keeps on working. I'd get another given the opportunity.

 

[timwhit]

My original phone was a Touchpoint 2100. Did the job, that's about it.


Then I bought a LG 1200.

This was a great phone. Super small, great signal, good batterly life, and the speaker was loud enough that I could actually hear people talking to me. Then I came home one day and it was in a glass of water. My best guess is that it was on vibrate and went off and fell into the glass of water, which was sitting on a lower shelf than where the phone was sitting.

My current phone is a LG VX5350. The speaker is not loud enough and it is bigger than the 1200, but the screen is color.

 

[timwhit]

Here is a better picture of the LG 1200 in case you wish to bask in its glory:

For some reason they have an ungodly clip on the back of it. That phone was small enough to fit in any size pocket.

If they made the same phone with a color screen, I would pay $300 for it.

 

[Fushigi]

I still have and get great functionality from my Treo, but that's probably a bit more $ than you want to spend.

In terms of cel phone features, I have to say I'm relatively hooked on BlueTooth. Having a headset is nice; having a wireless headset is really nice!

Oh, forgot to add: these have all been on Sprint's network. I hate Sprint customer service, but I like being able to talk to other people on the network for free, since all of my friends have Sprint it makes sense to keep them.

Though my contract runs out in July and if they won't give me a rebate on a new phone then I may switch carriers.

Sprint has an 18 month rule. If your last contract/phone rebate was >18 months ago you can typically qualify for a rebate on a new phone. You may need to threaten to quit and get transferred to a customer retention person to get it; I'm not sure.

 

[timwhit]

Fushigi,

Not exactly. Sprint's rule is that if you activated a phone less than 18 months ago then you aren't eligible for a rebate. So let's say I drop my phone 17 months after I got it into a glass of water, then I buy a used phone on ebay and activate it. I will not be eligible for 18 more months.

I hate Sprint. I will threaten to switch service in July, if they do not give me a new phone then I will switch to someone that will give me a free/rebated phone. Sprint phones without a rebate run $250+. I will not pay this.

 

[Howell]

Look on ebay for your battery.

I'm a big fan of my LG VX6000. I'm on Verizon. I kinda feel bad for how badly I've abused it but it continues to work great. Work paid for a Motorola V265 which I dislike. Mostly I dislike how the software works.

 

[e_dawg]

Motorola V60gi. GSM/GPRS basic flip phone. No camera or polyphonic ring tones. Very compact and stylish. Fairly well built. Mediocre reception. Very good standby battery life. Handy shortcut keys, but menu system otherwise not very good. Can only store one number per phonebook entry, so you need to create separate entries if a person has home, cell, and work numbers. Crappy PDA features.

 

[Fushigi]

I hate Sprint.

Out of curiosity, why? I know you mentioned the CS sucks, but every carrier's CS sucks; none are rated highly and Sprint is generally not considered the worst in this area (I think Cingular gets the nod). My cel experience has been that I use CS to activate the phone and pretty much never again so CS rankings have never been too large of a factor for me personally.

Around Chicago, Sprint's coverage is pretty good although not perfect. Still on floor 99 of the Sears tower, I was the only person in a group that had a cel signal and I had 2-3 bars consistently.

Sprint's data plan is also the cheapest among major carriers. The only downside to the data plan is a CDMA limit where you can't do voice & data simultaneously.

BTW, my wife's Samsung was nowhere near $250 a couple of years ago when she bought it. Something like 1/2 that with about $80 in rebates as well making the net price about $40 (not a new account; just replacing her old POS Kyocera phone).

 

[timwhit]

I'm just pisseed because I was promised a rebate Jan 1, 2005 by a customer service rep and when I called them in January they told me that I need to wait until January 1, 2006. This is utter BS. I know multiple people that had contracts expire and told customer service that they are leaving and CS would do nothing to try to get them to stay.

 

[i]

I have a simple Kyocera cell phone (the model number wore off ages ago). I bought it a little over 2 years ago for about $80. Service and my usage level costs me just $6.67 a month. I've never had any complaints about customer service (the whole 1 time I needed to call them). Beyond that, they leave me alone and I'm happy.

 

[Handruin]

I had sprint about 4.5 years ago, and they were my first cellphone provider. I gave up on them after a year due to poor quality of service. I only had coverage on major highways, and barely (if at all ) when I lived with my folks. My phone would disconnect all the time, even when I had a full signal.

I know they've grown since then, but that experience was bad enough that I don't want to go back any time soon. When I called to cancel sprint, they offered me a free phone, or a free month of service. I took the month of service to give me time to shop for a new service and ended up switching to AT&T. I remained an AT&T customer up until about a few months ago. I had good service with little complaint. After I moved, I was no longer able to use my phone from home, so I witched to Verizon.