First time buying cell phone...

[Nonlethal Force]

I've been very pleased with the Motorolla Razr phone I have. The battery will go something like a week between charges with normal usage (I don't do a lot of talking on the phone) and seems to get excellent reception.

I'm going to insert my opinion here that I'd take with a grain of salt. [You know the whole saying about free advice and getting what you pay for it, right?] Well, my opinion is just that. My opinion. But ... when we went into the store the saleswoman talked us out of the Motorolla Razr phones because they have a critical flaw. Not all phones suffer from it, but a larger majority suffer from it than I'd consider acceptable. The flaw is that some of the Razr phones are hard on their batteries. The saleswoman said she had 3 friends in the last 4 months or so come home with Razors and each of them have had to purchase a new battery for their phone every 2 months.

Like I said, just my opinion. Third-hand information there, so take it with a grain of salt. You might want to see if there is a Consumer Reports on phones and get an actual real scoop if you are concerned about it.

I have found that Nokia phones almost always get better reception than other brands. That doesn't mean they get reception always. For example, I used to have a SOny Ericcson and my wife had a Nokia. I could guarantee that everywhere we went she always had one more bar of service and I would drop a call sooner than she would. In the end, we both ended up getting Nokia phones this time. We're trying out the clamshell option with these phones. Never had a clamshell style before. So far, so good.

Also, I've learned to stay away from phones that use the old "notebook computer mouse" style button as their menu tool button. You know the kind I am talking about. It is a little button that slides up, down, left, or right and then presses in when you want to select something. If you use it too often, the button may wear out and the menus get hard to select. As it wears, you might have to press harder to go in one of the directions and the phone thinks you were pressing hard to select. Frustrating, to say the least. The phones wer both have now have a button for each direction and a seperate button in the middle to press to select. Again, very happy.

Anyway, free advice. Feel free to ignor it! It cost you nothing to receive it, so perhaps it is valuable, perhaps it is junk!

 

[Thanee]

Nokia is a pretty safe bet for a good phone, they make really good ones.
I also like the Walkman line from Sony Ericsson a lot (got a W810i myself, since I didn't have an MP3 player yet).

Bye
Thanee

 

[DethStryke]

Nokia is a pretty safe bet for a good phone, they make really good ones.
I also like the Walkman line from Sony Ericsson a lot (got a W810i myself, since I didn't have an MP3 player yet).

I also concur with the Nokia line. They are one of the few available in America that did not slaughter their phone designs for the American cell companies.

SE is a lot better now that the original Ericsson models are gone (Sony purchased the company a few years back, and finished out the last of their horrible designs).

www.mobileburn.com is a good resource for reviews on cell phones and companies world-wide. Be warned, most of the newest and coolest phones are released overseas... America mostly gets third-generation hand-me-downs! Be very specific when talking about model numbers and such - the phone may look the same, but small changes for the market they are in can make a huge flaw in the phone's performance. For instance, say a model 647 in Japan is a model 647i in America. Looks the same, and is marketed the same but the one small change between them made reception horrible where the Japan model is the best reception phone available. Just be cautious and precise when doing research.

Also be aware that many companies have "Authorized Agents" that are basically franchise owners. I suggest dealing with the store that is owned and operated by the service provider if you can at all help it. Some of the most shifty screw-jobs I've ever seen were from AA's saying and doing whatever they could to sell you into the worst contracts possible. The Customer Service is set up to resolve everything through the "branch stores" (company owned, in other words), which means they simply say "oh, well if you have a problem, you have to go across town to this other store to fix it. Bye." All of the sales, none of the CS.

Things can become a he-said/she-said deal from there. In those cases, I hope to god you keep all of the contracts, paperwork and anything else you sign your name to (receipts and all)... not trying to scare you, but you'd be surprised how many people I saw get the shaft from salespeople who were having their jobs be threatened if they didn't sell X number of whatever the heck the company wanted to sell that month. All because the customer didn't read anything or ask questions - just signed their name to everything in front of them and cooed at the new phone.

Yea, I was in the Cingular sales / IT trech for two years for a branch store. Great benefits, but I will never do that, ever again.