Cell Phones and Providers

[Aristotle]

Dal and I have been considering a new cell phone provider (sick of Verizon and their addiction to gimping phones) so I wanted to get some feedback from some folks here on the following:

AT&T/Cingullar general service, quality, etc.

Same for T-Mobile.

Experiences with the more modern Blackberry Phones (especially the Pearl and the Curve).

Experiences with the various Motorola RAZR phones.

Experiences with the Samsung BlackJack

Some of the things we care about are:

• general voice/sound quality
  
• bluetooth connectivity
  
• good texting and/or emailing interface
  
• good interface for taking/sending photos (though we do not use our phone as our camera, we have a digital camera for real picture taking)
  
• no annoying design flaws like holding it to your face causes random button presses, ringer settings getting changed randomly when the phone is in your pocket, phone breaks a lot, etc.

[Rijiny]

If you have it in your area, Cricket is a great service, especially with all you're asking for.

I personally have Tmobile, but it sucks for texting and if you use your phone alot to talk to more than five people (which I don't). We got it because we travel a lot between Ohio and WV, and it has free roaming.

[Caer]

I've used Cingular (AT&T) since about 2001 now. I've stuck with them because I've always been pleased with the coverage and reception, and the few times I've had to deal with customer service, they were pleasant enough.

I've noticed a slip in service lately though. It's ironic that they advertise the lowest rate of dropped calls, because sometimes you flat out can't call. Probably once a week (sometimes more, sometimes less) I'll get a "service not available" message when trying to dial. If I try again immediately, the call usually goes through, but it is somewhat annoying.

There are the usual pockets of bad receptivity, but you'll find that anywhere you go. Generally speaking, coverage is pretty widespread and good.

There has been one glitch that I've run into since getting my new phone in May. I don't know if it's related specifically to my phone model (LG CU500v) or something all AT&T customers may deal with (or if it's something related to upgrading my number from the old network to the new one - but that shouldn't have anything to do with it). But, sometimes my phone will not make the switch to a new tower. This happens more often when I travel (it happened to me at Tcon, actually...). So far it has only happened three times, I think. I now know that turning the phone off and back on is a quick fix, but it is a frustrating glitch (especially when you don't know what's happening).

So, other than those few problems, I've been pretty happy with Cingular and still am.

[Aristotle]

After further research, T-Mobile is definitely not an option. Their coverage in Lexington, KY is horrible. This is a shame since my research showed them winning tons of awards from places like J.D. Power for customer service and satisfaction. They were also $10 a month cheaper for the same plan than Verizon and AT&T/Cingular. I am not even considering Sprint as they are just the absolute crapz.

I looked at some other phones online from AT&T. The AT&T Tilt and the various Palm Treos looked interesting also.

Dal and I both seem to like the full QWERTY keyboard phones. We want to be able to send/receive texts a lot more easily because there are a lot more times nowadays where someone needs to get in touch with us fast and we are not at a computer (and a text would work better than an entire phone call).

The PDA functions we could care less about. The phone quality, bluetooth, and texting are probably our main priorities, with optional things we might mess around with including email, web surfing, games, etc.

[Leshrak]

I've had an 8525 for about 6 months now, I love it. As far as reception goes, it's better than any other phone i've used on AT&T (I've had AT&T/Cingular for 3 years now), call quality is pretty decent, and I love the keyboard for texting. I've even got a program called PocketPUTTY that I can thresh from. Battery life is so so, it lasts about 2.5-4 hours, depending on the brightness of the screen, the camera is decent for a phone camera, and the bluetooth works well. I just clocked my download speed on the UMTS network by my house at .7 megabits/sec (85 kb/sec) with half-signal (they JUST upgraded the towers near me to UMTS, it is so great).

My favorite part of the phone, though, is that you can charge it from any device that's got a powered USB port (the port for the charger is a usb 2.0 port, so it uses a standard USB 2.0 cable).

One thing though, if you get one of these phones and plan on using the browser/google maps, you'll need the unlimited internet plan. They've actually got 2 unlimited internet plans, one goes for 19.99/month (Unlimited MEdia Net), and the other is 34.99 (their PDA Connect plan). Don't get suckered into the 34.99 plan, because they're both the same thing for the connection (I think the 34.99 includes some support for corporate e-mail servers or some garbage).

Edit: That 2.5-4 hours is talk time, not standby. It will usually stand by for 2 days with moderate use before it dies.

[Leshrak]

I guess I should also post the drawbacks to it.

It DOES run windows mobile 5, so it can be kind of buggy if you don't reboot it every 2-3 days. Sometimes the keyboard and screen freeze and don't work again until after a reboot.. good ol microsoft at work. If you set the brightness up too high on the screen, it sucks the battery life out pretty quickly. The phone gets hot if you're browsing for a long time, downloading data (no hotter than other cell phones do on long calls though).

Edit: Rebooting the phone takes about 45 seconds.

[Talsek]

I've also got an 8525 through AT&T, and I love it. The Tilt is the 8525's successor, and would be my pick if I were in the market for a new phone. I'm pretty satisfied with AT&T's call quality and coverage, though I can't comment much on the customer service side. I haven't dealt with them much, aside from my initial setup.

I did find some annoyances about the phone early on, partially because it was the first I had with Windows Mobile. Luckily, I found a site called XDA-Developers. There are a bunch of tweaks and unofficial ROMs there for HTC devices. There's currently not as much available for the Tilt as for the 8525, but if you're feeling daring it may be worth a look.

Good luck finding a new little bundle of joy.

[Aristotle]

Having used Verizon for 4+ years, the idea of actually downloading software and having the freedom to install it is something I had forgotten about. So I keep having these "oh yeah, you can do that!" moments when you guys post stuff about installing a telnet client, or installing ROMs, or installing UI fixed, etc. That seems like a huge plus.

I kinda blew off the AT&T Tilt because the name sounded weird to me and it was about $50-100 more than the Blackberry Curve. But after hearing what you guys say about it, and reading up on it, I think I need to hit the story again and play around with one.

Do you find it too big for comfortable use, carrying in your pocket, etc?

Do you have to use the stylus or can you also use it touch screen and/or do everything via the navigation "mouse" wheel thing? I am not a big fan of stylus/pen based computing.

Are the internet features worth it? We rarely travel, but it would be nice to have good texting with some email/internet access when away from home. Being able to login to Threshold would be kindof amazing actually.

[Talsek]

I found the 8525 a bit bulky initially, and admittedly it does have a bit of a brickish look to it. But since I previously had a separate phone and PDA, I cut it some slack. I carry it in a cargo pocket regularly without a problem, but it's a bit bulky for a front pocket.

I go through phases where I use the stylus a lot, but most often the keyboard/jogdial/face buttons are useful (and configurable).

The Internet features are a tough call. I keep my phone connected so I can get realtime calendar/contact updates from my home server, and Google Maps has saved me plenty of 'exploring' time on the road. Having a very functional Telnet/SSH client is pretty sweet too (I prefer PockeTTY over PocketPuTTY, but they're both suitable). But is it worth the cost? I guess it depends on how much you think you'll want/need to be online when you're not near a wi-fi hotspot.

Regarding having the freedom to install software, I had to 'unlock' the phone before doing things like ROM flashes. So while that stuff -can- be done pretty safely, it should be noted that it's probably not with Cingular's love and support.

Edit: A slight tangent - Amazon proved to be a great place to buy a phone. I was a bit wary at first, but it was a good bit cheaper than other local places (at least for a new line of service) and everything went smoothly. Figured I'd point it out in case you hadn't checked there.

[Leshrak]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Do you find it too big for comfortable use, carrying in your pocket, etc?

Do you have to use the stylus or can you also use it touch screen and/or do everything via the navigation "mouse" wheel thing? I am not a big fan of stylus/pen based computing.

Are the internet features worth it? We rarely travel, but it would be nice to have good texting with some email/internet access when away from home. Being able to login to Threshold would be kindof amazing actually.

It is a little bulky, maybe too much for some pants that have smaller pockets in them, but it's just as thick as some other phones i've used and only a little bit wider/taller. I'd probably recommend a leather belt pouch/holder for it (at least Dalaena can use a purse )

You can use either the stylus or the jogwheel, using my finger is a little more difficult for some of the smaller items (like the battery indicator) because it's kind of fat, but it's definitely usable as touchscreen-only for most everything (not the stylus keyboard though). Typically i use a combination of fingertip touchscreen/jogwheel and pull out the keyboard to type, though on occasion I find it might be a little faster to type out a quick text response with the stylus.

As for the internet features, like Talsek said, it really depends on how much use you think you'll get out of them. I just moved to a place i haven't lived since I was 11, and Google maps has been a HUGE help in me finding my way around everywhere. Most common free email apps have a mobile version of their service (like gmail) that's customized for smaller displays, some websites also do (ESPN especially is awesome, i can easily and quickly check the fantasy league from my phone). One kind of annoying thing that I'm thinking about now, though, is when I'm logged on threshold, if I switch between a UMTS tower and a regular GPRS tower, I have to log out/back in... but really it's minor.

Another plus for the phone is that you can actually sync it with your laptops and use it as a mobile wireless access point. I haven't actually used that feature yet, but I know the capability is there. Yet another cool feature is that it's got a built in 802.11g card, so you can connect it to any wifi spot.