Cell Phone users...help me out, mmm'kay?

Hello all.

Short and point, I plan to get a cellular phone upon my upcoming return to states - I want to see if anyone out there can tell me any good brands ( of phones ), or even some companies that offer good deals so I can at least have an idea of what I should be looking out for. Basically, I don't want to be stuck w/ some Joe Blow Mickey Mouse Dumb-arse phone deal that'll end up ripping me off. I want to get a good minutes/nights/roaming?/weekend price package.

Can anyone give me any tips?

Thanks,

Fi-X :)

Verizon has the best service, and Motorola makes the best phones, IMO. AT&T sucks, Sprint is good, but I go with Verizon myself. They cover the most areas and the call quality is nice and clear. My Verizon package gave me 350 daytime minutes, 4000 night and weekend minutes, a free phone, a free headset, carrying case and car charger, all for about $40 a month. Not a bad deal.

Sprint is NOT good. Stay away unless you plan on living in a large city and never leaving. Thier network is probably the worst out of all the big cell phone companies.

Verizon is the best, just about any of they phones they carry are fine, and stay the hell away from sprint.

It really depends on where you live, seriously.

I hear what the guys above are saying about Verizon and Sprint, but where I live, Sprint is great and Verizon sucks. I've got a sprint phone myself.

Best thing to do is hit both of their websites and check for digital coverage areas around where you will be using them. I don't know about Verizon, but with sprint if you are anywhere in digital, everything is peachy, but if you have to use analog a lot you'd better bend over and bring some lube.

In two years of using my phone I've only made 1 analog call when I was travelling, so it's no biggie to me. Your mileage may vary...

I have a Verizon it's cool as shit, came with Monkey Ball, Space Invaders and you can download more. They are pretty cheap right now, so go check out the Verizons and see if you like

Depends on where you live on the servivce.
Here in cali, Verizon and At&T are tops then everyone else sucks.

Sprint does get the best phones first though.

Samsung, most durable phones ive come across. Droppe mine down a flight of stairs ad it was ok.

Nokia- very popular and has alot of accesibilty in what you can do to them but the 3300 series sucks and the 5100 series can have problems too. There best phone Cingular only has and its very expensive but cool.

Motorola, all around pretty good they have some clunkers and some decent phones, the V120 has worked good for me and it can be had pretty cheap,

Audiovox- DO NOT GO ANYWHERE NEAR THEM FOR ABSOLUTLEY NO REASON!!!

Most importantly is that you go to a direct store and DO NOT GO TO A "AUTHORIZED RETAILER". You might a little pay more up front but its far better to go direct.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Astral
Most importantly is that you go to a direct store and DO NOT GO TO A "AUTHORIZED RETAILER". You might a little pay more up front but its far better to go direct.

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Why is that?

Go for an Asian phone. They'r so fucking cool, and much better quality. Anyways, as long as you don't geta VoiceStream, you should be fine, VoiceStream has no service, anywhere.

Where to begin. Note: i've worked at an authorized retailer, so this is stuff i've seen first hand. It's not always like this, but really why take the chance. Also some of it is customer stupidity, but still it's mostly beacause there lied too.

-See since there not part of the actual carrier, the employees don't have much to answer to for one. I've seen them lie and put fake numbers on contracts, then customers comeback a month later with a thousand dollar phone bill.

-forging of customer signitures.

-authorized retailers have a tendacy to get their phones cheap because they buy refurbished phones, but still the defect rate on some is anywhere from 50%-100% on batches of phones and after you passed the stores exchange date, the store will tell you to call the manufacturer and if you go t oa direct store they wont help since you got it from somewhere else.

-some dealers also have you sign a seprate breach of contract and will chare up to $400 for that even if the phone is really worth $20. Sometime this is customer stupidity and sometimes the salesperson lies.

You cant beleive how many messes i had to clean up, and even when i was trying to make the customer happy, i'd just get in trouble from the higher ups.


There is more, especially if i also go into what some dealers do to there employess, then you understand why they'd lie sometimes.

Sadly conducting business bad they still seem to make money.

Also the antennas that you put on the bak of the phone are just stickers. $20 stickers.

Astral is absolutely right. If possible, buy direct.

As a seller of three different carriers, it can be upsetting at just how little we can do. We don't always know about the best rate plans, we can't do any activation/deactivations, and if you have any problems with the service we can't help at all, the only thing we can do is swap the phone-if it is within 14 days.

Although my job actually involves selling cell phones through an "authorized retailer", I too would recommend buying direct.

If you're into games and internet, and you live in a big city, I'd definitely recommend Sprint. Their new phones are mindblowingly cool, I'm looking at getting a discount on one soon myself.

Verizon and Cingular have the best coverage, it's pretty much a crapshoot. Cingular has better coverage in the lower USA, but Verizon has better phones.

:) aaaahhhh, I see. MANY THANKS from everyone who answered.

Well, I figured that it's time for me to get one for m'self, and now that I plan on getting an additional car, I need to also have one for my wife. I seem to get the same thing from just about everyone I ask, in respect to the "stay the hell away from Sprint" thing.
Anyone has any additional info, please post it up.

I love TNL, so many helpful people, yeah. :D

Yea be careful of Cingular, they have no trial days, so you cant take it back even in the first week without a fight. Also they can have crappy coverage and have there circuits tied in certain areas alot.