Let's talk about phones

[dougo]

Okay, I am finally giving in and admitting that I should get a cell phone. I don't know the first thing about cell phones and service providers. What do I need to know and what should I be looking for? A smartphone might be nice, but I'm thinking maybe I should start out simple (and cheap). I think my main priorities would be coverage, voice quality, and battery life. GPS would be nice too, so that I wouldn't need a separate device for geocaching. Does anyone want to add to (or contradict) what's in the CNET cell phone buying guide?

Comments

[nosrednayduj]

If you plan to keep it in your pocket, make sure it can't be turned on accidentally. Many "lock" features are completely useless. Flip phones are best, but they often have some buttons on the outside. Figure out what they do and whether you want your pocket doing that.

Ken likes the AT&T Mobility Go Phone plan -- $100/yr prepaid for 100 minutes. They prefer you to buy quarterly but if you hunt you can find the annual price. It's great if you mostly don't want to use it, just to have it for emergencies and trips. I haven't switched; I have AT&T basic 45 minutes/month service for $19.99/month (plus a bunch of taxes and fees so it's always more like $24). But annoyingly roaming is quite expensive so whenever I take a trip it costs me roaming charges. But I'm too lazy to do anything about it. The $20/month plan is rare, most companies have $30 as their cheapest. I'm sure I don't spend more than $120/yr in roaming charges...

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Ken likes the AT&T Mobility Go Phone plan -- $100/yr prepaid for 100 minutes

$1/minute seems kind of expensive. Did you mean 100 minutes per month? Also, I thought AT&T was the part everyone hated about the iPhone. Aren't they the worst major carrier? Or was it just the lock-in that people resented?

[nosrednayduj]

Remember that they have to pack something resembling a monthly plan fee into the minute charge. There isn't any monthly plan fee (like my $20), so what you really think of this as is a $8/month fee with 8 free minutes that carry over, and it seems a lot cheaper then. If you rarely use your minutes, then you don't run out. In actual usage, I tend to use more like 20 minutes per month, so I'd have to buy more minutes in the middle of the year so it wouldn't save me as much.

[aarondf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, AT&T's network is definitely not nearly as good as Verizon but around Boston and all is ok. My Verizon phone always did work really well at MIT Hunt rooms while some other peoples' phones did not work well at all. Still, I love the iPhone but is a chunk of change per month.

[mattsnaps.livejournal.com]

If you don't think you'll use your phone much, you may want to consider a prepaid plan. T-Mobile is wicked cheap if you buy $100 of airtime at a time (because the expiry is a year, and you can get another year expiry by adding minutes year the end of the year).

[colubra.livejournal.com]

Additionally, I have been really enjoying their Blackberry, and finding that the rebate was a real deal-maker. Lastly, a Blackberry can do GPS.

[mattsnaps.livejournal.com]

I should point out that T-Mobile prepaid doesn't allow network data access. If Doug wanted a BB on T-mo, he'd definitely want to go postpaid.

[colubra.livejournal.com]

and the lowest-minutes per month plan on the blackberry is 100min/month. I've been using this as my primary phone since I bought it and have yet to hit that bar.

Still, it's cheap enough I'm thinking about killing my landline, getting a cablemodem, and doing the $10/month VOIP that T-Mobile offers, since I have SHIT reception 2 stories down in the middle of the weakest reception zone in the whole city.

[mshonle.livejournal.com]

Unless you are philosophically opposed to the idea, get an iPhone. The pre-3G kind will be cheaper in the end.

[chrismwage.livejournal.com]

If you want small and cheap and simple, get a motorola f3

[mhnicholson.livejournal.com]

Make them give you a loaner so you can test coverage where you care about (home, etc) before you buy. If they won't do they, the next place will. (at least out west, maybe not where you are)

[pfranzosa.livejournal.com]

I agree with CNET...make sure you know what you want out of the phone (just calls, text msg, email, web, etc.).

I will second the recommendation for the in pocket locking...i had a phone that had hundreds of photos of the inside of my pocket on it all the time.

I currently have a non-3g iPhone and love it. It is not cheap, and definitely not for everyone.

Lastly, if you tend to spend most of your time in a few places (ie home, work, game night in Watertown,..) make sure the network you choose has decent coverage in each of these places.

OpenMoko FreeRunner?

[shae.livejournal.com]

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner
NEO FreeRunner is ~$400 and runs Linux. I wish I'd bought it instead of the now-falling-apart Motorola Q9h I purchased a few months ago for $500.
You wouldn't be locked into a long term contract if your phone weren't purchased as part of a bundle.
Big downside of the FreeRunner is battery life at the moment, you need to charge it once a day.
Of course, every week or two my Q9h does some sort of infinite loop thing and eats its battery in half an hour while threatening to burst into flame from the heat output. And the Q9h crashes on a regular basis, and loses some of my saved contact information every month or two. And it randomly changes ringtones, I suspect software corruption.
The GPS does still work, even if the keys on the edges of the phone are no longer working.
I would not recommend a Motorola Q9h, in case that wasn't clear.
Though I do like the unlimited data feature, I don't much like the $150/month service costs. Aanyway...

Re: OpenMoko FreeRunner?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I was seriously considering the FreeRunner, but I think for my first phone I want something a little more stable.

[rhysara.livejournal.com]

Does this mean you will be joining the modern world and ditching your land line?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

If I get good enough reception in my house, then yes, probably. Which is too bad because I just bought new phones a year ago.