My experience is that the phone is not the most important criteria. The
reception you get from your carrier should be what you make your
decision on. Over the last 3 years our family has had 6 phones with 3
different carriers. We have settled on Verizon because it has superior
coverage based on where we use our phones. Example, My daughter goes to
school at UC Irvine and was originally with Cingular. She got very poor
reception in the dorm. She is now with Verizon and gets very good
reception. She checked with lots of students in the dorm and found
Verizon had the strongest signal strength.

Find someone with a service you want and check on the signal strength
where you are going to use the phone most of the time. Almost all of the
phones have signal strength indicators. All the major carriers have a
wide selection of phones, you need to determine what your needs are and
then select the phone to match. I am using the LG VX1 because it has
144KB modem data rate.

Good luck

Steve Gregory wrote:

> Hi ya'll...
>
> I apologize for the off-content post, but I'm considering a
> cell-phone...held off for as long as I could, but I'm realizing that
> there is many benefits to having one...
>
> I look at a cell phone the same as a beeper, an electronic "Leash" as
> you will...
>
> But I guess that's not a bad thing...I want to get my own now.
>
> I know there are hundreds, upon hundreds, of cell phones out there, as
> well as cell phone plans. I'm asking what is the best for the money...
>
> I've been looking, and have an opinion, but I'd like to tap on this
> distinguished group (many have had cell phones for quite a while), as
> to what I should look at.
>
> Sorry for the "Off topic post", but I think I could learn something
> valuable from somebody...
>
> -Steve Gregory-
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