Decisions, Decisions
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I can tell you of one to stay away from. The motorolla v188. My wife and I each bought one of these as we only needed a phone and don't care about pics or video, web or anything, just wanted a phone.This phone is a flip which we weren't thrilled about, but we got them. The phones are 2 months old and we have had problem after problem, they are cheap, useless phones and we are probably going to replace them very soon. It drops calls for no reason, you dial, and it constantly says "call failed". It can't keep track of the last person that called you well, it is very unintuitive to use, and even though it's a quad band, we don't have any better signals than our 5 yr old phones we replaced. These do get reception in a few places the old ones didn't, but they also don't get reception in places our old phones did.We use T-Mobile, which we've been pretty happy with and like the 3000 anytime minutes in the southeast for $60 (plus the we-hate-you fees they all charge) and we got in on the original regional plan which is much better than the one they currently offer.But, with these problems, T-Mobile is telling me that it's because I don't "reboot" the phone every day. I've never had to do that before, have never heard of anyone else doing that, and it didn't do anything to improve the problems we've had.Anyway, I can't recommend a good phone as of yet (I'll watch this forum to get good ones), but I can steer you clear of this phone, or at least tell you my experience with it.Dan
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We have an office in Las Vegas, and sidekick service there has been an absolute nightmare. Our main office is in Indianapolis, and everything is fine here. However, no one has any issues traveling and getting emails with the treos.
The price point is a big difference (luckily for me our company has provided them for many employees
). Also, I haven't spent hundereds of dollars on an mp3 player either 
. So, I figure it the price is basically a wash. Plus, being able to synch with outlook and keep myself much more organized has been well worth the price difference.I just think that buying some type of smartphone (which I cannot consider a sidekick without some type of outlook integration) would be most anyone's (other than the kids, grandma, and non-technicals) best bet these days.
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I'm personally not a gadget guy (cars, guitars, and computer gaming are my schtick) and only got a cell phone in the last 6 months for the first time, and then only because it was a family plan.
That said, I can tell you Cingular has a lot of dropped calls, and so does Sprint (at least in NE Ohio they do). I have Verizon and it's ok.
later
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I've never used Verizon though anyone I have ever spoke to about it (I have friends that are on verizon) love it. Sprint is expensive and sucks if you aren't in the middle of a city. When my fiance was with sprint, we would get $150.00 bills. She loved that stupid LG though (even though every 6 months she had to return it to sprint because of problems with the system ROM). Cingular+AT&T = CRAP. Don't even get me started on Nextel... no better when they joined with Sprint
Aleksei
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Thanks for all the comments. I think I'm leaning towards a Nokia. I don't do a lot of email/data entry/web, so not sure I want a Windows Mobile, but I'll look at them. The Sidekick is too big, not comfortable in my hand as are the Blackberry's.
I need to take a look at the Treo. My neighbor has one and maybe he'll let me borrow it for a few hours and play with it. It looks too big, but I guess some in-person shopping is in order to get the feel for them.
I'm leaning against the Razr based on comments. I certainly don't want a quiet phone I'm struggling to hear and besides, the Motorola interface has been a pain. Maybe I haven't put enough time to learn it, but it takes too many buttons to do things I'd expect to be one push items. Like changing a profile. I can press the outside left volume buttons with the phone closed to see the profile, but why can't I just scroll through them? Good to know that I don't need their $60 kit and can download drivers. Maybe I'll try that with my current v180 and see how it goes.
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If a small form factor is important for you, you might check out the Sprint PPC-6700:
http://www.sprint.com/business/products/phones/ppc6700_allPcsPhones.jsp
It's the first WM5-based device in the US, and it's hands down the best all around Pocket PC device we've ever seen... and we've been using them since the Siemens SX56 days
It has integrated WiFi and BlueTooth, and EV-DO which is superfast. Unlike the Samsung i730, you can have any of the three active at the same time...and battery life is very good. Note the keyboard slides out from the side, not the bottom like the SX66 and i730, which is very nice, more like a Sidekick. When it comes out the screen auto-shifts to landscape.There are many more nice features, including that it actually works very well as a phone, which can't be said for a lot of the other PPC devices. The only downside I've observed is that currently you are unable to roam onto Verizon's 3G network for data. Sprint's network is pretty good, but Verizon's is bigger at present. Hopefully this will change in the near future.
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The Sprint PPC-6700 that Greg put a link up to is the same as the i-mate K-Jam that I was chuntering on about - just a differrent branding that's all. They're all made by the same company - HTC.
It really is a fantastic bit of kit for all the reasons that Greg and I have mentioned!
-Jamie
Jamie Thomson
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The Nokia 6820 is a solid phone. Mine worked flawless, until I dropped it into a cup of beer at a Rangers game.
Cingular was out of the phone and I hated the switch I made to the 6230. Mine has not handled all the drops as well as the 6820.
Entering appointments, reminders, and contacts on the fly with the keyboard was a breeze for me.
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I have a Nokia 3220 that I like quite a bit. I haven't done any synching with it, though.
Brent
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If you would consider staying with Cingular, a great phone to get would be the Cingular 2125. It's made by HTC, and rebranded with Cingular. It's a smartphone running windows mobile OS v5, and it has great synching capabilities, apart from the cool factor (which might be mitigated by the infamous 'hump') and a superb screen.
Of course, I've had terrible experiences with Cingular customer service in the past, and Verizon is probably going to pick up this phone as well, so you might want to go with that.
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Have you considered the Audiovox SMT5600? It is available through Cingular and I am using it with T-mobile on an unlocked phone. It uses Windows Mobile 2003SE and works great for syncing Outlook or checking mail, weather, etc. It has great battery life and a nice big readable screen. It is a candy bar phone that is more compact than many of the smartphones out there now. I have really enjoyed mine and the bluetooth comes in handy when driving. Have a look on the web for user feedback on it.
Mark
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Stay away from Razr! I regretted my decision to take that phone when I renew my contract. The shape and size and weight is good alright, but the menu is slow, and worst, you can actually lose your contact in your phone book when you edited them. Must have been a bug in their system. I was editing some of my contacts, and when I save it (not delete, I know what I'm doing), the contact just disappears!
Other than that, the sms is also slow (which I happen to use a lot!), and browsing is slow. So I decided to throw away the phone (into my drawer... not into the bin!) and use my Nokia 6230 again.
My suggestion would be either the Nokia or (if you haven't considered this and haven't got a PDA yet and thinking to get one) is the O2.
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Wow, ive never had probs with my razr like that which have been discussed here...gotta wonder if the one sold in AUS is manufactured in the same place as the ones sold in America...??
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I say go for Sprint. I use Sprint, and my latest phone (bought last year) is far superior in reception to any previous phone (same service) so I guess the quality of the phones is getting better. I will stick to Sprint, because I fish some large lakes here in TX, and Sprint is the only provider that gives good, consistent, non-roaming service when I'm out on, say, Lake Fork, a 23,000 acre lake east of Dallas, TX that has produced about 90% of the state record largemouth bass (the latest record, in 1992, being over 18 lb). (Can you guess that bass fishing plays a role in my cellphone decisions?)
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Me too!! Except mine is a cheapo Qualcomm from 2000 with Sprint PCS.
I'm going to get a new one soon too. And a hovercraft, yeah that's the ticket.
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