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New cell phone - recommendations?

I got a Moto KRZR a couple weeks ago and I'm pretty happy with it. (Previously had the Motorola E315, which was a very good phone.) They're right that VZW replaced the Motorola interface with their hideous-looking OS and I wish they hadn't. But everything else about the phone is pretty good. BT works fine with my Mac though, headsets, file transfer, merging via iSync, it all works. (In contrast to the last phone, where I had to hack it to get file transfer to work.) I worried a little about having an internal antenna, but it sounds fine so far.

Call reception is heavily dependent on the provider's network though, not just the phone. I suggest asking testing out friends' phones to make calls at your home or office to see how they compare, whether they are better or worse than yours or what they usually get. I've never switched from Verizon partially because the reception is very strong in this area, but if I moved it might be a different story.
 
aloofman said:
I got a Moto KRZR a couple weeks ago and I'm pretty happy with it. (Previously had the Motorola E315, which was a very good phone.) They're right that VZW replaced the Motorola interface with their hideous-looking OS and I wish they hadn't. But everything else about the phone is pretty good. BT works fine with my Mac though, headsets, file transfer, merging via iSync, it all works. (In contrast to the last phone, where I had to hack it to get file transfer to work.) I worried a little about having an internal antenna, but it sounds fine so far.

Call reception is heavily dependent on the provider's network though, not just the phone. I suggest asking testing out friends' phones to make calls at your home or office to see how they compare, whether they are better or worse than yours or what they usually get. I've never switched from Verizon partially because the reception is very strong in this area, but if I moved it might be a different story.
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So, syncing contacts must be one of the BT OBEX profiles supported by Verizon.

My brother and dad have Verizon in my area, and they are both very happy with it (dropped calls rare, decent signal strength in nearly all places).
 
How is the Treo? The Palm OS far beats Motorola's OS, but how is it as a phone? (yes, I know that's $250, but I was considering getting a new Palm (upgrade my Palm IIIxe!) anyway (it seems like it would be such a sin to plug a serial adapter into a perfectly good 2.8ghz 24" iMac;)))
Edit: Plus it has full Bluetooth, not the crippled BT that Verizon's other phones offer.
 
Osarkon said:
I'll agree with that. The interface is ugly, and incredibly slow. It works, but it'll take you a lot longer to do stuff that it would with other brands.
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Well honestly there interface doesn't matter in this case because Verizon puts there extremely non-intuitive OS on their phone. It lacks aesthetics, logical design, and consistency. The Moto OS is 10000x better than that crap Verizon throws on so that they can advertise GET IT NOW and VCAST and all there other junk. I can honestly say that their OS was not tested for the original RAZR. It froze constantly and did bizarre things (inside screen randomly showing startup screen when it had been on forever).

I also appreciate how Verizon disables bluetooth file exchange. Thats a great feature. Somehow with my 1st RAZR the BT was not disabled. They must have thought of that upgrade afterwards.

Personally I would ditch Verizon because in my mind they are the one worst out of all cellular providers in their mercenary tactics. Depending on where you live they might have better service than something such as ATT.

Out of your phones though I would go with the Moto Razr. The KRZR is just stupid. Yes its 2mm thinner width wise but the LCD is tiny on it. I also think its plastic casing looks cheap. Once you spend 5 minutes with the RAZR you'll get used to its width. I am not a huge fan of Samsung phones.
 
ErikCLDR said:
Well honestly there interface doesn't matter in this case because Verizon puts there extremely non-intuitive OS on their phone. It lacks aesthetics, logical design, and consistency. The Moto OS is 10000x better than that crap Verizon throws on so that they can advertise GET IT NOW and VCAST and all there other junk. I can honestly say that their OS was not tested for the original RAZR. It froze constantly and did bizarre things (inside screen randomly showing startup screen when it had been on forever).

I also appreciate how Verizon disables bluetooth file exchange. Thats a great feature. Somehow with my 1st RAZR the BT was not disabled. They must have thought of that upgrade afterwards.

Personally I would ditch Verizon because in my mind they are the one worst out of all cellular providers in their mercenary tactics. Depending on where you live they might have better service than something such as ATT.

Out of your phones though I would go with the Moto Razr. The KRZR is just stupid. Yes its 2mm thinner width wise but the LCD is tiny on it. I also think its plastic casing looks cheap. Once you spend 5 minutes with the RAZR you'll get used to its width. I am not a huge fan of Samsung phones.
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So, what I'm hearing is that the RAZR is extremely popular for a reason. Works for me!

AT&T's reception sucks where I live, Sprint's is okay, and Verizon's seems to be the best. Plus I get an employer discount on Verizon.

The reason (other than it being an upgrade to my Palm IIIxe) I might consider the Treo is because it doesn't have the unintuitive Verizon UI, nor does it have crippled Bluetooth. Can someone tell me how it is as a phone?
 
Here's a plus to the Treo (from PalmInfoCenter's review):
"You can also transfer wav and midi files via Bluetooth, beaming or hotsync for use as ringtone sounds"

It seems that the reviewers (I have read at least 6 reviews) are impressed with the call quality, while the speakerphone is tinny (like all cell phone speakerphones: there's only so much you can do with a 3/8"or1cm speaker). As I'd mainly be using it as a handset, the speakerphone doesn't matter as much to me (or I'll be using a BT headset - whatever cell phone I buy now will be the first one I've used with BT). The other big plus (according to the reviewers) is that it's very easy to use one-handed. That would be a nice change over my Palm IIIxe.

Any comments?
 
Well, I've never owned any of the phones on your list (except for a RAZR), but I'll relate what I know and have experienced.

I liked some things about my RAZR, particularly the fact that I could sync it via Bluetooth with my PowerBook, and also add/delete files to it via Bluetooth. I'd set up a bunch of custom 96K MP3s on it as ringtones.

However, on the downside were a few things, none the least of which was that it started coming apart on me without any physical abuse, and the fact that I couldn't go anywhere near self-amp'd speakers with it active, lest I get a horrible squelch out of the speakers in question.

My present phone is a Samsung M610 which I really like. It plays AACs, MP3s, OGGs, and (if I had any) WMAs, too. It comes with a 64MB microSD card but supports up to a 2GB card, which I presently have installed. It is not, unfortunately, fully supported at this time by iSync, neither can I browse it for files. However, on the plus side it has actual speech recognition built in, so I can command it to perform a number of tasks, including dialing a number by speaking the phone number to it. It supports a 2MP camera and can capture still images or videos with it, either to on-board RAM or straight to the card.

Now, as for carriers, well... Way back in the day my first one was GTE Mobilenet, but they got bought up and then that company got bought, and so forth and so on. The next carrier I had, and the one I've had the longest, was/is Sprint (nee SprintPCS). I briefly was a customer of Cingular / AT&T, but became very disgruntled and dissatisfied with them and went back to AT&T.

You'll never see me darken the doorway of AT&T again. What a mistake.
 
ErikCLDR said:
Out of your phones though I would go with the Moto Razr. The KRZR is just stupid. Yes its 2mm thinner width wise but the LCD is tiny on it. I also think its plastic casing looks cheap. Once you spend 5 minutes with the RAZR you'll get used to its width. I am not a huge fan of Samsung phones.
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Yeah, I looked at the RAZR and KRZR today (in a brick-and-mortar store), and the difference in screen size is amazing. The RAZR's screen is sooo much bigger!

I need to look at a Treo in a brick-and-mortar store to see if I like it or not. Sigh. I hate being hassled by sales reps (I looked at the RAZR and KRZR at Sam's Club when there was no one around...they didn't have any Treos out).
 
Nokia 6300 (in the uk, don't know if thats what it is in the states)
does everything asked, simple & stylish, aluminium body, easy to use.

motorola's are terrible, had the V600, and in my view they ain't improved,
sorry motorola users :eek:
 
I'd say the RAZR. I'm not much a fan of Nokia, but it's your choice :p I like how I just open iSync and it does all the bluetooth jiggerypokery and sends my contacts to and from the phone. I love the size of it and thought I'd keep it for years (only got it about Winter 06) till the iPhone came along.

Can't fault my RAZR.

Currently using one of them confusingly numbered Nokia phones for my Vodaphone sim, it's a bloody nightmare.
 
Mr.Noisy said:
Nokia 6300 (in the uk, don't know if thats what it is in the states)
does everything asked, simple & stylish, aluminium body, easy to use.

motorola's are terrible, had the V600, and in my view they ain't improved,
sorry motorola users :eek:
Click to expand...
Yes, but we already established that Nokias on Verizon are not actually Nokias. Real Nokias are fantastic phones.
 
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