My Verizon Wireless contract is up for renew, I've got a crummy little Startac which was the height of coolness and not too cheap when I bought it. Now I want to upgrade my handset but don't know where to start.

Not too fussed about all that high end web-enabled stuff, but might be interested in a camera phone.

What's hot and what's not, and is not going to cost me an arm and a leg? Any recommendations?

Could go to Epinions and get an answer on this one I guess, but one forum is enough for me to manage on a Friday!

I thought this might be a thread on cell phone etiquette. I was ready for a rant, in fact, I think I will.
People are just too damn rude with the way they use them. For example, how many of you have gone to someones house, they open the door talking on the cell phone, but then continue talking on the phone and ignore you?
Or how about this one? My hubby was talking to neighbour a few weeks ago. Mid way through the conversation, the neighbour just pulls out his cell phone, says "excuse me for a minute" and starts to call someone!!! How ******* rude is that???
OK, I've vented now, please now feel free to help POW, thank you.

sorry LOTL, I realized my Subject title may have caused some confusion....feel free to rant. I hate the way most people abuse cell phones too. Best place to observe cell phone dependency is airports and airplanes. It cracks me up, how some people can't wait to ping their cell phones as soon as the "unfasten your seatbelt" sign is activated.

Cell phone dependency rehab is called for. Alternatively, get a life!

The phone (sorry can't help with the networks) I got was a sony erricson T610, and I have foung it to be lovely. Has a camera and that. Blue tooth too. Oh and its Tri band, which is handy, meaning It can be used in the UK & the US

Helen

get a t616/610 (same phone)

as mentioned its a tri-band gsm phone and is probably the best phone you can get in the USA right now

you have to get it on either T-mobile, ATT wireless or cingular

I am a techno freak with business needs and cingular seemed quite primitive

t-mobile is cheap but as the smallest us phone company they have the worst network

I went with ATT, who apart from ****ing my bills up every month (they sort them out) have provided me with excellent service

I use my UK p800 smartphone and that works perfectly for browsing the internet too

if you are not that bothered about the whizzy features then cingular would probably fit you best

cingular just bought att so it will be a moot point in a few months

ROFLMAO

What I find amusing and ridiculous are the people who can't even wait until they are out of the movie theatre before they turn on their phones and check messages, call people, etc.

Whatever did they do before cell phones were made affordable for the average person? LOL

My husband (the British half of our duo) was perplexed at first by people speaking into their phones much like the Star Trek crew do with their communicators. Why were these strange people not putting the phone to their ears and speaking normally? He still finds it bizarre and annoying that they use their cell phones as walkie talkies. I admit, that I do as well. I don't really understand the advantage of sharing both sides of the conversation with everyone around you.

Go figure.

It's been great not having or needing a cell phone since I got here. No phone calls from work while I'm out.....

i just got the T630 from Sony Ericsson (replaces the T610 - better screen and keys plus a few more features but nothing that different). But if its the camera function you really want then don't bother - this is not the phones strong point (to put it nicely).

in fact most cellphone cameras are awful. A few new phones were announced last week at the CEBIT (trade show) in Europe which have up to 1.3MP cameras - starting to get to a level that is actually capable of a decent picture. Nokia and Siemens i think.

If you plan to travel to the UK/europe/most of the civilised world then definitely you need a tri-band phone. luckily most (but not all) new phones are.

i found this site useful in making my decision
http://www.esato.com

a correction to the previous post - most new phones in the USA are not tri-band (in the GSM sense).... simply because most of the networks do not use GSM technology

also, the t630 is not for sale by any the of GSM providers in the US (on their websites at least)

FYI the GSM provider options are T-mobile, ATT wireless & cingular

the the latter two you have to specify GSM service as they also offer cdma/tdma services

I've just got a Nokia 6610 through T-Mobile and so far am very pleased with it, (how I've missed having a Nokia, so easy to use and understand, no techy details, perfect for me)! It's lightweight and fits perfectly in the hand.

I've been told that I can use it in the UK also but have to wait 90 days til that feature is enabled. I was advised to buy a UK sim card for cheaper calls from there to here.

We were previously with Nextel and I wasn't overly happy with my flip-phone, (the i60) - it was too chunky and had a tendency to flip itself shut if I wasn't too careful when answering calls plus the service had gotten shitty recently - too much static interference totally buggering up calls and other times it'd just quit altogether!

I would never bother with a camera phone - I have a decent enough camera, (Minolta Dimage X20) and feel that sometimes when companies try to cram too many gadgets into one item it can compromise the ability of the original purpose of that item. Not worth it I reckon.

I actually have 2 phones. One was given to me for work, and it's a NOkia 6340i, on Cingular. It's OK, ish. I get a pretty poor signal at times when I should have a good one. It's also got WAP (remember that? 'Internet on your phone' it was touted as, more like Teletext on your phone). It also has GSM 900/1800, I' not usre if it'll work overseas or not. PErhaps one of the smarter folk here will let me know...

The one I have, I got before I got this job, and If I gave it up, I'd have to fork out an early termination fee, so I use it for personal use. It's another Nokia - a 3595 which was the one they gave you for free, when you sign up on AT&T. It's the cheap option as I'm not paying for a bunch of crap I'm never gonna use, but as a phone I've been pretty pleased with it.

Theone problem I have is concealing the fact that I do have 2 phones. If I was to have two hanging off my belt, I'd look like a real dick. Luckily I slways have big pockets.

true - i should of said you need a Tri-band GSM phone since most of the world uses GSM.

A 900/1800 GSM phone will work on many o/seas networks but the Nokia 6340i is GSM 850/1900 Mhz, TDMA 800/1900 Mhz, AMPS 800 Mhz. So as far as i understand it won't work in Europe - i'm sure someone will correct me if i'm wrong on that

Hmm.

I too was put off buying a camera phone by the poor quality of the pictures.

I already have both a Canon Digital Powershot Elph camera and a Sony PC-101 Mini DV camcorder to take pics with.

I'd like the spontaneity though. You know - take a pic and email it straight away without having to drag a laptop around.

Anyone any advice as to how this actually works in practise?

I may be upgrading my phone soon but am unlikely to change contracts. I'm with Cingular.

Had Motorola, Nokia and Siemens phones over the years.

Have to say that all round I prefered the Nokias.

Well I don't as a rule use the camera on the phone, as I usually have my digital camera with me, but there have been a couple of occasions I have been without my camera when I needed it, like on a recent trip to Chicago from the UK I took the kids to Browns Chicken & Pasta. They were eating pasta in red sauce (spag boll to us brits!) And oh my, I needed the cameara then, the mess they were in! Luckily I had my T610, took some pics, (Ok not great quality, but it is a phone, not a camera for gawdsake!) and MMs'd them off to a couple of people back in the UK. Handy.

Thanks Helen - very useful food for thought

I will continue to stew on it. I need an MP3 player too (I have my daughter's on semi permanent loan atm) but the phone MP3 combos I've seen are waaaay too bulky for my liking.

I'll be in Sacramento tomorrow so will take a look

Victoria.