recommend a new cell phone (1 Viewer)

[Tony_Woods]

Well the charge jack on my Motorola Talkabout died for the second time, so I've decided to say F'it and get a new phone. I live in the panhandle of Nebraska, so the service leaves a little to be desired :/ Anyway, my provider is Alltel and the network is CDMA. Price is not really an object at this point, if the phone can justify the cost, I'll pay it. BTW, anyone use one of those PDA/Cell Phones? They look intriguing. Thanks.

 

[Rob Tenniswood]

I don't know how relevant this is, but I was at the Sprint Store a few weeks ago looking for a new phone, and there was a guy there who was complaining that he now has had 2 PDA phones break in the last year. I mean, they still dial, but they just kinda crap out. I'd look into it more before buying one, if I were you.

-Rob

 

[JoshF]

Where's the iPhone?

If you can, get a Nokia. I've had two now for the past 6 years and they have both been rock-solid. Not one single problem.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I work for a wireless company. My opinion is this:

Nokia makes the most reliable phones
Motorolas are okay
Ericssons are junk
and if anyone offers you a LG (Lucky Goldstar), throw it at them.

As far as the PDA phones (Kyocera) I might wait for them to work the bugs out. Generally, the more functions, you engineer into a phone, the fewer resources are devoted to actual phone use. Just hazarding a guess, I would say the Kyoceras don't work very well as phones.

I miss our CDMA service (we're now TDMA). The sound is so much better on CDMA.

The reason carriers prefer TDMA is it's a closer jump to GSM and the equipment is cheaper (because there's more of it out there)

 

[Leila Dougan]

I've had 2 Nokias and love them both. I've also had a Samsung through Sprint (work supplied) that sucked. I hated that thing. I say if you can, go for a Nokia.

As far as the palm phone goes, a coworker of mine has one. Its a Kyrocera and it is ok but nothing special. The main complains he has is that the phone and PDA aren't really integrated. The phone operates in 2 distinctive modes: when the flap is closed it acts like a phone with its own menu system and when the flap is open it is a PDA with the PalmOS. He says the two modes get confusing because they use different navigation systems and controls. Also, a major downside is that a lot of information isn't shared between the two modes. He also experiences quite a few lockups while switching between the modes. For example, if you're using the PDA and delete and entry in your addressbook, then close the flap and use the phone, the file isn't totally gone. The data is gone but the entry is still there so when you get back to the addressbook, you get an "access denied, the file doesn't exist" message. You have to reset the thing in order to get rid of these ghost entries. While he thinks the device is a good idea overall, it definetely needs to be worked on more and get the bugs worked out and integrated.

 

[Bob Graz]

Kyocera and Qualcomm are the same phone. I have a Qualcomm 3035 and I've been very happy with it. My last phone was a Motorola Startac which was replaced 3 times and still gave me problems.

 

[Jason Reich]

All CDMA phones carry qualcomm technology as they developed CDMA for the military back in the 60's to make a more secure and cost effective communication. About two years ago Kyocera bought Qualcomm. Kyocera/ Qualcomm have the lowest failure rate of ALL the cell phone manufactures, by far.
TDMA (Time Divisional Multiple Access) uses three modes, Talk, Listen, and Wait to put three users on a channel. CDMA (Code Divisible Multiple Access) Encodes your call using 4.4 Trillion codes, allowing for 10+ users to be on same channel at same time with no cross-talk- because with CDMA you are always able to transmit, unlike TDMA (the Wait and Listen modes- you do not transfer), CDMA will ALWAYS offer faster access times, on the 1X network I have had speeds of 140+K/sec on my handheld.

The Kyocera 6035, is still, after two years the benchmark of PDA phones. I can run my home pc with my 6035, I have ICQ, full internet, email, and with the palm address book I have almost unlimited phone number storage. The battery life is second to none. Not to mention I got to get rid of a device, phone-palm all in one, clever!

Sorry for the long winded post- hope it helps, I work in cellular as a Regional Technical Manager, I also test new equipment before we decide to carry it. Kyocera has a Sweet new flip PDA phone coming soon-

 

[joe rizzuto]

i found some very good info here when i was looking for my new phone.
http://www.howardforums.com./

 

[Tony_Woods]

Thanks for all the help guys. I decided on the soon to be released Kyocera 5135. It looks to have everything I was looking for.