NEXTEL ALL THE WAY. I had Cingular and hated it. Dropped more calls than back in the 90s. I have the Motorola i836 now and it is a small, light phone and the reception is fantastic

 

For what it's worth, I think almost all providers have phone insurance. I recently bought the Treo 650 for my girlfriend and put insurance on it. Haven't done so for any other phones because it just isn't worth it.

About the topic, which provider is the best is really going to depend heavily on where you live. It can vary widely even within the same state. When I lived in Los Angeles, I had Cingular and coverage was excellent, but sucked when I moved to San Jose. Here, I switched to Verizon and have found coverage to be far superior to Cingular.

 

I've had Pacbell, which I think is now Cingular and Sprint. Sprint looked good on paper, but reception sucked, could not make calls from the house. Now have Verizon, great reception, which to me is most important because I could care less about text messaging, video games, internet, etc.

IMO all companies offer the same rates more or less, so go with one that will give good service.

 

the thing with reception is it depends on your location and how close to the tower you are.

NONE of the major networks has a continuous blanket of coverage, even in metro areas.

 

I had T-Mobile but switched over to Cingular because most of my family/friends are on Cingular (free cell to cell calling).

I have the Motorola V3 RAZR. Its the best looking phone on the market with all the gadgets but the software interface sucks.

 

Check out Nextel! You might think they're expensive but you're always going to spend $35-50 for a bucket of minutes with any carrier. And don't forget you can keep your number.

 

T-Mobile, with V3 RAZR, reflashed, reflexed. Service is love it or hate it. Switching to Cingular prolly.

CDMA phones are like bricks with antennas.

 

Please do elaborate. Handset design generally crosses over between CDMA and GSM at somepoint -- with CDMA leading the way in many instances.

CDMA > GSM, save for the ability to carry "yourself" around in a SIM.

 

There isn't really a phone Verizon or Sprint offers that appeals to me. They're all too big. Maybe there are some people that like stylish phones with cool features at the expense of service.

I guess it'll give me something to do when im in a "no service" zone. Which is practically everywhere.

 

Consumer Reports rated the cell phone carriers like this:

1. Verizon
2. T-Mobile
3. Sprint
4. Cingular
5. Nextel