OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[Larsky]

Let me bring this back to Technology for a second.

Back to cell phones: I've been a customer of Verizon for over four years now. They're not bad, but I live in an urban area where most all the networks have great coverage. Verizon cripples their phones with their own operating system, and overcharges for services. Plus, they unilaterally changed the terms of my contract. While it didn't really affect me--and I could've used that to get out of my contract (see this link for a great explanation)--that just ain't cool. Oh, and their phones suck ass. Anyway, my contract with Verizon is ending in a week, and I'm looking to change services.

In assessing that other stuff I'd want to use my phone for, a couple of things came up. One, I want a phone that uses JAVA for an application environment. Verizon uses BREW, which has a much smaller application pool. If I want to expand what I use a cell phone for, I definitely want to have a service that lets me use JAVA.

Two, if I could have one thing added to a phone, I'd like to have a camera that's actually useful. My current phone (a Samsung SCH-a670) has a crummy little VGA camera, which is next to useless.

Oh, and it would be nice if it could connect to my Mac without difficulty. And it better be, first and foremost, a good PHONE, with good call quality and good battery life.

Things I don't care about: playing music (have an mp3 player for that), watching videos, crazy texting keyboards, or anything with the word "mySpace" in it.

[Larsky]

After more consideration than I care to admit to (as many here will attest, I absolutely LOVE to research things), I've come up with what I actually want to do.

I'm going to purchase a Sony Ericsson K790a phone, which contains a 3.2 megapixel camera (the phone is actually branded as a CyberShot camera). It is widely considered the best camera phone ever made. It's a top-selling phone in Europe. It's already about 9 months "old" (i.e., on the market), but I don't care about that. It can automatically connect to my Mac with Bluetooth (the profile is built-in to the latest Mac OS X update), so I can upload contact info with no problem. It has a rated talk life of 7 hours (more than twice my current phone).

On top of that, it's a totally cool-looking phone, and it was featured heavily in the James Bond film "Casino Royale."

Furthermore, I'm going to switch to T-Mobile. They're the second biggest purveyor of GSM phones (after AT&T/Cingular), and have been ranked #1 in customer satisfaction by J.D. Power and Associates for the past five years.

As an aside, I seriously considered moving to Cingular so I could get an iPhone. But after carefully assessing what I actually use a phone for, I can honestly say I don't need an iPhone at this point in my life.

Comments?

[froot loops]

Make sure you have T-Mobile coverage in areas where you frequent. We had it but had to get rid of it because the small area of coverage.

[unknown lions fan]

Nothing is more important in cell phones than coverage. Everything else is subordinate to that.

My first phone was GSM - I can't remember who the provider was - but I would constantly find myself in places where I couldn't get a signal and people with CDMA phones could.

So I switched to Sprint, which worked pretty well for the time I lived in Memphis and during my travels. But when I moved to the West Michigan lakeshore, the Sprint service was poor. They did not have good enough coverage in that area.

I did my research and found thet Verizon and AllTel had the best coverage in Michigan. I picked Verizon for better national service.

I have the Samsung a-670, and it is a great phone for it's age. Samsungs are very well made. The poor picture quality is par for cell phones three years old. MP numbers keep coming up, just as you can easily buy an 8MP digicam for the price of a 3MP a few years back.

[unknown lions fan]

BTW, in general, I hate cell phones. Other than the occasional very useful convenience, they are a major pain in the ass.

The cell phone companies are controlling too many variables that should be configurable. Such as their stupid goddamn voicemail prompts:

As if I need the goddamn phone to tell me how to leave a message after hearing the greeting - and I really need to be told that I can press five to leave a callback number. With Verizon, there is no way to shut the thing off.

One of my friends phone actually tells me how to leave a message, and then explains it again in SPANISH before I can leave my message. Man, that burns my ass.

Do you realize how much added airtime that equates to for the cell phone companies? Millions of phones using another five seconds of airtime each time someone wants to leave a message.

[Larsky]

Make sure you have T-Mobile coverage in areas where you frequent. We had it but had to get rid of it because the small area of coverage.

Did I forget to mention that I've done a lot of research on this? No, I see I didn't. Never mind.

[Larsky]

Nothing is more important in cell phones than coverage. Everything else is subordinate to that[.....]So I switched to Sprint, which worked pretty well for the time I lived in Memphis and during my travels. But when I moved to the West Michigan lakeshore, the Sprint service was poor. They did not have good enough coverage in that area.

With my Verizon phone, I get pretty good coverage. I see my friends with the T-Mobile and they get the same service I do. Cingular, on the other hand, seems to suck rocks compared to T-Mobile and Verizon. Sprint gets pretty poor rating out here as well, although Nextel is the worst. But one of the benefits of living in an urban area is good phone coverage from most services.

A big part of so-called "coverage" that you didn't mention is the actual phone you use. Certain phones have poor antennae (especially older phones), and some have much better antennae (especially newer phones).

[CGVT]

I've been very happy with my Cingular service with the cheapest phone I could get. It seems to have good coverage in all of the areas of the country I have been to, no roaming charges and carry-over minutes. And... It worked after the hurricanes when Alltel and Nextel sucked ass(my work phones). Of course, I'm not a technology geek. I just use it to make phone calls...

[Panoptes]

Talk about low tech, I carry two styrofoam cups and alot of string to make my calls.

[Newbomb Turk]

it keeps the Border Patrol from finding you ???

[froot loops]

All the research you mentioned had to do with the features of the phone not the actual coverage. Yeah you mentioned JD Power Customer satisfaction survey, I had no problem with their customer service. Very friendly folks, but they had no coverage. Maybe its different in California.

In Michigan T-Mobile has terrible coverage. And they were very upfront about their lack of coverage, but they did it in a way that implied that the other companies rally didn't cover the areas they claimed because heir reception was bad. Fuzzy is better than nothing at all. You were fine if you stayed within 10 miles of I-75. But if you went north and were not within that corridor you were SOL.

We had it for a year and had to go back to Cingular, which we could guarantee service(albeit fuzzy service) north of Caro. I'm crossing my fingers that my work cell works up north, its a verizon it would be a pain to have to saty home because of on call duties.

[Larsky]

Here's the link to the JD Power site that details the wireless call quality ratings of the North Central region. The winner is neither T-Mobile (3/5), Verizon (3/5), or Cingular (2/5)—it's US Cellular (5/5). Interesting, but they're not in my area.

[YT]

Loops,

I can't speak for cell for coverage in Michigan, but I can for California and Georgia.....

AT&T coverage in Cali was pretty extensive and I always had coverage throughout the state (no roaming) with my StarTac and then my Panasonic Duramax (AWESOME PHONE). Sometimes the reception would be lost or calls would break-up in "the city" (large buildings and other obstructions/issues), but that was par for the course.

We switched to Verizon when we moved to Atlanta since they had more coverage throughout the state compared to AT&T.

We've then switched to Cingular about 2 years ago for the roll-over minutes and the family talk plan (Leti's family all have Cingular service in California, so they talk for free all the time).

I've got a Nextel I560 for work and the reception here for Nextel SUCKS!

[froot loops]

I don't know why I said Verizon, its a Nextel/Sprint phone. Actually the reception for it has been good but it does have a lot of dead spots. My computer lab is in the basement but the phone will get a not in service in that part of the basement. I'm actually more interested in the SMS coverage, I use to have a text pager and coverage wasn't an issue for that. But now I'm worried where it will work at in the summer.

[Larsky]

All the research you mentioned had to do with the features of the phone not the actual coverage. Yeah you mentioned JD Power Customer satisfaction survey, I had no problem with their customer service. Very friendly folks, but they had no coverage. Maybe its different in California.

It seems like you haven't actually checked out the JD Power site, at least at the time of this posting. In fact, they've ranked each service by region and have separate rankings for the following categories (not just customer service):

Wireless service satisfaction
Prepaid wireless service satisfaction
Business wireless service satisfaction
Wireless call quality
Wireless customer care performance
Wireless retail sales performance
Wireless phone handset satisfaction

I don't know why I said Verizon, its a Nextel/Sprint phone. Actually the reception for it has been good but it does have a lot of dead spots.

Having "a lot of dead spots" doesn't sound like good reception at all. In fact, it sounds like the opposite of good reception. Not sure what you mean.

BTW, Sprint/Nextel ranked lowest in the business wireless service satisfaction study for the North Central region.