Best place to buy a CDMA smartphone

[Scarpozzi]

I just switch jobs and one of the requirements of the job is that I have a phone that can receive text messages. I'm thinking it will be easier to manage the messages if I have a full email client and setup the messages to come from an smtp server because they'll be easier to digest via a client.

I'm not eligable for an upgrade/contract renewal until October, but would like to get my phone setup for the job before then. I like the enV3 and the enV Touch. My 2 coworkers have a blackberry and a Voyager and both like what they have...

Where's a good place to get a deal on either an enV or a Blackberry? (CDMA) I wish I could get windows mobile for the exchange integration, but don't know if I want to deal with the mobile quirks that Windows brings. Should I look at any other phones?

Thanks.

 

[A5]

Any decent smartphone now has threaded text messaging. No need to mess around with all that SMTP nonsense .

You may be able to get used phones from ebay or craigslist cheap...if you want something new, your best bet may be to call Verizon and see if they'll let you renew early and get the discount. If not, say you're leaving to get an iPhone, and retentions will probably offer you a good price on a phone

As far as phones go - if you do get allowed renewal price, you may want to go for the new Blackberry Tour (engadget review). If not, the enV3 is a pretty good texting phone that won't break the bank too much.

 

[bucwylde23]

If you can't get a new phone from VZW, maybe try picking up a used Curve or something on ebay. There will be a lot of them going up in the next week or so due to the Tour's release and they really aren't that expensive. Curve is a great phone.

 

[shortylickens]

You can get an unlocked Blackberry Curve from Amazon and Newegg for a reasonable price. And since the new Blackberry Tour is coming out soon, I agree that used BB's of the older generation will probably be easy to find.

Do NOT get an Env of any variety. I have done reviews on them here and commented repeatedly about them. They really arent good even if all you use them for is texting. The Voyagers, the Env3 and the Env Touch all have issues and frankly arent worth the trouble. If you just want a simple phone for texting and nothing else, most any basic model will do the job these days. If you need a big shiny screen then you can do better with a Blackberry or a clone from Motorola or HTC. Nokia has some nice phones with full keypads in the E and N series, but they arent available with any carrier except AT&T, and their models are generally locked in some way.

EDIT: Sorry I forgot to address a couple issues.
You asked for the best CDMA carrier. Right now I think its Verizon. Overall they have excellent customer satisfaction and good network coverage. They have a wider variety of phones too. I would only go with Sprint if I needed a durable work phone or the Palm Pre. And since Palm is only now starting to get back into the business phone market and the Pre is more of an experiment, I would pretty much use Verizon without hesitation.