Carrier/Phone reccomendations?

[EliteRetard]

Used primarily as a phone...so battery life, reception, and call quality are priority. Contacts/adress book and calander are important. Liked getting email but phone was to hard to use. It was some cheap blackberry with a puny screen and microscopic buttons terrible battery life and cost 200$+ a month from verizon. Looking for the opposite of that.

Would really like to be able to make a call and look at contacts at the same time (always having to hang up to look at info and call back is such a pain)...if thats possible on any phone yet (If not, thats really really lame).

This is actually for my parents, Im supposed to be the tech guy so they want me to get them a decent phone and plan...I dont know squat about phones because Ive had the same one for over three years (and dont plan on switching until it breaks).

I think they are dead set against verizon after getting taken for every penny they own and getting crap phones and service. Everyone else is pretty much up for grabs. Theyre located near Seattle WA (Bonney Lake) if that makes a difference.

 

[boomhower]

You need to find out who has good service in their area. If data service is important to them then Sprint is going to be next in line after VZW for the widest 3G area. But if they don't travel much and AT&T or T-Mobile has 3G in their area they certainly would be an option. If they stay local and T-Mobile has 3G there they would be my pick.

 

[Pliablemoose]

iPhones, ATT family plan.

 

[vshah]

tmobile has good 3g coverage in seattle. depending on how much they use the phones a family plan could be as little as $60 +tax

 

[AstroManLuca]

How many lines, 2 or 3? Is it just your parents or are you on the plan too? And did you want smartphones with data service or just regular phones? Unfortunately it seems the gap between the two is as wide as ever, with very little in between the Nexus Ones and the cheap little flip/slider phones. I don't even know if there are any good "dumb phones" with a decent calendar, but getting a smartphone just for the calendar seems like overkill.

If they want multiple lines with data service, Sprint and T-Mobile are much less expensive than Verizon and AT&T. For simple phones with just voice, they're all basically the same.

I think most phones can access the contact list while in a call. I know even my old RAZR could do that, you just had to press the right button (right on the D-pad) to get to the menus.

 

[Deeko]

I was just down in Bonney Lake last weekend. T-Mobile gets pretty good coverage down there, although their 3G service is spotty in that area. How big of a concern is email or data service?

Realistically, if they don't really care about data, T-Mobile will be fine down in that area, and they shouldn't waste their money on iPhone, Blackberry, Android, or anything like that. They'll really rape you on unlimited data plans. On simple feature phones with T-Mobile, you can get data service for $10/month.

 

[EliteRetard]

Ah yes, 2 lines...just my parents. Both of them kinda liked getting email alerts on their phones, but had to go to a computer to be able to see/read/reply to them because the phones sucked so bad. My mom has seen other people with decent phones that can get internet and such (she saw someone with a nice blackberry of some kind she liked, it was fast and handled email well, but doesnt know what it was), and she thinks it might be handy once in while but not at the price they were paying. They got screwed by verizon, 230$ a month for like 1500 shared minutes plus the email. I kept telling them to say fuck off to verizon but they think its dishonerable to break a contract so they stuck it out for 2 years. They could have gotten individual unlimited evrything plans for less than that.

Unfortunately they really dont want to spend that much anymore, their experience has really soured them to such plans. I dont know how much it costs to get just email or if you have to pay per kilobyte or how any of that works. If you can just get unlimited email for cheap thats probably fine...but if they have to pay per kb then its probably better to get unlimited internet and just have everything.

I think theyre hoping to stick to around 100$ a month plus taxes/fees (they might be willing to pay for phones, I didnt ask but guessing 50$ each? I dont know how much you really need to spend to get a good phone though...mine was like 90$ several years ago and its still good). They dont really travel out of state much (once a year), but they do wander around quite a bit going out. They dont mind driving an hour or more to go see/do something. I myself have sprint and have always had good recpetion for phone and internet...but I always hear everyone bashing them. Do they have good phones/plans? Sounds like T-Mobile is the other option, how bout them?

Is there a good place to compare all this side by side? I tried looking but every site I found was extremely biased or didnt offer crap for info (just some basic phone specs or whatever, but specs dont really tell me anything) Im going to mention battery life again too, their phones did like 3 hours of talk before needing a charge and really ticked them off...can any of these new phones with so much bling handle a few hours of calls and email and still be alive at the end of the day?

 

[AstroManLuca]

As others have said, the main thing you want to look at is coverage. It doesn't matter if you get unlimited everything for $5/mo if you can't use them.

I am on Sprint. Just switched. And as long as you get good coverage, they may be the best carrier to go with for multiple data lines. Here's why.

For $130/mo, Sprint's 2-line family plan with data has 1500 airtime minutes, includes unlimited text messages, and doesn't charge airtime for calls to mobile phones (even non-Sprint ones). A 2-line plan with data on Verizon also costs $130/mo but it will get you only 700 shared minutes, no text messages, and has free calls only to other Verizon phones.

Now, Verizon has the best coverage and the best phone selection. But if they are not power users, they will probably be fine with the phones Sprint has. They have a couple of Android phones, the Palm Pre and Pixi, and some Blackberries. Also, Sprint's coverage is still pretty good and it can roam on Verizon's towers, and there are no roaming charges.

I don't know as much about AT&T or T-Mobile other than that T-Mobile has a nice plan where you forego a phone subsidy in exchange for a lower monthly rate. Of course that means you'll have to buy the phones yourself for full price but it works to your advantage in the long run.

If they can do the $130/mo for Sprint's plan and the coverage is good in their area, that might be a good way to go. Unfortunately there's very little middle ground with phones these days. Either you get a fancy phone with data or you get a cheap POS that can't do anything.

 

[EliteRetard]

That sprint plan sounds like it might be the ticket...Ill have to get an exact address and see what coverage is like.

I notice even that new palm pre is only about 100$ with a new plan, thats not bad. Probably a little overkill, and that huge screen might mean crap battery life, but basically the prices dont look to bad. What are the good options to look at? Dont want to get a POS or old slow ass phone...but also doesnt have to be the fanciest thing as long as its a good phone. I dont know squat about phones (android?)...so if I could get a narrower list to compare thatd make things easier. Which ones do you guys think are worth considering?

 

[Deeko]

Well consider your environment here. This forum is going to recommend a high end smart phone. If they just check email, its really overkill. And yes, you are correct, the Pre gets very poor battery life.

 

[Muadib]

Well consider your environment here. This forum is going to recommend a high end smart phone. If they just check email, its really overkill. And yes, you are correct, the Pre gets very poor battery life.

The talk time on the pre is rated for up to 5 hours, which is about the average for most email capable phones on Sprint.

To the OP, I'm sorry, but you are all over the place. Let's start with your parent's current phones. You say they have cheap Blackberries with tiny buttons, but you don't mention the model. Did they try them out first, or did they rely on someone else to pick them out for them? If they weren't happy with them, why didn't they return them?

Now, I haven't been a Verizon customer for some time, (I had a Startac when I was) but I recall being able to downgrade my plan. If they didn't need a $200+ plan, why didn't they do the same??? A call to 611 is all it would have took. If they didn't want to call, they could have used the Verizon website. IMO, Verizon did no wrong here.

Call me crazy, but I don't think you are ready to be buying for your parents yet. You need to take them to the store so they can see what's available for whichever carrier they decide to go with. Then come back & post what they like. I think that's the only way you will be sure they will be happy.

 

[dingster1]

Another consideration are they over 65? They get discount for that and maybe senior plans?