If you want a phone that will:
a) Work in North America
and
b) Work outside major metropolitan areas
Stay away from GSM. Of course, I am just assuming you are in North America.
The coolest I've seen for NA is the Kyocera Smartphone. TriMode CDMA digital, so oyu are set for pretty much everywhere in the US and Canada, plus a palm OS PDA built in.
Look [link=here]http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/kysmart/kysmart_series.htm[L]