What would you say is a good Tmobile phone?

[emblem]

I don't do much with phones. Just texting, calling. I would like a decent camera and internet if possible but I don't know how good mobile internet is.

 

[pm]

Most of the T-Mobile line up would be considered pretty good. For basic, stuff like a little bit of texting and calling, with a camera and WAP internet (WAP is, at it's heart, text-based internet, and makes sites like this: http://www.yahoo.com look like: http://us.m.yahoo.com ), most of the base-line phones would be pretty good, in particular the Nokia 6103, and Samsung T439. OF the two, the Samsung has the better camera and is, in my opinion, the better phone. I'm not much impressed with the Motorola V195S. The ubiquitous Motorola RAZR V3 works well - although the T439 has the better camera. The only thing that I heard about the T439 (from a friend of my sister) is that the ringer volume is not very loud. None of the basic (or even not so basic) cell phones have cameras that most people would call "good". They are slow, don't have a flash, don't work well except when outside, and tend to produce dark blurry images. You need to spend some money (>$150) to get a decent camera on a cell phone in my experience.

Mobile internet can get to be pretty good on the higher end models... EDGE is slow, but it's good enough to surf the web on if you are a bit patient, particularly if you are sticking to sites that are mostly text. Anandtech's forum page takes about 15 seconds to load on my Phone using T-Mobile EDGE. That's not particularly impressive, but it's not too bad.

For basic calling and a bit of texting, pretty much any of the models is pretty good. I don't think you can go wrong. I'd go to the T-Mobile store and try them all...

Now if you do a lot of texting, or you want a cell phone for syncing Outlook calendars or email, or you want to surf the internet a lot, or you want a camera that actually could replace a real digital camera, or you want to watch movies... if you want the more advanced feaures - and are willing to pay for them - then the field narrows considerably.

 

[emblem]

Well I don't know if I'd want WAP internet. I'll probably mostly use the internet for browsing forums like Gamefaqs or this one.

Sidekick maybe?
A razr?

Shadow?

 

[pm]

I've heard the Shadow is extremely laggy and slow to respond to inputs - I haven't seen this myself, but one of my coworkers bought one and returned it the same day (and got a Blackberry Pearl which he loves). He said the screen is nice, but the OS/CPU on it is too slow for him to stand. But try it yourself in the store and see what you think...

WAP costs $6/month in addition to your normal plan and T-Mobile calls this "T-Zones".
EDGE costs $20/month in addition to your nomal plan and T-Mobile calls this "Total Internet".

If you are going to ante up to EDGE, then you want something better than the RAZR. The EDGE surfing experience on the RAZR is not so good. I'd recommend the Sidekick (it's big/heavy though), or the Wing (a bit expensive), or the Blackberry 8700G or Pearl or Curve, or the Dash (but I like the 8700G better).

 

[mrizvi66]

Anything Blackberry is IMO hands down probably the best for texting, emailing, WAP internet and phone.

HTML Internet not so much...

Go with a Curve or Pearl...you won't regret it.

 

[Deeko]

You still get edge with the T-Zones plan, you just only get WAP-enabled websites.

They'll tell you you ONLY get their t-zones site, but they lie.

 

[emblem]

I think I might go with the Pearl

 

[onlyCOpunk]

You also don't have to limit yourself to TMobile phones alone. As long as the phone is unlocked and GSM it will do everything that TMobile will let you do. But of course it's always cheaper to get a phone with a contract.

 

[drbrock]

I had tmobile forever and it is a great company, a little pricey imo. But the phone to have with them that is easy to carry is the pearl. the trackball gets dirty sometimes and will not work well though. This has been a problem across all carriers though. the internet with Tmobile also costs more having a pearl. I would look into the SERO plan from sprint. too good of deal to pass up on and they have the centro which is better than most tmobile phones out right now for the price

 

[emblem]

Don't I need to know someone that works at sprint for the Sero plan?

 

[pm]

There's a big thread on SERO here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=40&threadid=1760933

They recommend going to a Sprint store and asking the employees there for permission to use them as a referral.

 

[emblem]

Originally posted by: pm
There's a big thread on SERO here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=40&threadid=1760933

They recommend going to a Sprint store and asking the employees there for permission to use as a referral.

So with the sero thing just find a Sprint employee and make them your referral. Will they have to do anything like confirm it? It seems like it'd be weird to just go to the store and ask someone if you could use them as referral.

Originally posted by: onlyCOpunk
You also don't have to limit yourself to TMobile phones alone. As long as the phone is unlocked and GSM it will do everything that TMobile will let you do. But of course it's always cheaper to get a phone with a contract.

Do you mean like those HTC type phones?



I'll look more into the SERO thing but I'm thinking Pearl(does Tmobile have the new pearl 2. the 8120 that has Wi-Fi)

I want to still try out the shadow. If I can get a chance to go to the tmobile store I'll check it out.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

Yeah like the HTC phones if that is the type of phone you want Internet and all. The motorola I just got had an opion to automatically set up the web browser and everything and it did that on it's own just fine. But with a Windows Mobile phone I'm not too sure how to set t up. But a call to Tmobile will easily solve that. They're extremely good with technical support.

 

[emblem]

My sister called Tmobile a while ago about extending my contract so I could get a new phone. I don't think it's going to be that cheap. Seems like I might have to spend at least $150 anyway for a Pearl. I'm going to call again to make sure. Phones need to stop being so expensive.

 

[pm]

You should be able to get an unlocked contract-free user Pearl on Ebay for around $150. You should be able to get a new unlocked, no-contract one for around $200.

Or, you should be able to get one free if you switch to AT&T (for example, check Amazon) - and if you are out of contract on T-Mobile, you should be able to use that as leverage to get them to match this deal.

Personally, I'd rather get a used unlocked one, or pay a bit more for a new one, on Ebay and do without the contract extension. But I hate contracts.

 

[emblem]

I'm starting to think about getting one with wifi now. The Pearl 2 seems way to expensive. Only other one I can think of with wifi would be the shadow. Is wifi that helpful?

 

[emblem]

When looking to buy a phone off eBay is there anything I should watch out for?

 

[Raduque]

Make sure you get the IMEI (for GSM phones) or ESI/MEID (for CDMA phones) and call the carrier you're opening the line with to make sure the phone isn't blacklisted or stolen. If the seller won't give you the MEDI or IMEI, RUN FAR AWAY from them.

Oh, and I vote for a Win Mobile phone. Check out the things you can do to/with them over at http://forum.xda-developers.com I have a Wing running a WinMo 6.1 rom called "OpenTouch Biggy". It includes TONS of things and is 10 times faster then the stock ROM t-mobile loads on the phone.

 

[emblem]

I'm looking at shadow reviews online and still want to get it. I haven't been able to go to a tmobile store and try it for myself yet though. It seems to do what I would like.

 

[emblem]

Just got my shadow yesterday from Tmobile for only $90 bucks. I'm pretty impressed with it. Browsing through wifi is pretty fast and good using Operamini that I downloaded for it. The screen is big also which isn ice.

 

[foghorn67]

opera mini does rock. Glad you did alright.