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General discussion

Need advice with new carrier and phone

by edgeu29 Jan 2, 2006 3:47AM PST

Hey guys, I'm looking to get a new provider and new phone and need some advice.

I've narrowed my choice down to Cingular and Verizon. If it helps, I live in Massachusetts, Raynham to be exact. I've read opinions on both, the almighty Verizon and of course the crappy customer service of Cingular.
I did have Cingular briefly years back. I had cellular one before Cingular took them over. During my brief time with cingular never really had any problems with customer service. I eventually switched over to T-Mobile because I wanted to get a new phone and because Cingular's coverage in my area was weak. I understand their coverage has improved since then, so I'm condsidering them again. I understand their customer service can be bad, so I'll take that into consideration. But how is their coverage now? Is it better than it use to be? If there's anyone from my area with Cingular that can pipe in on this subject that would be great. Do they have a strong signal in MA?

I've narrowed down some pros and cons on both carriers. And I've narrowed down the phones I'm interested in. Any input and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Cingular
+ Cooler phones than Verizon
+ Roll over minutes
+ GSM network, i have family in Portugal. Like to go their whenever I can, would be able use my phone there.
+ affordable phones. With sign up, many of their phones are available for free.
- Bad rep for Customer Service
??? How is their signal strength in MA? Looking at their coverage map, the whole state is orange. So their coverage is supposedly good, but does that equal to good reception and signal strength?

Phones I'm interested in:
Black Razr V3 - What can I say, it's a great looking phone. Read lots of bad reviews and lots of good reviews. People either love it or hate it. Is it as bad as everyone says, hell is it as good as some people say? i understand the camera is bad, but I don't really use the camera on my phone much.

Sony Ericsson w600 - Cool looking phone, lots of features, nice camera, music. But then again, I have an ipod, do i really need this phone?

Verizon
+ great rep for customer service.
+ Lots of happy customers don't hear too many bad things about them
- CDMA. Wouldn't be able to use their phones in Europe. I would have to buy a certain $500 phone or rent one.
- Phone selection sucks
- Phone prices and deals aren't as good as Cingular's. If I got the black razr from Cingular I could get it for free, Vzw's V3c would cost me $150.
- Looking at their detailed coverage map of MA, looks like they have some No Coverage areas down in Southern MA in the New Bedford, Dartmouth area. Spend a lot of time down there. Anyone in that area with Verizon can verify if their service is bad down there?

VZW Phones
Razr V3c Pretty much the only one that stands out to me. Supposedly better than the Cingular versions. better camera, more memory. Cons include Verizon's OS over Motorola, crippling of the bluetooth, some other features are disabled supposedly. In the last couple of days, some defects and problems are starting to pop up, like the time lagging problem.

Sorry for the long post, but really need advice here. Expecially if you're from my area, but everyone's 2 cents are welcome. I guess I could say right now I'm leaning towards Cingular because of the cool and affordable phone factor, and because I would be able to use their phones overseas with out much hastle. But I can't ignore Verizon's great customer rep. But again customer rep is one thing, coverage and signal strength is a more important one. thanks guys!

Discussion is locked

3 Posts
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Need advice with new carrier and phone
by edgeu29 Jan 3, 2006 6:21AM PST

Bump

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The biggest difference will be the phone you choose,
by wgrohman Jan 13, 2006 3:43AM PST

not the provider.
I just switched from Cingular to Verizon, so I have a recent experience with both.
To your points:
1) Cingular's service is absolutely horrible (and rude!!!), you got that 100% right.
2) It is really of little relevance that they are GSM vs. Verizon's CDMA, because you will not be able to use your Cingular phone in Portugal anyways, unless you hack it and eliminate the software blocks they put into their phones to prevent people from using it on other GSM networks. Unless you are willing to hack your phone (with little guarantee that when you do, something else won't get screwed up), this is not an advantage. It is really the disadvantage. GSM technology is inferior to CDMA in number of ways, but I will tell you one little thing that annoys me the most: in GSM (Cingular, T-Mobile, others in Europe) as a side effect there is a parasitic packet frequency that is in the audio range. As a result, when you put your phone close to a radio, often times (depending on the shielding of the radio unit itself) you will hear an annoying and most often loud buzzing. I don't know if you have experienced that, but it is actually very common and extremely annoying. With Verizon's CDMA, you will never have this problem.
3) Beware of bad phones!!! I would only recommend Motorola, Nokia or sometimes LG and Samsung, but avoid Sony-Ericsson at all cost!!! I have had a number of Sony-E. GSM phones with Cingular and they are all just incredibly bad. Every single one of them has a problem. I have not had the W600, but based on their well-established record I wouldn't take it for free. After all, once you choose a phone, you have to stick to it for the term of your contract.
4) From my extensive travel experience the coverage of Verizon and Cingular seems to be comparable. I certainly get a zillion times better reception quality with my new Razr v3c with Verizon than I have ever had with Cingular and S-E phones and I have had several of them.
5) Yes, Cingular has the rollover, which is good, but Verizon has the unlimited incoming calls, which is great!

All in all, it's up to your personal preferences to choose between the two (and they are BTW the best ones, third is Sprint, T-Mobile is the worst), just whatever you do, pick the right phone.
For Verizon I highly recommend the E815 or RAZR v3c (the only drawback of the latter is short battery life - mine lasts for 100min of talk time and 2 days on average). For Cingular I would go with the RAZR, although if you are in no hurry, you might want to wait for the upcoming versions - v3x and v3i. They may be major improvements over the existing versions. The existing RAZR versions for Cingular do not have the same capabilities of the Verizon's v3c, to which they are inferior (smaller camera res., less memory, slow responding software).

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Subsidy Unlock Code (International use)
by idmitriy Jan 14, 2006 9:45PM PST

You don't need to do any hacks yourself. All you have to do is call Cingular customer service and ask them for subsidy unlock code for your phone. Yes, the customer service is bad and you just have to be patient with them...

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