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Cell Phone Replacement Dilemma

Philosophical Meanderings, Too Posted on by

I’m trying to figure out the path forward for cell phone philosophy.  My challenge is finding the right instrument.

My cell phone needs are simple.  I need:

  1. An instrument and a service that will work reliably from nearly anywhere (understanding there are dead zones in the US — usually in mountain ranges)
  2. Exceptional voice quality
  3. Exceptional battery life
  4. A functional camera is handy
  5. External storage or another easy way to move pictures from phone without having to email them to myself.

I don’t care if it surfs the web.  I don’t care if it plays music.  I do like it to have an alarm — preferably the ability to store multiple alarms.  I like the calculator and stopwatch functions.  I even saw one with a compass, thermometer,  and pedometer (way cool).  So, yes, built-in tools are nice.  Not essential, but nice.

Hubby and I talk to one another and only very seldomly do we call other family members or they call us.  Any basic voice plan with mobile-to-mobile will do the job for us.  Rollover is nice, but we never use the minutes, so it’s not a big deal.  I send maybe three texts a year to one friend.  That’s it.  I like the camera feature, because I don’t always carry my camera with me, so they can be handy.

I believe I’ve mentioned before that my current provider is ATT.  In Central TX, service is not the best.  The debate is whether Verizon is any better or not.  Other than anecdotal evidence from talking to other people (who all say we’re in a bad spot for cell service here), the mobile broadband experience is all I have to rate it on.  As I understand it, if broadband works, the voice aspect of a service should be exceptional.

Broadband is what stresses a cellular system, so if that works, voice should work as well.  On the other hand, data is ones and zeroes.  If you have the right level on the signal, it’s a one.  If you don’t, it’s a zero.  As long as the signal is clean enough to detect that reliably, data is going to flow.  Analog voice circuits can be touchier, but I believe we’re using all digital for voice now, too, so that shouldn’t matter.

All that was a long way of trying to say, when I had the ATT USB cellular modem, I could NEVER get it to connect and process data from Central Texas.  With the Verizon MiFi mobile hot spot?  No problem.  It has connected every where I’ve tried to use it.  Which leads me to believe, for Central Texas, Verizon might work better for us.  If we were in San Antonio, Dallas, Temple, Waco, or anywhere closer to the I-35 corridor, it wouldn’t be a problem — any of the carriers would do the job and do it well.  But we’re not.  Not all the time, anyway.

But when I look at Verizon’s site and try to find a basic phone that meets the criteria listed above (and DOESN’T require a data package), I’m coming up short.  And the reviews?  Basically no help.  People either love them or hate them.  Some people love service, call quality, and battery life, and someone else hates it equally as much as someone else loved it.

Here are some of the phones I’m looking at.  If anyone has any experience with them, let me know:

  1. Pantech Crux (touch screen – complaints about having to press too hard and, of course, battery life)
  2. Samsung Zeal (uses proprietary connectors, so current car chargers, etc won’t work — big negative)
  3. LG Octane (looks reasonably good but has some complaints about not being sturdy enough, and, again, love it or hate it reviews)
  4. Motorola Barage (a ruggedized device that gets mixed reviews on voice quality and battery life)
  5. Casio G’zOne Ravine (a ruggedized device with the cool compass, thermometer, and pedometer features I mentioned above but also mixed reviews on voice quality and battery life)

I’ll probably stop in at the Verizon store later this week and see what they have.  By then, the rumors about them having the iPhone should be confirmed.

With that in mind, I checked out the iPhone tab on the Apple site.

  1. Number 1 requirement is more service oriented than device, but certain aspects in device construction will affect this — can’t say for sure if iPhone has it or not, but I suspect they do. 20 million people aren’t carrying bricks around just to be cool — I don’t think.
  2. Should have decent voice quality if the network will carry the signal
  3. Battery life reputed to be 7 hours on 3G and 14 hours on 2G (nobody else does that)
  4. 5 megapixel camera that everyone says takes great pictures and videos
  5. No external storage capability, but the transfer mechanism is in place to move pictures to another device

Verizon requires as least a $15 per month data package with all their Smartphones, which provides 150MB per month.  For $30, they have an unlimited plan.  The current Verizon competition at this level is the Droid X, which many people love.  The advantage of the iPhone over the Droid X is my existing app base on the iPad and how they are interchangeable and will talk to one another (I’m specifically thinking of my Budget app where it can form a group and collect data that way).

I wonder what hubby will say when I tell him it looks like he’ll have to get an iPhone if he wants battery life.

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Comments

Cell Phone Replacement Dilemma — 7 Comments

  1. Obviously I can’t speak to Verizon service in central Texas, but here in New England the service is awesome (except for at camp up north, where there’s no service of any kind).

    As you know, since you had to suffer through months of my phone agony, we just upgraded. We went to the Verizon Store with the intention of getting me the Droid X and my husband the Motorola Barrage.

    The first thing the Verizon rep did (and ours are wonderful) was show us how the backplate of the Barrage wouldn’t snap on quite right. We had assumed it was due to it being a display model but she said it’s a big problem with those and makes it less ruggedized than a non-ruggedized phone.

    She told us that the Casio Ravine isn’t quite as ruggedized as the Barrage, but that’s is a solid phone they (the big Verizon store in the state’s capital city) hadn’t had any complaints about. We went with that. The call quality seems fine. He hasn’t complained at all and we both use our phones as our primary phones. We only have a landline for his business. He’s gotten service everywhere he got service with his previous phone, as far as him going up to the northern dead zone.

    It charges on a mini USB, so the car charger I’d bought for the BlackBerry would work for it in a pinch. The battery’s been fine, but I plug it in every night before I go to bed. The only time he’s brought it home dead was when he was up north and forgot to shut it off after calling me. Going in and out of cell coverage and the constant hunting for signal in the dead zones killed it.

    The camera’s 3.2, but he never uses it. And since he never uses it, I haven’t looked, but she said it takes a mini SD card. Phones are a big commitment and I use my camera all the time, so if you want to see how the photos come out, let me know. I can pop the card out of my now-retired BlackBerry into it and take a few.

    My husband isn’t a gadget guy. He wants a phone to make phone calls, period, so it’s not like he talks about it. But he hasn’t complained, so I’d say he’s happy with the Ravine.

    The Droid X…I love it more than I loved that stupid BlackBerry. I like the camera. Now, I’ve never used an iPhone. I’ve actually never one seen one in person. But I’ve had an iPod Touch for over two years and, assuming they’re similar since they have the same OS, the iPhone is a lot more intuitive than the Droid X. The Droid X is big. When I’m looking at a website or something, I like it. But if I’m not, I wonder why I got a phone the size of a brick.

    I got a new iPod Touch for Christmas, which has a camera, and the Touch camera takes nicer pictures than the Droid X, in my opinion.

    The apps. People complain about the “walled garden” that is the iTunes app store and laud the Wild West openness of the Android Marketplace, but I like the iTunes apps. Anybody and their grandmother can sell an app for Android, so you have to read the reviews very, very closely. I also search for comments about the app on androidcentral. AND, since using the Android marketplace, I’ve had a deluge of spam texts and calls that I never got on my previous phones. If I didn’t have premium messaging blocked, I’d be subscribed to who knows how many paid text things, judging by how many times I’ve gotten the texts telling me premium messaging is blocked. Actually, I haven’t gotten any in a few days. Coincidentally, I haven’t bought an app for the phone in a while.

    I can’t say if the iTunes app developers are selling info because I didn’t have the phone, just the Touch. But Jaci has an Iphone and she doesn’t get that crap.

    Battery life isn’t awesome. I rarely use it as a phone (maybe a couple of short calls per day) and I’ve been trying to only use it for twitter/gmail/wikipedia when I’m away from the house (and therefore my wi-fi for the Touch) and I can make it through the day, but it’s at 30% by the time I go to bed. (It’s my alarm at 6am and it goes back on the charger at 11pm.) Every once in a while, if my sister calls and we talk awhile, I’ll end up putting it on the charger while I make dinner to get it through the rest of the night. It makes me laugh when people talk about watching videos on them.

    If they do announce a Verizon iPhone tomorrow, I’ll probably have a few pangs of regret. But, then again, it’s going to be a new technology for them and it might be nice to see how the bugs shake out. And there are already rumors of an iPhone 5 in June. I’ll probably see how people like their’s on the Verizon network and, if it’s all good, I might cave come summer. A big might because I’d have to pay full price and, when it comes down to it, the Droid X does everything I really want my phone to do.

    • Thanks, Shannon. This is just the type of information I’m looking for. Hubby only uses his phone to make and receive phone calls, so he doesn’t really care about the camera either, but he has taken maybe three photos on his phone, so I know he’d appreciate having one. The only thing he complains about, besides having to call me on the landline in Central TX because the cell coverage is so terrible, is battery life. I haven’t gone so far as to check yet, but if there’s an extended battery for the Ravine, I’d probably get him one. One reason they say battery life goes down is keeping the Bluetooth on, but turning it on and off isn’t an option. His Navigator has the Sync system, so the phone automatically uses the Bluetooth in the Navigator as a headset when he gets in or out (as does mine, if he’s not with me when I’m in it). Love the hands-free aspect of that.

      Assuming Verizon announces iPhone tomorrow, and there’s no reason they won’t, I’ll wait for two things if I decide to go that route. 1) The initial excitement to calm down and the initial bugs to be worked out, and 2) iPhone5 when it’s due out.

      Frankly, if I’d found a Verizon handset I was comfortable with, I’d probably have switched to Verizon already. We might just take a look at the Ravine and get two of those. The benefit of us both having the same model of phone is interchangeability and sharing the learning curve.

  2. I didn’t think of the Bluetooth and battery life because that’s not something we deal with. Neither of our vehicles have it. And I tried once with an older phone to get a Bluetooth hands free thing, but it kept hijacking the PS3 controllers, so I quit trying.

    Maybe if he’s going to be in the Navigator for a while, he could put it on the car charger?

    Good luck! I don’t think I agonized over buying my first new car as much as I did about buying these last phones. 🙂

    • It was one reason given in reviews for why the Barrage didn’t have good battery life.

      It doesn’t suck the battery life that obviously. It may explain why our battery life seems to be decreasing, but it seems as phones age, their battery life decreases — even if I’ve purchased replacement batteries for them. It’s strange. On the other hand, we’ve had Bluetooth turned on since we bought the phones, so probably not.

      Not good on hijacking PS3 controllers. I imagine that would tick PS3 users off in a big way.

  3. Laura has a Verizon phone and has no trouble at all with service, in fact, she has MUCH better reception and all than any of her friends with other services, so three thumbs up for Verizon here. As for phones… I’m pretty much clueless, but I know the Verizon stores have a much bigger selection than the Verizon site. {{huggs}}

  4. I have the iPhone 3GS and I’m very pleased with it. I travel in metro areas (DC, Detroit, Chicago, umm, Madison) and AT&T has provided good service. That said, I also carry a Blackberry on Verizon (for work) which consistently gets as good or better coverage in and outside of metro areas, as well as in central and NE Wisconsin. The Blackberry is fine for calling quality but the screen is too small. Or I need glasses.

    • Thanks, Angie. That’s great comparison information. I get great 3G service on ATT in Madison and Middleton. Go west on 14 to Cross Plains and in the dead center of town? No service. US Cellular has that area locked up tight and does not share. I could get spotty service in Mazomanie, but even that wasn’t too good.

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