Getting first "feature rich" phone, can't decide what to compromise

M

Mr. Fact

New member
My first and so far only cell phone I've had is a basic Kyocera KX414 with pre-pay Verizon for over 2 1/2 years now. This fall I'll be moving into my own apartment without a land line so I'll need a more robust/cost-effective plan than pre-pay, which means I'll be getting a normal plan with free night/weekends, IN texting, and all that.

Anyway, obviously I'll be getting a new phone with this, which means my first phone with significant features, and I really can't find any that matches everything I'm looking for, so I have to compromise somewhere. Where should I begin.

Well, I never take pictures so I haven't bought my own digital camera. So it'd be nice to have a phone that took good enough pictures with flash to help me continue to avoid buying a camera until I'm out of college. Well, it seems the only ones that have a 3.2 MP camera are over $300, and even the ones with a 1.3 MP don't seem to have flash. I also don't own an MP3 player for a similar reason as not having a camera, so a phone that can play music okay and can hold at least a few hundred MB of songs would be nice as well. However I'm not sure how easy any of these phones would be to put music on them. I also hate flip phones pretty much. The only ones I do like are very thin ones like the RAZR. So I've been considering that, or for a non-flip, the SLVR, which I really like except for its crappy camera.

And finally, there's the issue that some phones just have stupid quirks that I might not know about until I buy it. For example, I was considering the Samsung SCH-a930, until I heard from a friend who owns it that it CAN'T save custom words when using T9. So every time I want to curse or say a friend's name or whatever in a text, I have to type it out manually. That basically makes the phone worthless right there.

So, suggestions? What feature should I give up here? I'm currently really tempted by the SLVR just due to looks.

Thanks a lot.
 
As someone who likes photography, I would give up the camera and buy a point and shoot that cost under $200 and would blow any camera phone out of the water. Probably lot easier to get pictures off the card too. Check Techbargains for good deals.
 
Thanks, you're probably right that's the feature I shouldn't be too concerned about. I still would like something that can play music decently if I ever decide to put a few hundred songs on it. Could the SLVR do this pretty easily? I do not use iTunes, just have regular MP3s that I playback with Winamp.

Any other downfalls to the SLVR? I just really like how it looks, more so than most of the flip phones. I read it doesn't use T9, though.
 
all depends on how much you are willing to spend and if you are about to switch to GSM, what is your budget? I suggest checking these phones out if you are gonna go GSM if not then forget bout it

$200-250
 
I would recommend the Razr Ve Maxx, but its kinda expensive right now. I don't know about the camera quality, but it has a 2 MP camera with autofocus and music capabilities.

But I'd steer you away from Verizon big-time and towards T-Mobile or Cingular, with the Sony Ericsson W810i, a really good handset with great camera and mp3 player.

Or the best option is Sprint SERO with a Samsung m620 UpStage phone. Kick-*** phone with a kick-*** plan.
 
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