Need help finding a new phone/provider...

[neale]

Hi, I'm a long time cellular user from the Southern Illinois region. My first phone was with a local company, First Cellular Of Southern Illinois, then I switched to Verizon for a year and finally went back to First Cellular again. I've been with First Cellular for a few years now and was quite happy. The only problem I had was I kept buying Motorola phones and every one I bought turned out to be a dud. After continuously renewing contracts and getting new phones I finally bought a Sony Ericsson outright so I could let my contract expire. I thought I was going to have to move... blah blah blah... long story, right? Well, my contract expires. Boom. First Cellular gets bought out and becomes Alltel. I look at the Alltel plans and I'm thinking, "Awesome. Good plans and respectable rates." Then they send me a letter that says my 7 month old Sony Ericsson W600i won't work with them because its a GSM phone and they're a CDMA network. Since my contract is expired they basically told me tough luck, too. They weren't going to cut me any deals. So now I'm stuck with a practically brand new phone that only works half the time. I can make calls, but the longer Alltel has had control the worse the call quality has become. Text messaging, out of the question. I went to the store to buy a new phone yesterday and the only phones they've got that double as MP3 players are the new Motorola KRZR (which I have no desire to own another Motorola... especially a RZR type) and a few PDA/Smartphones (which I'd be forced to take an expensive data plan with that I wouldn't use). There's also a Kyocera Slider Remix on the Alltel website, but the reviews I've seen have been less than attractive.

UGH!!

I've been pulling my hair out for about a month now trying to find my dream plan. I live 15 minutes away from Indiana and work in Indiana, too. The Alltel plan has the perfect coverage area in my opinion for around here. I need something that covers southern Illinois and most of southern Indiana. Our end of Kentucky would be a nice bonus, too. Verizon used to have a local plan like this, but you had to take an Indiana (812) prefix to get it... which was long distance for the people who called me the most. That was quite some time ago so I'm not sure how it works now. I'd be fine with a nationwide type plan as long as it was respectable in price. Local plans tend to be cheaper and have more minutes... plus I only travel in a small 1 to 1 1/2 hour radius of my home most of the time anyway.

I need plan with around 1000 minutes, give or take a couple hundred. More is better. I thought I could go with quite a few less minutes if I went with Alltel since 75% of my calls go to the same numbers. The MyCircle is a pretty awesome concept. I'm looking for a small package to tack on as far as text/picture messaging and data since I use Google/Yahoo from my phone to look up phone numbers when I'm out instead of 411. I was paying for a 4MB data transfer per month with First Cellular and never went over it if that tells you how frequently I used it.

Most importantly is finding a carrier with a phone that meets my needs. I'm a very needy person. I have to have a phone that plays mp3's. The port on the side for an regular size/micro/mini SD card is nice. Camera phone, of course... but thats become pretty well standard anymore. Bluetooth, no doubt. Being able to access web pages like Yahoo, Google, and Wikipedia are something I need, too. Games are a decent bonus. Not a must have, but I play games on my W600i quite a bit. Since I live in Southern Illinois and its a very rural area the phone has be able to pull a strong signal. I'll pay high dollar for a phone, I just don't want an expensive plan every month. I play with my phone almost as much as I use it to call. Features, doo-dads, bells and whistles will bowl me over everytime. I fell in love with my W600i when I seen it had Gauntlet on it.

I've been doing my shopping for quite some time and looked at all sorts of plans to the point its made me dizzy. I could take the phone I have now, switch the SIM card out and go to Cingular, but their reception in this area isn't so hot. Alltel has good plans, but I don't see any phones that do what I want. Verizon has the new LV - The V which impresses me, but the local promotional plan they're running (1500 minutes for $39.99) doesn't cover southern Indiana.

Long enough post just to ask if anyone knows any good deals for the area, I guess... But oh well. I'm a noob.

 

[Sergeant Major]

xxabsentxx,
I'll try to provide you with what help I can. The first thing I would do is keep in mind that your 7 month old phone can always be sold on eBay to help defray the cost of a new phone. You're not just stuck with it and you can make up some of your losses. I say this because as far as your provider goes it really sounds like Alltel would be your best bet. I say this because you are happy with their coverage in So. IL at this point. It would be a huge hassle to try switching to a GSM provider that doesn't cover the area as well, especially when the plans offered by that provider will cost you a significant extra amount every month without MyCircle and also because Cingular charges more for fewer minutes. If you're happy with coverage, it's always a gamble to switch providers because you often find new coverage holes that you previously didn't have. As far as the plan goes, you could get the National Freedom 900 which comes with MyCircle and it sounds like it should handle all of your calling needs. This plan covers all the places you'll be in. The National Freedom map was just updated on the Alltel website, here is the link. You can also enter your zip code to find the calling area for the Greater Freedom plan which also has MyCircle on a number of plans which are detailed on the site. If you are in a rural area, Alltel would by far be a better bet than any of your other options.

For the features you need on your phone, I would strongly recommend staying away from Verizon. Also where you live since Verizon doesn't have any local telephone numbers, that means that you'd basically be paying more with a Verizon plan to use the Alltel towers in your area than you would pay with Alltel. Verizon tends to lock a number of things out of their phones including Bluetooth. With all the things you plan on doing, Verizon will nickel and dime you to death on the extra charges. This is in addition to the fact that their plans offer significantly fewer minutes for the price than Alltel plans, especially considering the fact that you'd have to go with a National Plan with them.

It sounds like you know what you want and you've done a lot of homework. But for an uncrippled phone and the best coverage in your rural area, I think you would be happiest going with Alltel. As far as your phone goes, remember that you have a 15 day trial that your phone could be exchanged. Why don't you try the Kyocera Slider. You can't always trust a review site on these issues. If you really don't like it you can return it and try out the KRZR. It does sound like you've had some problems in the past, but I really believe that Motorolas build a phone that picks up reception better than all others with the possible exception of Nokia. With the way your post was worded regarding reception, it sounds like Motorola would be your best bet because they just hold onto a signal much better than LGs or other options. Despite the bad luck, if you need reception it's hard not to go with a Moto. But being near the Christmas time of year, I would also look for a number of new options from Alltel in the coming 2 months that might suit your tastes better.

 

[xraptor777]

I am really, really impressed with Alltel's plans. They're even running a promotional right now for 1000 minutes for $39.99 (no MyCircle, but I have 1000 minutes now and the only time I went over was a Christmas last year). Everything sounds super-peachy, but I'm unimpressed with the features they offer on their phones. After having this Sony Ericsson for the last few months... we've bonded. We've formed a relationship. I guess I shouldn't count out the KRZR quite yet, but I'm still pretty reluctant. I've played with RZR phones on Verizon, Cingular and First Cellular of Southern IL and in my opinion they're all nothing but hype. I'll give them the fact that they're fast and compact, but personally I have to have bells and whistles. I guess I should try and find a good review on the KRZR and at least learn some of its features.

If anyone owns a KRZR or knows anything about them (at least the Alltel model) I'd appreciate the info. I'm mostly curious about if you can upload java games and applications from your PC to the phone and if you can upload mp3s from your pc to the phone to use as ringtones. I think its silly to pay a $1 or more for a short, low quality MP3 clip to use as a ringtone. You can use the full mp3s you upload to your phone as ringtones with the W600i and that makes way more sense to me. I guess I'm cheap for not wanting to pay for ringtones, but then again... even if I wasn't, its hard to find ringtones by the bands/groups I like.