Happy In Bag

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Call Me











It was fun while it lasted. After almost two years of freeloading on the dime of a former employer, my trusty cell phone has finally been terminated. In a Happy In Bag first, I'm reaching out to nerds my savvy readers to solicit suggestions for a replacement. I don't care about the cool factor (obviously), MP3 or camera functions. I do want internet access and full texting capacity. I leave the Kansas City area regularly, so I don't want to fool around with regional issues. I'd characterize my usage as light to moderate. And as with everyone else, money is an issue. Any ideas?

14 Comments:

  • At 3:02 PM, Blogger Xavier Onassis said…

    You looking for service too or just hardware?

     
  • At 3:31 PM, Blogger Happy In Bag said…

    Yes, service too.

     
  • At 4:06 PM, Blogger Xavier Onassis said…

    Everyone I know who has T-Mobile is happy with them.

    I have Verizon and wish I didn't. With Verizon, I can only use the phone I've got.

    The T-Mobile phones use sim cards and all of your account info is on the card. So when my daughters phone quit working (because she got it wet), she was able to pop out her sim card, put it in a loaner phone from a friend, and she was back in business.

    Any phone that does what you want it to do will most likely have a camera and MP3 player too. It's almost impossible to avoid.

    For internet and texting, you might want to look at the T-Mobile Dash or Wing models. Both are smarrt phones with Windows Mobile and qwerty key pads.

    Good luck!

     
  • At 4:56 PM, Blogger Happy In Bag said…

    Thanks XO. Another smart friend suggested off-blog that I get a T-Mobile sidekick. So that's two for T-Mobile. Anyone else? I'll probably pull the trigger Saturday.

     
  • At 1:31 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Whatever you do...don't even think about Sprint. I can't say who to recommend, all I can say is who not to recommend. Sprint is nearly pathetic in almost every way conceivable.

     
  • At 10:24 AM, Blogger Happy In Bag said…

    Thanks, Anon. Would anyone like to defend Sprint on their home turf?

     
  • At 12:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I also hate sprint, and would advise anything that doesn't involve working with them.

     
  • At 3:54 PM, Blogger FletcherDodge said…

    I don't know if my opinion counts, but I've never had any trouble with Sprint. For internet, they've got the best data network (Verizon is a close second) and their "evening minutes" start two hours before everyone else's (7 pm vs 9 pm)

     
  • At 4:26 PM, Blogger Happy In Bag said…

    Thanks for the comments, anonymous Sprint foes. My old phone was a sturdy Nokia with Sprint service. Aside from their noxious collections tactics, I have no quarrel with Sprint's connectivity.

    Your thoughts are always welcome, Emaw, unless they're about K-State or KU.

     
  • At 6:26 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    i'm using cingular/att with my blackberry pearl (refurbished for $29.99). works great here. i think my last phone bill was about $39.99.

     
  • At 7:11 PM, Blogger Xavier Onassis said…

    "My old phone was a sturdy Nokia with Sprint service. Aside from their noxious collections tactics, I have no quarrel with Sprint's connectivity."

    One of my ex-wives works for Sprint.

    No particular point, I just saw the words "noxious" and "Sprint" in the same paragraph and it just made me think of her.

    * sniff *

    Memories!

     
  • At 7:16 PM, Blogger Ruralgurl said…

    I have had good luck with Verizon coverage except in Oklahoma and parts of the Smokies. Luckily, I have not had any dire mishaps with equipment so far, but they are a one-phone pony. Previous to them I had Cingular. They had the WORST customer service of any company I've ever had to deal with, even worse than Charter Cable! It took me more than a dozen phone calls, 20 emails and 2 certified letters over 6 months to have a billing error they made finally corrected.

     
  • At 10:03 AM, Blogger Don't Need Anything said…

    im on tmobile and other than some of the rural highways of missouri, ive had no problems at all.

    i did have sprint and once i had no service inside a sprint building. run from them. quickly.

     
  • At 1:45 PM, Blogger Happy In Bag said…

    Thanks for your input, everybody! I went with a loaded T-Mobile Blackberry Pearl. So far so good, although there's a bit of learning curve...

     

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