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December 21, 2009 - 8:55pm — joseph.181

I want to leave sprint and get a new company for my cell phone. Now I need to find out where to go. My first though "I want an iphone"... then I figured maybe I should ask for other people's opinions. I was also considering getting a Droid, but verison has shown up on slashdot too much for my liking. So what's the best choice?

December 22, 2009 - 3:47am — Robert Grimm

All phone companies suck. I've been with all the major companies. I
prefer AT&T right now because they have the iPhone, the fastest
network, and the ability to do voice and data simultaneously. Sprint
wasn't bad when I was with them. I left T-Mobile because their
coverage was terrible. At the time, Sprint had the best coverage of
companies that weren't Verizon.

I wouldn't go with Verizon until they are the victim of a hostile
takeover or lose all their management in some way. Their coverage is
great, but that is all I can say for them. When I left, they were
crippling phones and forcing people to buy extra services that they
didn't want. The phone I wanted was crippled so you couldn't use
bluetooth for file transfer. You had to buy their $70 cable.

All that said, AT&T is talking about getting rid of the unlimited data
because iPhone customers are using all the bandwidth. They're making
record profits from this, but they are doing nothing to expand their
network to support smart phones. I'm staying with them because I can't
imagine going back to a phone that isn't the iPhone.

Robert Grimm
Voice: (614) 212-4625
http://www.datablitz.net

December 22, 2009 - 3:47am — Douglas Stanley

I agree, all companies suck. I am however, a loyal Tmobile customer with an android based phone, and couldn't imagine not having one. That being said, all major companies have android phones now (except at&t, but I think they're getting one soon).

Tmobile is also getting rid of contracts, you can buy the phone out right or make payments. Also, google is rumored to be releasing their own independent android phone, which should work on either tmobile or at&t (it'll be unlocked).

Since this IS the opensource club, I just thought it only fitting that I give the only opensource phones some love!

Doug

December 22, 2009 - 3:47am — Sean Whalen

I'd go with either T-Mobile or Sprint. They both have cheap data plans when compared to AT&T and Verizon. And, they both have android smartphones. T-mobile has cheaper plans, but Sprint has free airtime to any mobile on any network at any time with their data plans.

I have the HTC hero android phone and I no longer have iphone envy. In fact, I have saved much more with Sprint than if I had went with AT&T. If you have questions about sprint, or the hero, feel free to ask :)

December 22, 2009 - 3:47am — Richard Garris

I have Verizon and I am actually very happy with them. I have had Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T. Of these Verizon / T-Mobile provided the most consistent service. Verizon has had by far the best coverage (I can be going up a 40 story building in a high speed elevator and not lose my phone connection.)

AT&T was okay in my opinion. Customer service was the worst of the 4 in my opinion and network wise they are inferior to Verizon (most iphone users actually agree with this.)

If you are interested in a smartphone, check out the attached chart for a comparison --

December 22, 2009 - 3:47am — miles

I always thought Verizon had the best coverage because it serves me well in Columbus. A couple months ago, I was on top of a mountain in the middle of no where somewhere in New Mexico. My phone did not have any bars, whereas my ex girlfriends sisters iphone had coverage. Another knock against Verizon, they like to disable features in the phone, such as wifi. This is irrelevant because I believe you have to sign up for the data package (30 bucks) if you get a smart phone anyways, but even that could be seen as another negative.

If you are looking at a touch screen, go get an iphone. Lets face it, just about any touch screen phone on the market today is an iphone knockoff. I made the mistake of getting the Storm and it feels like a gimmick. The Blackberry interface is very solid though and unless the iphone comes to Verizon in the next year, I would happily get another Blackberry.

December 22, 2009 - 3:47am — richard hornsby

Like others have said, they all suck. Some providers just suck a little bit less. Who you choose depends on what you plan to do:

- Going out of the country? GSM (or international capable
crackberries?) is the target
- Want an iPhone? ATT it is.
- Want an Android phone? T-Moble, maybe VZW, others soon?
- Plan on staying in the city, or spending a lot of time out in the farmlands?

My experience has been similar to everyone else:

Verizon (CDMA): great coverage, lousy customer service, crippled devices
Sprint (CDMA): moderate coverage, the worst customer service, horrible
phone software (they put their own UI on top of the phones I had w/
them), less crippled devices
T-moble (GSM): no experience
ATT (GSM): lousy coverage (but better for me in Columbus than Sprint), iPhone.

The primary advantage of ATT is the iPhone (in my opinion) and that it is isn't buggered up by the provider's crappy software. It is however, still somewhat crippled by ATT: mms finally came in September. Still no tethering. Some apps (ie slingplayer) won't function unless the phone is on wifi, and apps or other iTunes downloads > 10MB get refused unless you're on wifi. Your software updates are provided by Apple, skipping the middle man and their nonsense. Providers generally couldn't give a rat's ass about keeping the device software updated - which means you miss out on not only new features, but also fixes for stupid bugs.

The market, however is changing. The iPhone has brought "smartphone" to the masses. Google is talking about coming out with their provider independent phone. However, ATT is playing games crying that iPhone users are bandwidth hogs, developers are bailing from the app store b/c of Apple's nutty, opaque, and oblique approval process, so who knows.

All that said, I really like my iPhone, and I was never a smartphone person. If I could run my iPhone on VZW, that would marry what I think is a pretty damn good device with good coverage. (Admittedly, I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with the ads that say VZW's 3G network can't do voice+data simultaneously and why ATT can - so my opinion is flexible.)

One other thing: watch carefully the providers like BOOST mobile - as far as I know they're nearly all just different brands of the major providers.

-rj

December 22, 2009 - 3:47am — richard hornsby

Just saw this on /. ... anyone considering VZW might want to rethink
it if this is the type of BS they're going to shove down customer's
throats, and then pretend it was such a great thing.

"Verizon has unilaterally updated user Storm 2 BlackBerries and other
smartphones so that their browser search boxes can only be used with
Microsoft Bing.

The move is part of the five-year search and advertising deal Verizon
signed with Microsoft in January for a rumored $500m."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/19/verizon_snuffs_google_for_bing/

I would say that the VZW "suck factor" just went up - if for no other
reason than forcibly removing, without consent, the user's choice.

December 22, 2009 - 11:15am — Peter Dietz

I have the Droid on Verizon, and I love it. 

First reactions were that if I "were a user" I would probably just want an iPhone, for its smooth / easiness factor. 
However, I'm an Enginerd so I love it even more that I can open a python shell within the phone, write four lines of code, and I just created an app that can scan a QR barcode, send the text to Google Translate, and have it "robot speak" the output translation for me. Thats a thumbs up for the Android platform and Google, not necessarily Motorola or Verizon. The hardware is pretty good, the battery case falls off more than it should, probably because the battery life is terrible, like full Christmas morning "new toy" playing with it will drain the battery in about 3 hours or less, so just moderate your usage to when you're around a USB port, or buy like 7 extra batteries to make it through a full day. Verizon coverage, I've had no problems, on a shared plan its only about $50 (10VOICE + 5SMS + 5INS + 30DATA), which is reasonable.
I believe the openness of the Android platform is truly contagious, as its free for carriers, and free for Developers to easily make additions. And one reason why there's currently 10,000 apps instead of 100,000 apps, is somewhat a testament to the *nix architectural philosophy. Build a tool that does one thing well (, and have it take parameters). Apps re-use the Barcode Scanner app by passing parameters / getting output, instead of cloning it for use in their app. I expect Android to continue to have phenomenal growth, with speculation of perhaps 50 new phones running Android in 2010. So your choice will continue to get better as time goes on. (to speak nothing of carriers).

If I were not in a contract for the next 22 months, I would be looking hard at the next move by Google. Maybe they'll name the Nexus One, the "Dark Fiber".
December 22, 2009 - 12:30pm — Daniel Murry

I second just about everything Peter Dietz said.  I have had the Motorola Droid on VZW since Thanksgiving and absolutely love it.

I waited for the right time to jump in on a smart phone.  The combination of Motorola, Google and VZW made me feel like this was the right time for it to happen.  It just "does" everything I want it to do, easily.  Take for instance, changing a song into a ring tone can be done in about three taps.  From what I understand, iTunes must be used to do this on the iPhone.  In fact, doesn't iTunes have to be used to do all syncing on the iPhone?  I much prefer USB mounting to retrieve anything on the removable microSD card.  It's definitely a more dorky phone than the iPhone, but that's what it was advertised to be.  The Droid has NONE of the locked features that everyone else is complaining about on other VZW phones. You can even use Google Voice to have free "VisualVoiceMail".

In the past, I have had AT&T (2000-2002), T-Mobile (2002-2005) and VZW (2005-Current).  It would not be fair for me to really compare coverage areas at this time since each one has really expanded since I last had them.  I will have to say though that AT&T and T-Mobile used to drop a ton of calls when I had them.  T-Mobile DID NOT work inside my aluminum sided house on N. 4th St, when I had almost full service outside.  Similar experiences happened inside brick buildings, elevators, etc.  I think it is just the nature/wavelengths of GSM over CDMA.  Does anyone know for sure?

I do find it laughable that anything other than an Android phone is being considered by someone in the open source club.  ;-)

December 22, 2009 - 1:45pm — Daniel Murry

One other thing, the chart above from Richard is wrong about the 5GB data usage with the Droid.  Data usage on a hand-held device is unlimited with Verizon as long as you are using it on the hand-held device.  If you are tethering or using the broadband connect to a computer, then you have a 5GB limit per month.

December 22, 2009 - 2:15pm — Jude DuPart

I personally have been using sprint for the entirety of my mobile phone life (2003- Present) and have had no problems. The biggest issue I've had was the house I most recently moved into got very low signal in our area (Verizon also got very low signal, as I couldn't even force roam onto their network), but sprint customer service was quick to remedy this and got one of their AirRave Mobile signal boosters to me for free next day. Sprint customer service has always been good to me and as far as i know they offer the cheapest data included plan of the 4 big names.

Unfortunately. The Phone selection is kinda weak, and I personally still haven't gotten around to getting a Hero -_-
December 22, 2009 - 10:45am — Scott Merrill

I got my iPhone last December, and I've been mostly happy with it. You have to know, going in, that you're going to be living in Apple's walled garden. You need iTunes to do anything useful with your iPhone. Also, for all the accolades that Apple receives for their products, there are some real problems with functionality and UI. The lack of background apps has recently really started to grate on me: every time I want to reply to a text message, I have to close my current app, open the SMS app, compose and send my reply, close the SMS app and then go back to what I was doing. Ugh.

I'd love to get an Android phone. I like the premise of Android development, even though I'll likely never do any development for it myself. I like the ide of not being locked into iTunes to do stuff with my phone. I'm eager to see how the smartphone space develops in the coming months.

December 23, 2009 - 5:15pm — brian

In response to the "I want an iPhone" bit, unless you like DRM and want
to be barred from getting applications from anybody other than Apple,
I'd stay away from it.

Friends in my area receive good coverage from Verizon, but I have no
personal experience with them. You might want to see
http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ before chosing Verizon though. There
is also the whole increase in "early termination fees" problem. I have
Sprint and have received nothing but TERRIBLE service from them. My
phone doesn't work in my own house, barely works in my own city (even
in their store, which is ironic), and usually doesn't work from on
campus either. That doesn't count the unstable software which shuts off
my phone a couple times a day (by crashing?). I ordered a data plan
from them, then found indication my data might be passing through a
proxy before SSL encryption - sending "secure" transmissions in
plaintext between my phone and the tower before encrypting - so I
called their customer service and asked about it. The supervisor (2nd
level) admitted to passing traffic through a proxy, wouldn't comment on
whether they read my traffic, and then cussed me out, ordered me to
never EVER "waste their valuable time" again, and hung up on me. I
canceled the data plan that day and haven't looked back.

AT&T is known for unconstitutional wiretapping (see Hepting v.
AT&T) and similar data collection/retention of customers, but I
believe all the providers play that game
<http://tinyurl.com/y8fkkry>.

richard hornsby wrote:

Sprint (CDMA): moderate coverage, the worst customer service, horrible
phone software (they put their own UI on top of the phones I had w/
them), less crippled devices

Sprint is the only company I know of that actually bothers to change
the default DRM-unlock password to your phone; other companies just
leave it at "000000" but Sprint has it different for every single
phone. It is still also crippled so you can't make your own ring tones
without "buying" your own audio file from a Sprint store.