Forum Moderators: open
Anybody have anything like this [nokiausa.com] in the US?
Does it work well? Do you pay a fortune in roaming changes if you travel and go outside major metropolitan areas? Are the extra features handy to have in a phone? Any problems with keeping the same number if you go from a "previous generation" 8200 series Nokia to one of these "next generation" phones?
My BF got a tiny phone with an internal antenna... our home is right on the edge of the service area (you need a bag phone to get good reception much past our house). The internal antenna phone usually said "no service" while standing in our living room.
Then I got a two-phone account, and he 'downgraded' to the free, external antenna phone (5165, I think) that came with my contract. Now we *always* get reception with our cellphones at the house. No fancy color screen or anything... but it works as a phone, which is really all I want. :)
That said, if I lived in an area where they offered service contracts for the Handspring Treos, I'd get one of those... color screen, high-performance Palm PDA, and an external antenna. :)
The only downside is that while the roaming is free, GSM coverage is spotty. Most places I go are covered, but most places I'd *want* to live aren't. The Nokia you mentioned is a GSM phone, too, so that's worth thinking about. I know my entire home state lacks any GSM coverage, so my phone will be useless if I go visit my parents.
I don't really care for the photo capabilities of the new phones, but internet access on my PDA turns out to be a killer feature. It's great to be able to stand in the store, realize that you want info on something you're thinking of buying, and just get it while you're standing there in the store. I've also found it useful to be able to hit things like the UPS shipping price calculator while I'm at the store looking at the sizes of boxes that are actually available.
