Also, any recommendations on fairly cheap phones? I'm a simple man with simple tastes. I don't need 28492842942 different songs to play when my phone rings or tetris on my cell phone or email on my cell phone or text messaging... if it rings when someone calls and picks up when I pick it up, it's all good for me. I was looking for a flip phone, though.
Nextel i60c -- most basic flip phone. My best friend has one, it's good for exactly what you say.
Plus Nextel has Direct Connect/Nationwide Direct Connect which is undeniably pimp. 
Any of the basic phones will do. Hell they are all but giving away anything except the PDA phones now.
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Jaggedpine Mistwalker obviously shouldn't have said:Nextel i60c -- most basic flip phone. My best friend has one, it's good for exactly what you say.
Plus Nextel has Direct Connect/Nationwide Direct Connect which is undeniably pimp.
Pimp is not an adjective.
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Tal At Work had this to say about Duck Tales:
Pimp is not an adjective.
You're obviously too old to be cool anymore.
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Azizza had this to say about the Spice Girls:
Verizon. I love the service.Any of the basic phones will do. Hell they are all but giving away anything except the PDA phones now.
Even the LG VX6000 is like 79.99 now!
I paid near 300 bucks for that phone back two months ago.
Its one of the 'oh my thats alot of features' phones with a camera and lots of cool stuff. But it also has amazing quality and signal.
Verizons the way to go, don't be suckered into the 'oh well heres 4,000 minutes for four dollars and they roll over!' crap. You pay for what you get. You might have less minutes with Verizon but I can promise if you live in a big metro area none of those minutes will be wasted with bag signals/dropped calls.
Nextel's probably another good choice, depending. If you know alot of people with Nextel, DC or PTT or whatever they call it is wonderful. They also have incoming calls free. But its also more expensive with less coverage signal wise. Usally used more with construction/business workers.
If you really want to do research and hear opinions from the people that love cell phones check out www.howardforums.com
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From the book of Azizza, chapter 3, verse 16:
Verizon. I love the service.Any of the basic phones will do. Hell they are all but giving away anything except the PDA phones now.
Agreed. Also, I get consistantly better signals from my old Verizon phone inside buildings with thick walls and the like than people with other phones do.
And when you're in New York, which is largely Verizon dominated, you get cheap rates and strong signal. And it's so much cheaper than using the phone in your hotel, even for local calls.
My Verizon phone is probably around two years or so old, it is, as you asked, very simple. The battery holds a long charge still, it doesn't have any color graphics or anything, but it works fine for me.
I'd first look at rates of T-Moble, Verizon, and Cingular, then ask various customers who are friends of yours their experiences locally. Look for plans you'll actually use. For example, if you never leave town, don't get an international plan. If you travel a lot, a regional or international plan is a must.
Most cell phones require you to get in a plan. This is why it is important to do some research on your own with the phones before you sign a contract. Most fine you a lot of money if you cancel before the one or two year contract is up.
Price-wise, what matters is how much you'll be paying over the one or two years of the contract, not hte initial cost of the phone.
edit: I have a cingular international plane. I never get roaming, ever. I always get signal, even in backwater places. They stopped caring about customer service which is becoming a big pain in the ass (which almost made me switch providers), and I get charged for text messages (something I rarely do). [ 12-16-2003: Message edited by: diadem ]
the alien cell phone company is Verizion today
So much better than getting reemed by contracts.
Phones can go anywhere from $39 to $299.
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Azizza spewed forth this undeniable truth:
Verizon. I love the service.Any of the basic phones will do. Hell they are all but giving away anything except the PDA phones now.
YES.
Verizon's good on the east coast, and supposedly west coast as well, but they're dead in the water around the middle of the country, if I remember their service map correctly. Sprint has "nationwide" coverage, though they don't have enough towers in some place. Nextel sucks around here, because they don't have enough towers. My dad gets dropped calls while standing still. But yeah, companies with field agents or otherwise hard-to-reach people use Nextel a lot these days. AT&T tends to have good coverage overall, but they're on the expensive side.
As for phones, I used to get really good reception on my old StarTak phone. The design is around 5-6 years old, so it's pretty light on features. Most of Motorola's designs work pretty well. My dad also likes Nokia (his startak phone, and now mine, are Nokia phones), though I can't say for sure, since I just activated it yesterday.
My wife has a Verizon phone, and I have to say that 1) The service is excellent and 2) We've never had any big problems with customer support. Verizon is on average the most expensive cell phone provider around (At least they are in Texas), but my experience is that it's worth the extra money. We've had next to no hassles with them.
At work, we've been using Cingular for a long time. They have horrible customer service. I'll never do business with them. Just an example - our sales rep / account manager got mad at us because we went to a Cingular store and purchased a new cell phone for our CEO after he dropped his in the toilet (heh). Why? He doesn't make any commision if we buy it from a store. But this was an emergency (Or it was deemed one) and we wanted to replace his cell phone the absolute quickest way possible. What did the account manager do? He put a FREEZE on our company account that blocked us from ordering cell phones from anyone but him. Again, absolutely horrible service.
We've recently switched to Sprint - in fact I'm getting a new phone tomorrow. I've never had any personal experience with them, but the communications team seems excited about it.
Meh. That's my 2 cents for what it's worth. My personal opinion is that all cell phone companies exist to screw you out of your money. There is no one good provider, because they are all full of assholes. The best you can hope for is to have as little problems and possible. Do not hope that you will never have a problem or dispute, this is not possible. 
-Tok [ 12-16-2003: Message edited by: Toktuk ]
