I am a Nokia fan, so I recommend whatever Nokia your service provider offers. And my Nokia 6555 (from AT&T) has a speaker phone, so you don’t have to hold it up to your ear to talk to people. Plus you can save their pictures on your phone and look at their pictures while you are talking. Or look at a picture of your bassets.

A nice plus is the SD chip you can add and save your music files to, so your phone doubles as an mp3 player. Bluetooth is another nice feature (you get to pair your phone with your computer, and move files between them). And you can save your data to the SD chip, so you can move it to your new phone when this one dies.

Another couple of years everything will be different anyway, so don’t plan on keeping your phone much longer than that.

Nice Meursault. Never read a novel after The Stranger that I picked up at the Unicorn in La Jolla in the seventies.

I am a Nokia fan, so I recommend whatever Nokia your service provider offers.

Alas, Verizon’s Nokia range is really, really shite.

Sprintizon locks you out from where the handset innovation is really happening, alas. The Storm is meant to be a bit shit: RIM is good at what it’s good at, and that means keyboards. (Don’t get the nv2. It’s really shit.) And the proprietary GPS on Vz phones is a bit shit too. Blackberry 8830, to me, looks like the best in the Vz range. Though you might honestly be better off with one of the cheap ones that just does phone, except that Vz’s low-end phones are shit too: no simple $10 Motos or Nokias.

David Pogue hated the Storm, FWIW. If you hate phones, don’t get one that makes the phone functionality the worst part of it. You can actually get plain old phones if you look, since VZW is a year or two behind on everything interesting (neutering the bluetooth on the RAZR was dumb). You can even get one from somewhere else (goodwill? eBay?) and get them to activate it. They’d just as soon not subsidize a phone anyway

I have a Nokia E62. It’s probably not cutting edge by today’s standards, but it’s a pretty handy device. Lessee, 1 gig memory for music files, spreadsheets, word processing, pdf reader, nice mapping app, does GPS (if you buy the service), internet capable ($24.00/mo additional charge, though), voice recorder (which I don’t use…but the damn button placement makes it turn on when I don’t want it to), calculators/converters up the yazoo, e-mail and SMS, alarm clock and organizer, video player. Plus it cooks breakfast.

All for $50.00. Pretty rugged device too…I’ve dropped it a couple of times with no ill effects.

I got a $50.00 Samsung phone @ Verizon that does most of that crap (I keep my salad tongs on my Swiss Army knife where they belong) but works well/easily as a ‘phone. Cheapest one in the store, natch. I don’t use it often (really hate talking on the ‘phone) but it’s been fine so far.

Remember, ostentation is out this yr.

I have the Samsung “Cheapo”(TM) that came FREE with the plan in 2004. (AT&T Cingular) It has no camera, and no frills that I’m aware of. It is so lacking in prestige that the homeless in front of the local courthouse don’t even try to bum change from me, anymore. It is so small that if you can’t fit it into your pants pockets, you definitely need a smaller ass. It has also survived countless falls and 2–count ‘em–machine washings, and still works fine.

I think I’ve got the same phone, Ruthie. In my line of work, I just need a thing to carry around so that I can make phone calls, as opposed to “organizing” my life, being ready to take videos of traffic accidents or tornados, or impressing other big executives. It still is a little hurtful to have the teenagers at the mall point and giggle at me, however.

I have an LG VX9100 free at Verizon on-line with a 2 year contract extension. I’m not much of a phone person either. It is small, lightish, holds a charge forever, my fingers fit on the buttons, and has Other Stuff if you want it (GPS, email, google maps, mp3 player). But that stuff doesn’t get in the way if you just want to use the phone. I like.

T You will need Bluetooth if you drive and use the phone. No more talking and driving in California. I have a Samsung U900 Flipshot and this is my second Samsung and totally happy with the unit. If you ever need a good camera Samsung is now selling a 5mp touchscreen, however it cost around $400.00. Of course we will be expecting video now with the new phone, no more plain pictures, we are well into the 21st century!!

I have one of the “new” LG Chocolates from Verizon. It’s about a year and a half old now and I’m still very fond of it. The interface is beautiful and easy to navigate, and the touch buttons have vibration feedback so you know if you hit them. There are shortcut buttons for speakerphone, volume, music player and pictures. The camera is OK, bluetooth is good, mp3 player is good, and call quality and reception are very, VERY good.

If you’re just looking for something that does “phone” stuff well and other stuff pretty OK, this is a great phone and a major improvement over the old model. It’s not a smart phone, so don’t get it if you’re going to be posting to blogs or reading email. But if you just want a phone and maybe a spare mp3 player, it’s perfect.

Oh, and one other thing:

Battery life is phenomenal. I’ve had mine go 8 or 9 days on a charge before. The only downside is it doesn’t give you much warning when the thing’s about to die.

we just got a pair of LG NVs. can be used as a plain old phone without opening it, but flips open sideways to reveal a QWERTY keyboard. we like.

Don’t they make a Swiss Army knife with a cell phone, yet?

I’m still waiting for the Dick Tracy two-way wrist radio.

TBogg,

Myself and the missus are both very satisfied with our respective Blackberry Pearls. They don’t have the full Qwerty keyboard but have many of the other doo-dads and whizbangs of modern technology including multiple email account access and browsing,(which I rarely use).

Battery life is excellent and coupled with a bluetooth the quality and service is very good. It’s not so much that I hate talking on the phone as much as it is holding the damn thing up to my head that I mind. My bluetooth makes that task decidedly less annoying.

Good luck on your search.

I just got a LG Decoy from Verizon. I actually have an IPhone too, but what ATT has in Maryland would be fraudulent to describe as a network so for phone purposes I use Verizon, which has a great network around here. The Decoy has a built-in Bluetooth earpiece and sound quality seems great.

No cell phone, but my new (last year) Swiss Army Knife’s got a 1 gig flash drive. Unfortunately, no toothpick or tweezers, though. But it’s got a knife, scisors, nail file/screwdriver, ballpoint pen, and a handy built-in LCD flashlight. It’s the best Christmas present I ever got.

Must be the season for phones to fail. I was due for my “New Every Two” next March, but had to replace mine a little earlier than expected. I HAD planned on getting a fancier model with a few more bells and whistles, but the fact that I had to mingle with my fellow Verizon customers on Black Friday put me in a mood. So I went with the cheapest thing they had (and it turned out to be free once they checked my corporate rate). It’s a Samsung SCH u340. It’s a phone. It takes pictures but I’m sure they’re crappy. But it does have a speaker and the best part is it has HUGE NUMBERS ON THE DISPLAY. Very easy on these old eyes.

I have this black, ‘Bakelite’ thingey on my desk, with a ‘dial’ that you turn by rotating it right to left. Sometimes it rings, and you pick up the handpiece and you can hear people talking and then, you can talk into it too!

Oddly, it doesn’t break, not even when you pick it up and throw it against a really heavy duty wall. Oh sure, the little plastic disc over the piece of paper where the ‘number’ is printed pops off every once in a while, but that’s about it. And, if you take out the dealie in the handset that allows invidious government agencies to track your conversation, you’re all set!

(Property of Western Electric.)

Scalzi says that the Storm is “fairly nifty, but… you can tell the software for it isn’t fully baked yet.”

I have a 4-year-old Samsung from Verizon that can do stuff I couldn’t dream of ever needing. (I too am wary of becoming an ‘early adopter’.) I have a 400-minute plan, pay $49.95 a month for the whole shootin’ match. Anybody mind telling me what some of your hotsy-totsy doohickeys actually COST?

no, I won’t switch to AT&T so I can get a iPhone

Aw, dude, c’mon! Resistance is futile!

Stephen Fry thinks that the Storm is shite, as well. The Bold has gotten good reviews, but that’s with the Death Star as well. I dunno, get a Pearl or something.

Jitterbug.

I have some Samsung thingy from Ebay for $12.50. Slipped in my SIM card and it purred like a kitten. Works great as a phone and I don’t really need anything else.

Go with Credo Mobile and help progressive causes!

Nice lead — WCPWCB? [What Cell Phone Would Camus Buy]

For minimal attachment, and because me and mine were too cheap/poor to buy and waited until father-in-law took pity, I recommend the $50 ATT buy minutes as you go variety. It even has a couple of games, and can be switched from ring to vibrate, for those late night when you haunt some Clean Well-Lighted Place.

I also have a Blackberry Pearl and I am very happy with it. I especially like the tethered modem capability. You really can surf anywhere with a phone signal (backroads in Idaho this summer, worked great). Download speed with 1XEV is about 1 MB (Northern Virginia), upload pretty awful (28-56 kbps), but I don’t upload much. If the keyboard is too small, the Blackberry Curve has QWERTY.

I find the Blackberry Curve easy to use. It synchs well with Outlook, so I can do my planning on the desktop, rather than punching those little keys. It doesn’t do streaming media, however, which is a bit of a drag; but I understand that the newer Blackberry models will, or already do, include this feature.

Whatever you do, don’t by a Treo. I would take mine out into the back yard and hit fungos with it, but it might put a dent in my baseball bat.

If you’re rotating the dial from right to left, you’re not using a telephone. The dials always work clockwise.

I know this fascinating bit of information because I used to teach telecommunications technology to government agencies. And also because I’m old. See? Those whippersnappers got nuthin’ on me.

Kyocera here. It’s a bar phone. I don’t want a flip and I don’t want a slider. Just give a freaking bar phone. So I got myself a Kyocera that opens up for a qwerty keyboard but I don’t have to open it up. I am SOL now though because all Alltell has now for a bar phone is a cheap flimsy LG that looks like it’ll fall apart in a month. But I love my Kyocera. I keep on looking for another Kyocera like mine because I want a back up when this one falls apart. No such luck so far.

LG Envy through Verizon here.

Has 2 meg camera that had been surprisingly useful (documenting outdoor woodworking without prior planning) and fun (”Normalcy is Boredom” was scratched on the timbers of a shelter in a park nearby.
Micro SD card that has a bunch of tunes on it that I’ve yet to use with ear buds.
Great phone, great device for texting via either the front keys or the inside QWERTY keyboard.

All I needed but more that I’ve enjoyed.

The form factor on the eNV2 is nice. It’s a solid piece of kit. The battery life is good. The UI is weirdly unintuitive, though I suppose if you’re used to its idiosyncracies, that’s less of an issue. The OpenWave browser is painfully shit, and Vz locks out Opera Mini. The Vz software setup in general is locked-down shit. If it offered less than it pretends to offer, and the calling-side UI were better worked out, it would feel like a better phone.

First your iPod and now your cell phone? Are you related to my father-in-law?