Cell phone suggestions

[Chadtuba]

My phone is starting to crap out on me so thought I'd check to see what you all like and don't like in the phones that you have used recently. I currently have an LG Ally droid. I love the smart phone capabilities, but the wife would like me to downgrade to a basic phone to cut back on the data plan costs, but we're still in negotiations on that little matter On the smartphone side, I'm looking at the iPhone 4 rather than the 4s due to the extra cost. I'm also a little intrigued by the Samsung Stratosphere. On the basic phone side, I'm looking at the Samsung Alias 2. All that said, I'm not sold on any particular brand or model, just looking for a good phone.

My needs are fairly simple and for the most part basic. It has to be a Verizon phone, a good battery life would be an excellent option, and if I go basic, I need corporate email compatibility that includes calendar sync. Most likely, if I go with a basic phone I'll buy outright through ebay, amazon, or some such place so that I'm not tied into the contract thing. If I go with the smartphone I'll probably buy through Verizon on one of their "discounted" pricing structures and renew the contract for another 2 years.

As always, much thanks for sharing your insights and experiences

[Bob Kolada]

I'm a big fan of prepaid and specifically the Virgin Mobile Optimus. You can get them for well under a hundred, battery life is ok if you keep an eye on it, and I pay under thirty bucks a month. Data speeds aren't the fastest but good enough for everything (in Chicago at least) up to Netflix. There's a similar phone on Verizon but it seems to have a ton of bloatware and while Verizon may have good coverage it's not the cheapest. VM is a prepaid part of Sprint so no roaming.
Another option is to get a basic cheap phone and an original Verizon Samsung 7" tablet as a second, not always carried device. They run about two hundred and Verizon has pretty decent prepaid 3g tablet plans. In that scenario you can go with just talk and text on the phone to cut costs down. You can probably be at 50-60 bucks a month total with that setup.

[bort]

I don't know what Verizon has, but I just got a Nokia Lumina 900 for $20 through ATT. Total cost per month is about $90, but any smart phone will run you that. I like this a million times more than an iPhone, and about 900,000 times more than Android phones.

[Bob Kolada]

To counter bort's terrible suggestion , I'll say that my gf has a Verizon iPhone and it is not appreciably better than my OV, especially when you figure out the original contact buyin and the high monthly costs.

[bort]

Haha don't worry Bob, I get crap all the time for having a Windows Phone. The thing is though, it works, and it works really really well. I have never understood the Apple hype. It is good stuff, but what apple does best of all is marketing.

Oh, plus my phone is made in Korea, not China. (yeah yeah, I'm sure lots of the components are made in China, but still...)

[Chadtuba]

For the moment, I deactivated my android smartphone and reactivated my old LG env that I had sitting in a drawer. I was able to drop down to a $10 data plan to keep my email and calendar up and running on the phone. We'll see what happens and how this works out for awhile. I've still got another 5 months on my Verizon contract so I can't look at other carriers or pre-paids until then without incurring all those stupid cancellation fees. After the first of the year, I'll go through and explore all my options.

[tubatom91]

just about everybody that I know that has a n HTC loves them, I love mine, they are easy to use, good battery life, email capability, wifi. All the bells and whistles one might need and I believe Verizon has a few options in the HTC line. Highly recommended