Well, have you ever thought about the phone bill they'd have if they had real, working, connected phones in their shops? There are always people who'd abuse this as a free way to call the wife and say they'll be late for dinner, etc.

Here in Germany, if you go to a T-Mobile shop, you can usually ask the clerk to take the phone out of the vice so you can better try it. Can't you do that in the US? Of course you run the risk of him trying to up-sell you while he's watching that you don't swipe the phone, but...

Oh, and any reason you didn't try Nokia phones? My experience says they're kinda the Mac among cell phones: Pretty good usability. Has that changed with newer models? Don't they sell suitable phones for the US? Just curious.

Here in Australia, and my experience it's the same deal. Phones clamped down with the only indication as to what you are buying based on appearance. It's so difficult to assess the true features of a phone, such as adding into the Address Book or making a call. very strange indeed.

Good call Uli on Nokia phones. Once the god of all phone brands but now mixed amoung the fray. After moving to a Sony Ericsson from a Nokia, I am once again back to Nokia on the 6280.

What a great phone, and yes I would liken the Nokia UI and design thoughts to that of Apple. They are simple, inuitive, and look great.

Nokia get it.

They keep it simple, their UIs take you where you want to go quick and easy. And it's the little things that make Nokia phone the best out there. Here's a great examle:

Once upon a time every work-night I would set the phone alarm to chime the next morning at 6:30am so i might get to work on time. Sound easy? Well yes it was. But here's a great feature where some engineer at Nokia asked, "How can I make this easier?"

And you know what? They did! I tell my phone to only chime the alarm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and it does automatically. Weekday in-and-out my phone wakes me up all by itself. I've never been into the alarm section again, but I know I will when I finally get holidays. lol.

BTW it syncs with iSync just beautiful.

Anyway you are commited now, and like Uli I don't know what phones are on offer in the US. But all i can say is buying phones is one scarey process, and in some ways I am glad i have a 24 month contract as I don't need to look at another "new" phone for a while.

I had T-Mobile until 2003, when I switched to AT&T, which quickly became Cingular. I didn't switch because T-Mobile was bad, but because AT&T had the better deal. Well, I quickly found out how bad Cingular was shortly after the merger. More bars? Puhlease. I don't think so. Obviously, it totally depends upon your area, but my wife and I just spent $120 to break out Cingular contract and go back to T-Mobile. Areas where we would always without a doubt drop a call now are rock solid.

I talked to alot of people before we made the switch back, and it seems most everyone who had Cingular had some sort of problems with consistency in calling quality. Everyone I know who switched to Verizon is happy with the service, but complains about the high price. Verizon has the best network, knows it, and charges accordingly. T-Mobile is a good middle ground - better network than Sprint/Cingular, but not as good as Verizon. Of course, you get 2x the minutes for the same price with T-Mobile over Verizon, so it all comes down to what's important to you.

Nokia used to be the top of the heap in terms of UI. Recently they've really fallen down. They're not terrible in a motorola kind of way, but they're steadily getting worse. Their Series60 phones are especially bad, which is troubling considering it seems to be their next-gen stuff.

Well, have you ever thought about the phone bill they'd have if they had real, working, connected phones in their shops?

Phone bill? They're the phone company. :)

There are always people who'd abuse this as a free way to call the wife and say they'll be late for dinner, etc.

There would be, yes. That's part of providing demo units. I think it's worth accepting that so that people can try the product, though. In any case, T-Mobile can't be too torn up about something that brings people into their selling environment.

you can usually ask the clerk to take the phone out of the vice so you can better try it. Can't you do that in the US?

Not in the store I tried. I asked the clerk if other stores might and she said probably not. Occassionally a clerk actually owns the phone you want to look at, and they might let you try it out.

Oh, and any reason you didn't try Nokia phones?

I don't remember seeing any that really caught my attention. I think I saw they had a flip phone, but I don't like that design. They might have another that I missed. In any case, I'm very happy with the Sidekick UI, and the trackball makes a big difference.

I've had T-Moble, AT&T, Cingular, and Verizon all in the (south) bay area.

T-Moble's reception wasn't that great in Cupertino/San Jose. Reception in Boulder Creek was zero. When I bought a house in Boulder Creek I payed to break the contract.

FYI, as of 2 or so years ago T-Moble's wireless voice network in the bay area was actually Cingular's (T-Moble payed a lease). I don't know if that is true now (if it is their coverage maps are wrong, and it cost them a sale two weeks ago).

AT&T had slightly better reception then T-Moble in Cupertino/San Jose, reception in Boulder Creek was marginal but it worked, at least outdoors. According to others VZ, Sprint and Cingular had nothing in the area.

Over the next year reception in Boulder Creek got better, it seemed like they built a new tower, and then a month or two a second one. It is possible the first improvement was a new tower and the second was either them tweaking the antennas on it, or bringing more of something or other on line.

After AT&T got bought by Cingular we saw no real change in Boulder Creek, but Cupertino/San Jose's reception got better as measured by the bars on the phone, we also started getting more dropped calls, or more calls that got sent to voice mail when we had reception.

About two months ago we switched to Verizon. In Cupertino/San Jose we got pretty decent reception. Marginal in Boulder Creek (like when we first got AT&T). The EV-DO where available rocked. We got tons of calls going straight to voicemail. Tons. Like every call to my wife's phone when we were home, even when it showed signal. Like 20% of the calls in the city. We are in the process of switching back.

Everyone I know who switched to Verizon is happy with the service, but complains about the high price

From what I've seen, Verizon has their own branded UI for their phones. Not my thing.

Nokia used to be the UI leader, but as others have already said, the s60 phones are quite horrendous. Especially the early ones (I happen to have one) are bad, but they have been improved quite a bit lately. Anyway, I'm probably going for a Sony Ericsson phone next time I'll have to get a new one.

We recently "migrated" from AT&T to Cingular. The service was good although the mind boggles at the paperwork and administrative hoops that their salespeople have to go through. Point is, the Samsung d407 phone that we got is more than enough phone for our needs (emergencies and shopping consultations), but the menu tree, whistles and bells, and accessiblity of features is a nightmare!

I've been working with computers since I offered up boxes of cards to the computer counter and have graciously migrated to the Mac OS, but faced with the current state of phonetics, I pray that Mr. Ive and Co. come up with something akin to the iPod. I will abandon my $99 rebated to $49 flip phone and pay for clarity, concision, and common sense.

I went from SmartPhone (iMate SP3i) to Nokia (6330) and now I own a SonyEricsson M600i. From a hw design perspective this seem to be the Apple phone, especially because of its white, iPod-like, version. All my decisions were largely made from a design perspective (maybe I should have opted for the B&O/Samsung Serene) and not so much on UI and reception functionality.
The UI of the SE M600i (based on Symbian 9.1 and UIQ 3.0) is nice but sometimes inconsistent. I still think, Palm had, and maybe still has the best UI for phone/PDA. However the current device itself (Treo 650/700P) is clunky. If only Steve would announce an Apple phone. It's about time....

In Sprint stores, the phones are all real. You can make calls and you can even use the internet features of any of the phones. (I was in a Sprint store once and one person was obviously in there just to make free calls. The salespeople didn't seem to care.)

I bought a Treo from Sprint because I was able to play with its web browser and email app in the store. (And because they offer unlimited web/email data to the Treo for $10 per month.)

Of course, Sprint's customer service is unbelievably horrible. I think they are trained to hate customers.

What, you don't have SonyEricsson in the States? (since you don't mention them) SonyEricsson phones are always the only ones I even consider, the same goes for most of my friends and even the salesmen in the stores I've visited. Although I haven't looked very closely at Nokia (too many people have told me they're slow and bug-ridden), the 'smaller' phone makers (Siemens, Sharp and what have you) all seem to have *horrible* UIs.

What, you don't have SonyEricsson in the States

I've owned two. My last one was a Sony Ericsson. I don't remember seeing any that interested me at the T-Mobile store.

T-mobile has been my provider of choice for the past three years. They have great service and coverage where I am. I have to admit I'm a bit of a cell phone whore, I've got a SE T610, Samsung T509, Moto v600, Moto Razr V3, Moto e398... and a few others. I prefer the SE's to everything in their ability to sync with OS X nicer than any other phone. However, with that said, the Moto e398 is my favorite overall for design and hacka-ability.

Like you stated up above, the T509 is kind of quiet but I love it's thin figure.

I've had Tmobile for the past 2 years and haven't been that satisfied with their signal or their customer service. I'm located in the South Bay Area. My original contract or reason to swtich was b/c a friend of mine worked their and offered me 50% off the bill, but after the 3rd month he wasn't able to do it anymore and I just ended up paying regular price.
I renewed my contract w/ Tmobile at a local b/c of the phone they offered (Ericcson K750i). The signal was still weak but I enjoyed the phone. Over the past year I tried using the razr instead of the Ericcson and that did give me better signal.
Right now I'm in the process of getting a new contract, possibly with Sprint or Cingular. I do like the new sidekick 3 and it serves my purpose for text messeging, but I'm not sure if I'll be satisfied with the signal. I talked to a local representative and he informed me that Cingular and Tmobile have weak signals when using phones that are not one originally offered by those companies, such as the Ericcson K750i that I was using. Something about different band frequencies.
Any other comments on sidekick3 reception in south bay area? Thanks

I had mixed signal results with the older Sony Erricson (T610 or something), but my signal is much better with the Sidekick 3. It's rare that I can't make a phone call in the South Bay and I can't remember the last time a call got dropped.

There are a few wacky dead zones. Wolfe and Homestead is one, part of Remington is another. Overall though, it's been good.

On August 26 a representative of Tmobile ( Her name is Mayra at 796 Northridge mall in Salinas T-mobile store ph 831-443-3552) sold me three plans and three phones. One of the features promised was Europe calling plan that would allow me to call Russia for 7c per minute. I have old father in Russia and call there very frequently. When Mayra gave me paperwork I noticed that no Europe plan was mentioned. I asked her about it. She replied that i can call customer service and add it myself. i assume she forgot to add it. I asked her to add it herself as this plan is important to me. She called someone in front of me and told me that it is taken care of. When I came home I noticed that the phones had wrong numbers in the paperwork. For example mu phone samsung was supposed to be number 831-540-9851, my son's sidekick was supposed to be 831540-9850. The international plan was supposed to be for my number. I did not want to use the wrong phone to call Russia and get higher charges. I called customer support to find pout which phone out of three can call Russia for 7c per minute. The representative told me that i do not have a European plan. In fact there is no such thing at T-mobile and to call Russia will cost me $1.64. With the amount of time I spend talking to my father I would aquire enourmous charges. I felt cheated and the next day I went back to that store and returned the phones and cancelled the plans. Mayra was not there and Jesus Caiderm was helping me. He promised that I will be refunded the money I paid for the phones. He stated in writing that it will take 3 to 5 days for me to get refund. I used debit card. It has been 7 business days. No refund was made. I called customer service at Tmobile (1-800-296-1018) to follow up on my refund. Customer service representative told me that refund had to be made at the place of purchase and that the representative at the store I purchased the plans and the phones had to swipe my debit card and refund my money at the spot. He laso told me that Tmobile has nothing to do with that refund and I have to deal with the store only. What he told me is different from what Jesus told me. According to Jesus in Salinas they do not refund money, the main Tmobile does. He filled out paperwork and told me to wait 3 to 5 business days for the money to appear in my bank account.

1. I complain that the Tmobile representative sold me three plans and 3 phones promissing Europe calling plan that does not exist. If I have made phone calls to Russia I would be charged $1.64 instead pf 7 c per minute and I would get huge bill given I talk a lot with my dad, relatives and friends.

2. I complain that I can not get promised refund back as T mobile customer service tells me they do not deal with refunds and I have to get refund from the store on the spot. The store representative tells me that they do not do refunds, the main Tmobile does and I need to wait for the money appear in my bank account.

3.I was not given the headquater's number.

4. Every Tmobile representative gives conflicting information. Every store I went was like own little kingdom "fighting" with other Tmobile stores over the customers. Horrible experience with Tmobile.

On August 26 a representative of T-Mobile ( Her name is Mayra at 796 Northridge mall in Salinas T-mobile store ph 831-443-3552) sold me three plans and three phones. One of the features promised was Europe calling plan that would allow me to call Russia for 7c per minute. I have old father in Russia and call there very frequently. When Mayra gave me paperwork I noticed that no Europe plan was mentioned. I asked her about it. She replied that I can call customer service and add it myself. I assume she forgot to add it. I asked her to add it herself as this plan is important to me. She called someone in front of me and told me that it is taken care of.

When I came home I noticed that the phones had switched numbers in the paperwork. The international plan was supposed to be for my number. I did not want to use the wrong phone to call Russia and get higher charges. I called customer support to find out which phone out of three can call Russia for 7c per minute. The representative told me that I do not have a European plan. In fact there is no such thing at T-mobile and to call Russia will cost me $1.64. With the amount of time I spend talking to my father I would acquire enormous charges.

I felt lied to and the next day I went back to that store to return the phones and cancel the plans. Mayra was not there and Jesus was helping me. He promised that I will be refunded the money I paid for three phones. He stated in writing that it will take 3 to 5 days for me to get the refund. I used debit card.

No refund was made. I called customer service at T-Mobile (1-800-296-1018) to follow up on my refund. Customer service representative told me that refund had to be made at the place of purchase and that the representative at the store had to swipe my debit card and refund my money at the spot. He also told me that T-Mobile has nothing to do with that refund and I had to deal with the store only. What he told me was different from what Jesus (the store representative) told me. According to Jesus, the store does not refund money, the “main T-Mobile” does.

1. I complain that the T-Mobile representative sold me three plans and 3 phones promising Europe calling plan that does not exist. It costs $1.64 instead of promised 7 cents per minute to call Russia.

2. I complain that I can not get promised refund back as T mobile customer service tells me they do not deal with refunds and I have to get refund from the store on the spot. The store representative tells me that they do not do refunds, the main T-Mobile does and I need to wait for the money to appear in my bank account.

3. I was not given the headquarters’ number.

4. T-Mobile representatives (stores) give conflicting information. It feels that they are little kingdoms fighting with each other over customers. Sad experience.