Need a new phone-Help

[Guest Sorrows]

Contract with verizon up in feb. and need to find a new phone. Been reading reviews like crazy and dont like anything in the US other then the i730 and upcoming samsung i830...but they are verizon only...so not an option since i cant seem to find a unlocked i730. Been looking at the qtek 9100, BenQ P50, and alot of other phones of that caliber. Has to be unlocked so i can get a cingular SIM card, and looking to spend 800 tops..500 would be better..but i like my toys so willing to spend a bit. Anyways thanks in advance for any help you happen to be able to give me. Vaughn - btw im US/West Coast if that matters

[Guest rbasch]

Contract with verizon up in feb. and need to find a new phone. Been reading reviews like crazy and dont like anything in the US other then the i730 and upcoming samsung i830...but they are verizon only...so not an option since i cant seem to find a unlocked i730. Been looking at the qtek 9100, BenQ P50, and alot of other phones of that caliber. Has to be unlocked so i can get a cingular SIM card, and looking to spend 800 tops..500 would be better..but i like my toys so willing to spend a bit. Anyways thanks in advance for any help you happen to be able to give me. Vaughn - btw im US/West Coast if that matters

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As far as Cingular goes, I know they sell two Windows Smartphones - Audiovox SMT 5600 and Motorola MPx220. Both of these are Windows Smartphone 2003 SE. Windows Mobile 5 devices are definitely scarce in the US, but then again, most applications still only exist or are vetted for SP2003.

The Motorola MPx220 seems to have a mixed set of reviews, which can be accounted for by the fact Cingular only updated the ROM in this brand within the last 5 months (so pay attention to the date of the review) and the original run of this brand included a slower processor. Even the new Cingular ROM is a little deficient in my opinion, but the Asia ROM works well (it just needs a little configuration to enable all the features such as SMS, MMS and GPRS to work with Cingular). I bought this phone directly through the Cingular web site, and have been quite happy with it, and Cingular does not application-lock their phones (I just switched from Verizon because I wasn't happy with their selection, limitations, or rate structure).

The problem is you have to decide what is important to you...

- PIM functions

- Size

- Talk-time

- Speakerphone

- Text entry mode - keyboard vs. T9/iTAP

- Camera / Video

- Voice dialing/recognition

etc.

For me, my priorities were:

- First and foremost a phone...

- Small size

- Long talk-time

- Speakerphone & Bluetooth

- PIM viewing (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Memos)

- Browsing for arbitrary sites (with Favorites capability)

I also had the added complexity of needing to sync with Lotus Notes for my Calendar but with Outlook for my Contacts.

Basically, I think the speaker is not as good as I would like, but then again, it is good enough until I turn on and switch to my BT headset. (I flashed the ROM with the Asia ROM which was better than the latest Cingular ROM, and had to customize it a little to work with Cingular's GPRS, SMS, and MMS settings.)

I hope this helps.

[Guest Sorrows]

thanks alot for the info, but for some reason what cing offers just dosnt do it for me =/ looking at Qtek8310 pretty hard, seems to have everything that i would want other then a touch screen, although the buttons look a little funky...anyone have experiance with it?