Re: Phone comparisons? (Sam vs. Moto vs. LG, etc.)

On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 06:00:53 -0500, sd <sd55117@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1144911056.124106.279350@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"tman" <tmann202@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hope to get a general idea of which direction to head in before
plunging into the nitty gritty of each phone. (Games, ringtones,
bluetooth, music, video not really important, although I might like to
try a camera phone).

Looking through this site some comments I've seen are that Motorola has
bettter reception than LG; that Moto may have an issue with earpiece
grounding; and a few positive comments on Samsung and Moto. Is the Moto
grounding issue serious/widespread?

Are there any other tri-modes other than the Moto V325?

You are wading into a deep pit :-p

The problem is that so much of the information you'll find about
phone performance, build quality, and features is anecdotal and
presented by people with their own ranges of experiences, biases,
etc.

I recently moved from my second Samsung Verizon phone to a Nokia.
What sold me was the Nokia's better reception (I found no one who
said the Nokia's reception was lousy) and the fact that it was
nowhere near as fugly as some of the other phones in Verizon's
lineup (totally subjective). It's a 6256i (no longer available, BTW)
and it's trimode.

In researching, I paid more attention to "professional" reviewers
(like CNET) and less to the fanboys and the people who obviously got
a lemon or poor service in their area but chose to interpolate from
their sample size of one. Howard Forums
(http://www.howardforums.com) has many forums devoted to particular
brands and carriers and makes informative reading; some of the
posters work at cell phone companies or resellers and thus have a
somewhat more objective view of phones. Phonescoop (obvious URL) is
good, too, but far less trafficked than HF.

I'm not sure if it's still in their lineup, but Verizon's LG's
VX5200 is trimode; there may be others, but they seem to be
disappearing rapidly. When I got my Nokia, there were three or four
other tri-modes to choose from. Verizon has dropped some of those
phones since and added new ones which are not trimode. Keep in mind
that the Verizon kiosks in Circuit City stores carry some different
phones than the VZW stores.

sd

I tend not to rely too much on "professional reviewers." After all
they are employed by magazines or websites that accept advertising
from the phone manufacturers.

While not discounting professional reviewers entirely, I like to sift
carefully through the information in the Howard Forums and take it
from there.
.