Let me tell you, the Startac was the best phone I ever had. As a gadget freak it sucks that I impulsively buy the “latest and greatest” as soon as it comes out.
Nokia 6800, the one that flips out to a full keyboard. I LOVE it. I wouldn’t be willing to pay extra for it, but since I managed to pick it up for free, it’s great. I have no reception problems, and the full keyboard can be VERY nice when needed.
I vote for nokia, I have both a 6610 and 6800 that i use with T-mobile. I love both phones they are esentially the same OS installed. When I want my smaller phone I take my 6610(which did retire old faithful 8290.) But I like having the 6800 flip out keyboard and the display is a bit bigger. Also with the 6800 the navigation joystick is a lot easier to utilize than pushbuttons as found in the 6610. So if you don’t mind a little bit bigger phone I recommend the 6800, if size is key priority then the 6100 would be you best pick. Also the battery life in Nokia phones IMHO is the best on the market. Both my phones can easily last three days between charges. Of course that depends how much you use your phone. I average about an hour a day or so. If you see a phone that you like that a carrier does not carry let me know and I would be more than happy to look up the pricing and availability on unlocked phones from some of my suppliers. (I am in the business)
I have Sprint and a Samsung VGA1000 flip phone. It has the whole deal…camera, color, text messaging. It is very cute and I love it, but honestly I probably don’t need all that shit, but who does? It was $129 after mail in rebates.
The thing I like most about my 720 is that I have not needed to look at the manual to figure out way more stuff than I’l ever use. With Verizon wireless reception is excellent. It does have a very small battery so if I leave it on and use it a lot, it needs a cherge every two to three days, but there is an extra capacity battery for the phone.
BTW, I have had cell phones for 20 years, the 720 kicks ass.
I own a Nokia 6310i, which has served well for about a year and a half or so (I’m having difficulty remembering). My old Ericcson was dying and I wanted to switch to AT&T’s GSM service. It has all kinds of crap like Java applications, a calendar, infrared, Bluetooth, and the only things I use, the wireless Internet and GPRS. I didn’t need a lot of the gimmicky stuff, but it was the cheapest phone at the time with the mMode Internet stuff. Now, I don’t know if AT&T is even still supporting it. Damned planned obsolescence…