Which out of their current lineup is a good, reliable, and simple phone.

By simple I mean I don't need a camera, or a swiss army knife that shoots out of the phone, or anything super fancy.

Just need something that will work and gets steller signal strength.

 

I'd like to know as well.

 

lg 4500 no cam, great speakerphone, and LG makes a great phone..battery on it is tight....

 

I've had mine since February. ( I think that's when it came out )

 

I've read some discussions on Howard Forums that people were unhappy with the VX4500's signal strength being sub-par, compared to other phones, in areas where coverage was not as good.

How's the Samsung a650?

 

I have been pushing to get rid of signal strength indicators on cellphones for a long time. That's because customers don't know how to read them and they are not really comparable or representative. Does your cordless phone have a signal strength meter? If it did and you have 2 bars and your neighbor had 3 bars, is his cordless phone better than yours?

Unless someone hooks a diagnostic tool up to their cellphone, they can't scientifically comment on the signal strength.

Your phone should have two states: use it and can't use it.

 

I think there's a difference with what I'm asking and what your saying Ken. I really don't care what my signal indicator reads, so long as my calls are clear and uninterrupted.

When I had my old LG 5350, which was notorious for having poor reception, I would frequently drop calls or not even get service at all when my friends had no problems. These were cases where they had the same provider, but a different phone.

I just want to know if people are getting spotty reception with the VX4500, and if the a650 is better performing. I don't want to know what their signal indicator reads, just the quality of the calls.

 

a650 is just a trimode phone it also has a lot less features no external caller id, no speaker phone, ect...

so if your think your getting a better phone your really not...

 

I don't care about features.

My cell phone is a tool that I use to call people. I don't need something that plays the mexican hat dance better than the rest, or calculates tips, or plays street fighter. Tri-mode, schiboomboom-mode, whatever... it just needs to work.

Just tell me if there is a phone that outperforms the rest in the RF category. Like if you were in an area with fringe coverage, which phone would you pick as being the one which will be most likely to carry the call.

 

For example, check out this thread:
http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...hreadid=383262

Here people are overwhelmingly favoring the Nokia 3589i.

 

I understand what you are saying and I think you are right. But there is no way to determine the quality of calls by looking at the phone. Some people try to do that and they look at the signal strength indicator. So I'd rather get rid of it since a Verizon phone with 4 bars showing and another with 2 bars showing, doesn't mean the call quality on the 4-bar is better than the 2-bar.

 

I just read that thread. Lot of speculation, no facts. A couple of individuals were quoting -95 and -101 readings which are equivalent to signal strength. A person who says their Nokia phone works well in California, the same phone in Mass might suck. You just have to find that works right for you under the conditions in which you expect to use it.

That being said, I believe the Nokia 358x series phones are very good phones.

 

Please keep in mind, Verizon has since the begining, and still uses Kyocera handsets to benchmark all others.

 

A friend of mine did some work on some of the older Qualcomm cell phones and some of the phones had the signal strength indicator "rigged" to read 2-bars -- or less -- with ZERO signal strength.

I'm serious...

Funny, he said something similar...