CRCinOklnd said:
Thanks Temp! 🙂 I am leaning more towards T-Mobile due to seeing less complaint's in Calif for them vs Cingular in regards to customer service, voice quality, connectivity, etc. (On Mobledia's "Cell Phone Reception Locator", and other sites like it...) I'll let you know what I decide...should be getting my GSM phone by Dec or Jan. Thanks again for your opinions and assistance!!

not a problem, just out of curiosity where in nor cal are you? and are the devices you listed the only devices you are looking for? what exactly are you looking for in a phone?

I live in Oakland and work in S.F. I travel to San Luis Obispo County to see my Aunt in Grover Beach sometimes, and go to L.A. quite a bit. Also travel up to Seattle sometimes. Those are the prime area's I would need the phone to work.
For now, those are the only phones I saw that fit my needs...I'm not really interested in a camera phone, for I just want the phone to make and receive calls well...here in the U.S. and in Europe. I have been looking at the V180, but then a person who works in a T-Mobile auth dealer store told me that there have been "issues" with the V180...so then I was looking at the Samsung E105 and saw good reviews on it. I do see it's only dual band, but 900 seems to be more prevalent in Europe than 1800...so I tho...
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as far as the coverage in the areas you listed i have had no problems when i go to those areas with either service! you are correct in saying though that AWS and CINGULAR are more geared towards domestic marketing whereas tmobile has focus on both, another thing about tmobile is that if you want a phone from europe you can get it, as long as its unlocked and supports 1900mhz, tmobile can't insure it but you can use it on their network, so that expands your phone range dramatically! most motorola's are flawed pieces of equipment, i have never heard of a motorola that doesnt have some sort of firmware issues even after countless revisions....now back to the phone issue, do you do alot of text messaging and data usage? or do you just use your p...
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Making calls. I've done "texting" on Verizon and it was OK...just seemed like a lot of work for nothing. I am looking into data for the future and connecting my computer to it, but that's not an issue at the moment. More important that it makes calls and makes them well. I've had good luck with Verizon in that regard, but Verizon won't work in Europe...you can rent phones, or get that Samsung that Verizon offers that works on CDMA & GSM, but their calling rates are expensive compared to T-Mobile's $.99 cent's in most Countries. By the way...is the .99-cents just for when your making calls in Europe, or if you call someone from the States here to Europe?
Also Temp, you said you've used both T-Mobile and Cingular in CA., do you think tha...
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.99 should be for calls placed while in europe to other europe numbers and calls placed while in europe to US numbers as well, i have noticed no real advantage to having the 850 band so far, actually there is like 1 store where i go where my tmobile doesnt work but my AWS/cingular phone has reception (due to the building penetration w/ 850), really our coverage is so good in california its all about the plans, what i recommend is this, you have a buyers remorse period w/ tmobile of 14 days, try it for 7, if it works then sweet, if not then return the equipment and do the same for cingular, see which is better for you......again tmobile allows you to use ANY phone availible in europe that supports the 1900mhz band (which means you have far mo...
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Thanks again Temp! I will give them a try. Also what has sold me on T-Mobile is their level of customer service which some of the other's lack in. I have done repeat business at places simply because of that over a business that may be a larger company or have less expensive products, but stayed with the one that had better customer service. I'm in the industry of customer service myself, and it means a lot!

CRCinOklnd said:
Thanks again Temp! I will give them a try. Also what has sold me on T-Mobile is their level of customer service which some of the other's lack in. I have done repeat business at places simply because of that over a business that may be a larger company or have less expensive products, but stayed with the one that had better customer service. I'm in the industry of customer service myself, and it means a lot!

definately, lol unfortunately i rarely call either of my providers so i couldnt tell yah hahaha.....but yeah make sure you check all your options for phones if you go with tmobile because remember you can use ANY GSM phone IN THE WORLD that supports 1900mhz :-D