ah, so what company are you looking into? cingular, verizion, t-mobile, sprint?
i did a lot of phone research as well before i got mine, and i switched services every year (from sprint, t-mobile, now cingular). if you're looking for one, i'd highly recommend cingular as of right now.
GSM network meaning your phone connects to at&t, cingular, and t-mobile towers so wherever you go you always get some type service which is good. the phones aren't too shabby looking and as of right now the razr is becoming hot with blue tooth or my phone which comes with infrared.
rollover minutes is probably the best feature a phone could ever have. even if you don't use it that much, for 40 dollars a month (in my area) you get 350 minutes with 5000 weekend and night minutes. if you use 100 to 150 a month for making typical phonecalls the next month you'll recieve a total of 550-600 minutes for the same monthly price, and from that it keeps accumilating. not too shabby eh? the plans are very resonably priced compared to verizon, and well affordable such as t-mobile.
my next option if you're looking for business, or if you have the money i would go for verizon. reviews say that they have the best service, best customer support, and if you are already have a plan such as dsl, verizon international, etc, the plan for a cell phone can be easily arranged and be put on one bill. i think they even said if you're an original member for verizon, there are special deals for one year or two year contracts and what not. i'm not too sure, but thats what i've read and saw in advertisments.
next option, if you're desperate. go for t-mobile.
the cheapest plans and they don't jip you off on minutes or the bill. the service is pretty crappy compared to cingular or verizion, but it's decent when outside. highly recommended for city areas and urban areas. not suburban or rural.
want pretty? shnazzy, beautiful phones? get sprint.
although their customer support is crap, jip you off on the bill, and is currently dying in most areas, the beauty of those high end bluetooth, megapixel camera, mp3s, light up glow thing things are i guess worth it.
i had sprint before, we argued almost every three months with customer support because of unknown "surprises" in phonebills.
i think i pretty much covered up all the popular services out there.
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