Equipment and Reception

[dwhockey]

I've been told by a few cellular reps that all phones have the same reception because they all use 0.6W of power. That seems to be a little bit of a myth, though, as many people seem to think one phone or another has better reception. So 1) is it true and 2) what phones are currently offering the best reception?

[Flyer00]

This is absolutely NOT true! First, it makes a difference which service provider you have. In many places, Verizon is considered to have the best coverage. However, this is not the case in some areas. You must find out which provider has the best coverage in your area. Then you need to find out which phone offered by that provider has the best reception. No matter what they say, not all phones from that same provider have the same recpetion strength. I was told by a Verizon rep that they do because the chips (for Verizon phones) are all made by Qualcomm and are all the same as far as reception. Not true. If they all have the same chip, then for some reason (possibly software or phone design) the reception varies. From my experience with Verizon, the LG VX10 has the best reception. The VX4400 has almost as good of reception except it has an issue where it tends to switch between analog and digital for no apparent reason in certain areas. The Audiovox phones are also known to have good reception. I used to own a Motorola v60c and it had good reception (not quite as good as the VX10 and VX4400). However, the Motorola T720 has the worst reception out of any Verizon phone I've seen. It has the analog problem as well as frequent dropped and missed calls. It's hard to tell when you first sign up with a new provider how good your phone is because you don't have any others to compare it to. These forums were very helpful for me. You can also ask friends what they think of their phones. The best thing to do is probably find out which provider is the strongest in your area and try them for the trial period. If you are not happy with the reception of your phone, take it back and try a different model. Hope this helps!