Phone Troubles- Which Phone Now???

[pmsmith2032]

I am new to this site and am hoping I can get some advice on which phone to choose. First, let me provide some background.....

My wife and I live in the suburbs of Chicago and have been customers of Verizon for a number of years. We have had good luck with LG phones ( my most recent phone was a LG VX5200 and my wife has the LG VX8300). We have been satisfied with these phones and impressed with their quality and signal strength.

A couple of weeks ago I became eligible for my two year upgrade and decided to try the new Mororola V750 Adventurer. I liked the fact that it was rugged and had a 2.0 magapixel camera. However, after trying this phone, I found it to have a lower signal strength than my old LG, my wife's LG and my father's Krazr (at least one bar lower signal strength at any given time). Also, the audio quality on calls seemed to be not quite as good as my old LG. Finally, when I had the phone on "vibrate mode" and in my pocket, I often did not feel incoming text messages and calls.

Today, I decided to take the V750 back to Verizon. After speaking to the customer service rep, I decided to exchange it for the LG Chocolate 3 (VX8560). After comparing this new phone to the old LGs and the Krazr, the signal strength is still sub-par (at least one bar less).

At this point, I don't know what to do. I travel to northern Wisconsin/ UP of Michigan and am pretty sure the lower signal strength is going to be an issue. Could this just be an issue with these two specific phones or have I picked two bad models? Are there other models that would be better suited for me needs? The qualities/uses I have for a cell phone are:

1. Signal Strength
2. Call quality
3. Durability (I am an outdorrsman so am a bit more rough on a phone than the average person).
4. Camera (I do take a few pictures here and there so a camera with 1.3 megapixels or better would be good).


Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I only have a few days until my 30 day return period is over. Thanks!