Cellular phone holiday wish list

Handsets can be feature laden — but will they work for you?

Motorola

Motorola's popular RAZR phone now comes in magenta. That's pink to you and me.

By Gary Krakow

Columnist

msnbc.com

updated 10:14 a.m. ET Dec. 13, 2005

Gary Krakow
Columnist
• E-mail
Does your cell phone do video? Or instant messaging? Is it capable of taking mega-pixel quality photos and video? What about watching TV? Will it retrieve your e-mail? Let you send all kinds of text messages? Does it let you dial just by speaking into it? Remind you of your appointments? Will it ring overseas?

Which of these features do you really want or need for the cell phone that you carry with you everywhere? And what is all this complexity worth to you?

Cell phone manufacturers are betting the bank that it’s worth a lot. Which is why you’re seeing so many ads plugging all the different features inside your phone — instead of highlighting your chances of finding and maintaining a signal.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

I love to play with all the new phones on the market — and some about to come out. But, after playing with these new super devices for awhile I always come back to the same question — do they work where I need them to work?

It doesn’t matter what cell phone you buy or how many features they’ve crammed inside — if it doesn’t receive a signal where you live or work it’s not worth what you paid for it. It’s not even worth a dime.

So, the most important part of buying any cell phone — especially as a gift — is to make sure it will work where you need it to work. If it doesn't, it’s probably not the phone. Try similar models from other cellular carriers. In the long run, you’ll be glad you did.

That said, there are some really terrific phones out there and any one of them would make a terrific holiday gift.

Near the top of everyone’s cellular wish list is the Motorola RAZR. It’s slim, sleek and just plain pretty. It also has a wonderful hand feel. Everyone who tries it wants one. And they should — it’s a great phone. On a recent trip to Europe, my wife and I took two RAZRs along and they did yeoman’s work.

When GSM/GPRS RAZRs first hit the market they were sold by one cellular provider for the outrageous price of $500. Luckily, as RAZRs became available from other providers the prices became much more reasonable.

Cingular offers a quad-band world RAZR phone for $199.99 in silver and black, with a magenta (looks more like pink) version coming soon for $249.99. Verizon Wireless also soon will be offering its own version of the RAZR, called the V3c.

Treo 650
Verizon Wireless
The Treo 650 is a nearly perfect smart phone.
Another popular big seller is Palm’s second generation all-in-one device, the Treo 650. Available from a number of U.S. cellular providers, the 650 is a nearly perfect smart phone device —allowing you to browse the Web, send and receive e-mail, take pictures, play music and do nearly anything you can think of on a phone.

Verizon and Sprint sell CDMA versions of the 650 phone, while Cingular is marketing a GSM/GPRS model. Prices start at $299. Just a warning, because of its e-mail capabilities service plans will be higher than for cell phones without e-mail.

CONTINUED

1 | 2 | Next >