cell out

the t68i is quite good, except don't go with t-mobile - get at&t.

at&t is runnning a special on the t68i.

http://www.nokiausa.com/phones/3650

Is the sexiest phone out there. T-mobile is nice, I'm not sure if AT&T allows you to go overseas.

what's wrong with t-mobile that makes at&t a better choice? the basic plan from t-mobile seems stronger than at&t's.

the nokia 3650 does look pretty sexy. there's no isync support for it yet, which is unfortunate, but i'm sure it will be forthcoming.

international service isn't a big factor. it would be nice to have, since i'll probably be in europe at least once or twice per year, but it isn't so nice that i'd be willing to pay all that much more for it. the camera is a more enticing feature.

so, the nokia 3650 with the at&t mlife plan including 200 anytime minutes (and unlimited night/weekend with a one or two-year contract would cost $150 for the phone, $36 for activation (or not, with a two-year commitment), and $30/month. at&t's most basic plan only includes 30 anytime minutes, and no night/weekend minutes.

that's just the national next-generation service from at&t. there's also multi-band service, and local plans which change the minutes available (and add long-distance fees when calling from outside the local area for the local plan, of course, but the local area includes los angeles, san diego, and the bay area).

the international service from at&t is more expensive compared to t-mobile's. ($1.30/minute to call from europe with at&t, versus t-mobile's 99¢/minute.)

the nokia 3650 with t-mobile's basic plan would add an extra $149 for the cost of the phone relative to the t68i. t-mobile's regional calling plans start at $40/month, so that doesn't hold much interest for me.

that nokia's feature set seems cool, but it's a big phone and the keypad configuration is awkward. the t68i is amazingly tiny and nice.

i think t-mobile rides on cingular, and i've had (and heard of) bad experience with cingular reception. of course, that's in nocal - not sure about socal.

i agree with you re: international calling. it happens so rarely that it's not worth paying for it. only international account executives need a feature like this, and usually their companies will pay for it.

lastly, i'm not so sure about these features like camera-in-a-phone. seems really awkward and not quite perfected. i would much rather have a devoted digicam for pics.

I have T-Mobile and a T68i here in L.A. I bought the phone at Amazon for -$25 after rebates; right now it's only free. :-) It works great with iSync (addressbook and calender) and for a slow internet connection over bluetooth.

The phone is a bit sluggish when navigating the menus, but other than that it's quite decent.

Coverage is on par or better than what I had with AT&T or Nextel some years ago (non-GSM).

AT&T won't unlock the phone for use in Europe. With T-Mobile you can get them to unlock it after 3 months or some such if you are going so you cheaply can get a SIM card there for local use (and not pay insane roaming fees).

You have a few weeks to return it if coverage sucks where it matters to you.

• ask

It depends on what you need. It seems you don't love your mobiles like i do (witness: I purchased my mobile outright for 400 EUR). The Nokia is the better phone, although I believe the t68i has better apple integration. The t68i is a much older phone though, and has some flaws, mainly:

1) Picture quality isn't great 2) No Video capabilities 3) Its an Ericsson, I don't like their software, Nokia has great software 4) The Nokia has an XHTML browser. That means you can browse the normal internet on your cellphone.

Again, it depends on your needs though. I'm staying with my old nokia 6310i for now, cause it meets my needs perfectly (and this multimedia thing is too new.)

I tried the Ericsson phone and AT&T a while back and I ended up giving the phone back and sticking with my current phone and Verizon. Verizon has better coverage and the evening hours are 8 pm to whatever, 6 am or something, and AT&T's start at 9 pm, and that really bothered me. Also, the phone keypad was hard to unlock, and in some cases it would unlock itself when certain "emergency" numbers are dialed. This happened once when the phone was in my pocket in the span of a couple of weeks. I couldn't find an option to turn that feature off. On the upside, the phone looked cool.

But I think most if not all have 1 month trial periods so you should just try them and see which works best for you.