Better sit down for this: I'm thinking about buying a cell-phone. Ok, pick yourselves up off the floor. Yeah it's true. I used to have a couple a few years ago, but swore off cell-phones for what I thought was forever.
Well, it's starting to look like I'll come out better getting rid of my house phone and just using a cell-phone. Hellsouth is still the monopoly land-line provider here and I've got my DSL service thru them. They jacked up my DSL to $70/month. (they're the monopoly so they can!) I can get cable internet for $40-50 and save the install costs if I do it myself. If I do that, I'd like to jack the land-line and get a cell-phone.
Now I'm seeing all this stuff about using cellphones to surf the web, send text messages, using Yahoo Messenger on your cellphone, all kinds of cool stuff. But I know absolutely nothing about it. Last cellphones I had were a simple hand-held and an old bag-phone back before they went digital.
I'm going to go to the two local providers this week, Verizon and Cingular, and do some shopping. Before I do, maybe some of you can provide a little advice and educate me on the subject.
I did go to the Radio Shack across the street from my job today on my lunch break, since they carry Verizon phones and you can get the service there. But they only had like 4 cheapo phones on display and couldn't really tell me much. (what a suprise!) I walked out when they told me that there was no internet access for cell phones whatsoever provided in Macon. I knew that was BS because this morning a guy I work with was telling me that he can access the internet from his Cingular phone and he showed me how.
So what can you techno-enlightened individuals share with me? What model phone should I look for? What features? What kind of internet access can I expect? I'd like to keep the cost of the phone under $200 if I can, maybe closer to $100 if possible.
Mike.