After being manhandled by a friendly but somewhat deceitful sales clerk—no doubt she was trained to hand me a premium phone even after I explicitly asked for the cheapest one they had—I am now a Verizon Wireless customer. I'm convinced that beyond slightly different splotchy coverage patterns, all of the major cell phone carriers are virtually identical for urban customers, down to pricing plans and basic phone features. I switched from T-Mobile thinking I might have better luck with coverage in my house, and now I feel a bit silly about having switched, but I'd feel equally silly switching back for the same reasons. With while-you-wait number portability (seriously impressive!) and reasonable return policies, there's almost no reason to try a new carrier, even for silly reasons.

There is some slight variance in hardware availability between carriers. If you want a phone with Bluetooth data capability, Verizon can't and won't help you. (Verizon's only Bluetooth phone is intentionally crippled to only support Bluetooth headsets and no other connections.) Also, Verizon really has their act together with being able to sell games and ringtones. I don't know much about the technical differences between the BREW and J2ME platforms for mobile games (C++ vs. Java, J2ME has more widespread adoption while BREW is proprietary), but I know I could never figure out how to buy a game with T-Mobile.

My final choice for a phone was the LG VX6100, upgrading from the very popular Sony Ericsson T610. I narrowed it to this or the much less expensive Audiovox CDM8910, but it was an easy upsell for the clerk when she showed me the Audiovox's poor quality speakerphone. Somehow I've convinced myself I want a speakerphone in my cell phone. If I can talk myself back down from that, I could just get the super-cheap and reliable Samsung SCH-A650, whose only real lack, if you don't need a camera or speakerphone, is a caller ID display on the outside of the phone. Verizon gives away the A650 as a promo for any of several phones, including the VX6100, for people starting up family plans, and it's clearly a decent phone. I have two weeks to change my mind.

But I'm pretty much in love with the LG VX6100, mostly based on its improvements over my old T610. For years, I eschewed flip phones, thinking they were too fragile, but they're clearly a) not, and b) better with the accidental pants dialing. The VX6100 has side buttons that do get pressed accidentally quite regularly (a genuine drawback), but they don't do much harm. The camera isn't great, but a hell of a lot more fun than the crap camera on the T610.

For getting photos off of your LG VX6100, you can either pay per message to e-mail them to yourself, or you can get a third-party USB cable. There does not appear to be commercial software available for such a cable, but who needs commercial software? BitPim is an open source tool for the LG VX series phones and all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac) for uploading and downloading phonebooks and pictures and whatnot. BitPim recommends RPI Wireless as a cable reseller for the VX6100 in thanks for their support of the project. (If you're freaked by the ugly website, there are a dozen other ways to get this cable.)

One last thing: To get a good deal on a Verizon phone from Verizon directly, you need a two year contract. Boo! If you're only doing a single phone, you can do much better if you set it up with Amazon.com: only a one year contract is required to get much better deals on phones after rebates. Yay! The catch: Amazon can't do family plans, so if you want to do two or more phones, the only way to use Amazon is to buy the first phone with a regular plan, then buy the remaining phones planless at their full retail price, which is much more than you'll be willing to pay once you're used to seeing "free phone", "five for $20", or Amazon's enticing $-50 after-rebate price. Careful: Amazon's before-rebate price still requires a one-year contract, and the actual no-plan price for a phone is usually much higher (add to cart to find out). I, of course, wanted a family plan, so I ended up in a Verizon store.