Yeah aware of that.. but I was thinking maybe I don't really need a smartphone or anything like that.. and in my area, getting stuck with verizon which I've never had connection problems with isn't necessarily a bad thing.. Plus I couldn't get a consistent answer out of ATT what happens when I get sent out of country due to my job. Verizon lets me pay just a $10 a month maintenance fee.
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I thought Verizon (being CDMA) is actually worse to have if you are going out of the country versus GSM providers that use SIM cards
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I'm not sure about BB phones, but the iPhones have a somewhat shitty warrantee. The $70 warranty only covers phone defects, not if anything happens to it from being dropped. One of the kids at my son's daycare got ahold of my iPhone and shattered the glass. I thought it was covered through the warranty...it wasn't. $200 to replace the phone. The warranty only covers if something goes wrong with the internals or software.
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I think what he's talking about here Jim is you can pay a 10 per month fee, and it kind of puts your account on hold while you're out of the country and can't use it. That way you don't get hit with the full bill while you're gone. Seems I read something about that somewhere
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Google "in your face iphone holder"

That's the one I bought and love it.
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Dan another option you have if you go with verizon is to get what they call a world phone. Both sprint and verizon have these, but I dont know if sprint has the 10.00 option. They allow the use of a simcard in these phones when in europe or most of asia.
Some of the world phones on Verizon right now are the
HTC Ozone
Blackberry 8830 world and 9630 and I believe the storm.
Samsung saga and renown
Motorola a840 or z6c
Some more as well I believe, hope this helps.
Just go to the verizon site and type in sim or gsm
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If you didn't have Apple Care it would have been $600, fyi.
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A coworker cracked his iPhone screen on the desk, put it on Ebay and sold it in the Phillipines for 700 bucks, or so he says.......
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I bought a warranty from SquareTrade. $115 covers breakage, stupidity, loss, theft, whatever for two years. :-)
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The Verizon Blackberry Storm and Tour are both considered "Global Phones" and apparently can be used around the world. You'd just have to check on the service price plans. But this way you keep the same phone no matter where your job is.


Ron
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Should have added, I get issued a cell phone when I go overseas, so I why carry two :-)
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I just got a BB Tour over the weekend. Very nice phone. About the only gripes thus far is the screen has a minor ripple and the buttons could be a bit bigger. I believe the price on it has dropped $50 in the past few days, should that influence your decision. The tour replaces the 8830 World Phone and the Curve.

I would avoid a BB Storm like the plague given it's history of issues.
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