I have noticed my old school Samsung Rugby did get better reception than my iPhone 3 did, but both the iPhone 3g and 4 get better service than the Rugby.

Deploying for wildland fires sends us to remote locations in different states, our firefighters have a number of different phones. What I have learned about reception (besides the differences between the service providers) is don't but Blackberry or Palm smartphones (in my opinion, this is one of many reason to avoid these brands). iPhones and Droids both seemed to do as well as the old school "dumb-phones".

To the best of my knowledge, running the battery down to zero helps to syncronize the battery meter. I'm not sure if it does anything for the actual battery though, as most rechargeable lithium batteries can't be discharged below 3.6V without damage. I could be totally wrong, but I would imagine iPhones have some sort of overdischarge protection?

I'm not aware either way of anything stating that you should or should not completely discharge an iPhone to fix anything with the battery or battery meter. I can tell you that LiPo batteries have only a certain number of charge cycles in them. The good news is that if you charge a LiPo battery from 90% to 100%, you've taken off 10% of one charge cycle of life from it, not an entire charge cycle. Also, I've always been told to keep LiPo rechargeables topped up for best life.

The iPhone definitely has overdischarge protection.

According to Apple, it is not necessary to fully discharge your batteries http://www.apple.com/batteries/.

Thanks jzmtl and Alan_ for your replies.

I was able to confirm that my Nokias can still call 911. They are going in the glovebox of each car with a charger and an information card. (And one is going into my parents' car, whether they like it or not. Their offspring can be stubborn too.)

From the website of the official Canadian telecommunications regulator (CRTC):
"What if I have a cellphone but do not subscribe to any service?

Even if you do not have any pre-paid minutes or a service plan, you will still be able to dial 911 in an emergency situation. However, you will receive wireless 911 services as they exist today. Emergency responders will not be able to use the enhanced features to determine your location with a greater degree of accuracy."

Yes. But that didn't help anything. It was not a battery problem. Among many issues, the biggest problem was lack of connectivity to the carrier (AT&T). 95% of the time the phone would not work as a cellphone, it's most basic operation. No 3G connectivity either. Local operations would still work fine. It was not a problem with the carrier either - other AT&T iPhones sitting right next to it were working just fine.

I am not knocking iPhones. They are good phones. I am knocking Apples refusal to help at all and saying to just buy a new iPhone. The latest phone to have problems was 14 months old. They would not even look at it at our cost. Buyer beware on Apple customer service.

Samsung Galaxy S -- fine phone, but mine has always had a GPS issue. In that it has never worked, except for the cell tower triangulation location. The GPS chip or the firmware is faulty. The second gen Galaxy's GPS do work however and have a slightly bigger screen.

I just got a brand new Bold (HPSA+ version) on Friday for work. Somethings are very nice, browser is reasonably fast but it might take a while to get to using the combination of touch screen/track button and keyboard. GPS was accurate to 600' inside my office which shows that it is no match/substitute for my Garmn 62s (<30').

There are reports that the new iPhone with Siri is really chewing up network resources. Apparently DOUBLING the data transferred, this has put a strain on a lot of service providers. If your have dropped calls or reduced service, this might be one of the reasons why.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/apples-siri-8216doubles-iphone-4s-data-usage/2194
My local provider (SaskTel) has been under fire for not being able to keep up with the demands of smartphone usage and gave several managers the boot as a result.

AT&T was great. They put in two new sim cards and a battery for free, even though the phone was bought at the Apple store and not an AT&T store. I don't know why they tried the new battery, but they did, and I appreciate their attempt. After that AT&T finally said, it wasn't them, it's the phone itself. Which I 100% agree with. But at least AT&T tried. Apple refused to even look.


No, that thought never occurred to us. Our Apple store is a huge one, in a large mall in the Denver metro area. This is where they direct you to go for problems. You make appointments with their technical gurus, or whatever the name is they give themselves. I think they use the term "guru".

Despite the problems my son has had with iPhones, I would still recommend them if that's what you want. Just be aware that their expense can go beyond the initial purchase price if you get a bad one that doesn't announce itself as being bad until after the warrantee expires. Apple will take care of you during the warrantee period. They did that for my son's first iPhone that had problems. His first one completely died within a couple of months. Apple replaced it. It didn't feel great having just bought a new one and having Apple replace it with a refurbished model with scratches on it, but that's what they did. Better than nothing I guess.