Originally Posted By: Paul810
This means, for the most part, every handset phone you buy today is going to be roughly equal in its ability to pick up a signal. Connections rely more on your carrier than on your phone.


I respectfully disagree, and I base this on my hands-on experience.

Some digital phones will pull in a signal more strongly than others, and will punch out calls in fringe areas where other phones will not.

A couple of years ago, I upgraded to a "smart" phone. I discovered that it would not pick up a signal on major highways where I knew for a fact there was service. I went back to my little Nokia candy bar phone, bought a couple of spares on sale, and haven't looked back.

I have friends who were amazed that my cheap, boring, $40 Nokia could pick up 2 bars when they had nothing on their $400+ phones. So it's not just me.

My entirely unscientific testing indicates an inverse rule: the more things a cell phone tries to do, the less likely it is to make phone calls when you need to. YMMV.