New cell phone advice - UPDATE (I'm flash card retarded)

Erandus

I'm looking to buy a new cellphone for myself and 2 kids.

I was thinking about some Sony Ericsson w580i's. They're buy-one-get-one right now, and with rebates they end up being 30 dollars for 2 of them. I'd get 4 and unload one through ebay or something.

Anyone have any experience with one of these phones? If it was a "bad" experience, can anyone suggest a good alternative in that price range?

EDIT: Post down below now contains flash card question

CooterTKE

you probably have to buy 4 lines of service to get 4 phones.

Erandus

We have a family package for service, so the minutes are already taken care of. I'm just trying to get an idea if the phone is nice.

I read some reviews on Amazon and while they're mostly good, there's scattered complaints of the phones being somewhat flimsy and the battery life being questionable.

Glaeal

Are you looking for a specific carrier?

Erandus

Carrier is already covered, we have AT&T service. This is purely a question about the phone itself.

Limp moose

Get an Iphone for yourself and give your kids razors.

The iphone is by far one of the best pieces of technology I have ever acquired. In a word its amazing.

The razors are cheap, durable, and have all the features any kid would need. It was the phone I had prior to the iphone, and it worked great for 2 years.

The iphone makes the razor look like a rock in comparison.

Glaeal

Limp moose wrote: »

Get an Iphone for yourself and give your kids razors.

The iphone is by far one of the best pieces of technology I have ever acquired. In a word its amazing.

The razors are cheap, durable, and have all the features any kid would need. It was the phone I had prior to the iphone, and it worked great for 2 years.

The iphone makes the razor look like a rock in comparison.

And that would probably cost you about $700 more than the w580i's.

I know AT&T has a lot of deals where you can get phones for free with a contract extension, but I don't know how it works for a family's worth of phones.

James

Limp moose wrote: »

Get an Iphone for yourself and give your kids razors.

The iphone is by far one of the best pieces of technology I have ever acquired. In a word its amazing.

The razors are cheap, durable, and have all the features any kid would need. It was the phone I had prior to the iphone, and it worked great for 2 years.

The iphone makes the razor look like a rock in comparison.

This is significantly more expensive than the $60 for the Sony phones.

Aside from that, recent RAZRs have suffered in terms of quality, and an update is expected for the iPhone soon.

The offer the OP is looking at looks like the best deal.

Erandus

I ended up with the 3 Sony phones, total cost to me 50 bucks. The lady at the AT&T store let us cheat on the Buy-1-get-1 and let us have 2 for free after the initial one.

I'm quite familiar with the iPhone, I got my wife one. While I'd love one, I don't have the 300 bucks to drop on one right now. I went with the sony for the MP3 capabilities and the fancyness of the phone, plus the deal. 50 bucks for 3 of them seemed pretty impossible to beat.

Otherwise I would have been on top of the iPhone, Limp moose.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Followup question:

The phone says it needs "Micro (M2)" cards. I'm totally retarded when it come to this sd/flash card technology.

I assume this card wont work, as it's an "SD" card and not an "M2" card?

bowen

Correct, the micro card is the wrong type.

http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-Memory-SDMSM2-1024-A10AM-Retail-Package/dp/B000HZ8942

I think this is what you'll be looking for.

Erandus

Allrightie, thanks.

Elin

Do NOT get the w580's. I work for a cell insurance company. The reason the 580's are cheap is because they have major issues. The keypad is cheap as all hell and the keys crack down the middle during light/normal usage. This happens so often it's covered under warranty. The keys also fall off a lot, namely the send key. This one is not covered under warranty but is a top reason for replacement.

Erandus

Well.

Crap. Its a little late for that.

Erandus wrote: »

I ended up with the 3 Sony phones

They do have a 30 day happiness guarantee. I'll see how they work for a while.

Elin

the second you have a key issue call warranty. If the phone gets dropped or a bead of moisture touches it you're screwed as the warranty is invalid. Also, you only have 30 days to get insurance on the phones. If you don't have it, get it. Honestly. 15 bucks per month for three phones will save you a major hassle latter.

Erandus

Mmm.. okay, thanks for the tips there, thats very helpful.

Neb54

Can anyone tell me what the maximum amount of memory a w580i can run is?

FunkyWaltDogg

Glaeal wrote: »

I know AT&T has a lot of deals where you can get phones for free with a contract extension, but I don't know how it works for a family's worth of phones.

On my AT&T family plan we can extend each line individually and replace the phone every two years, but I'm not sure if that's some sort of exception as we started with two separate plans and merged them when we got married.

Dixon

I use the w580i phones while they are very nice and look very pretty the man above who stated the problem with keypad is partially correct. I'm on my 3rd phone right now - they replace them for free - and they can be a little annoying. The first two both had the keypads stop working on me slowly but surely.

At first the lights stopped working then the up button on the centre button and the two pairs of buttons on the left and right of the phone. Both of these with in a year of each other

However this 3rd phone is a god damn tank though. I spilt beer on it...orange juice. Close a door on it, got kicked while it was in my pocket and quite a lot more and it just keeps on trucking fine. I don't get how this one is doing so well and the others died without any assistance. You may be asking why all this shit happened to my phone but by the 3rd phone I really stopped caring if I dropped it

Shadowfire

Glad I stopped by, and it's disappointing to hear the issues with these phones. The wife and I have been looking at picking these up, since we've loved our W300's so much (I'm a sucker for Ericsson designs). Glad I looked in here.