About to sign my life away

[erisuser1]

2. reception - heres the thing.. i live in southern Maine, we currently have two motorola phones on the USCC network. Somehow despite having good coverage in our area our home is a dead spot for USCC and ATT. My parents have Verizon phones which have a moderate signal ( 2+ bars ).

droidrage,

A word of caution - good coverage in one persons' area won't have any bearing on what you experience in your location. But, the fact that your "parents have Verizon phones which have a moderate signal" is of some significance - assuming that they measured that signal in the same places you will be using your phone.

I used an App called "RF Signal Tracker" (no longer available in the Market for 1.5 "Cupcake" devices) which integrates with Google Maps to give you an idea in signal strength variation (and will create .kmz files). To test it out, I took a 30 minute drive between two towns and into some foothills. At my house, four bars (-73 dBm), and at a few "rural" places in between, and stretches of the road in the foothills, no signal at all (-115 dBm). So, even though I am near a major metro market, the result you will get depends a great deal on specifics of terrain and tower placement.

The easiest thing for you to do without spending a cent would be to borrow one of the 'rents phones and walk around your place with it observing the signal strength (maybe make a voice call to see if you notice quality issues).

As others have reported, you will have 30 days to make up your mind (although I suppose that could still be a pain if you are porting a number between carriers).

eu1

 

[Podivin]

In my wife's office the cell phone signal is very bad. It's one of those places that if/when you get a signal you don't dare move or you're going to drop the call. If she REALLY wanted to use her cell phone while at work, she had to go outside. Both her previous phone (Razr) and my phone (a Samsung sometime or another) would kill it's battery in a day trying to get/keep/hold a signal in her office. Her Eris however, can hold on to the signal and is very usable. She can go most of two days before her battery runs out (She found that out by forgetting to plug her Eris in one night, the next afternoon her phone died. But by then she had a charger for it in her office). So, at least in our little corner of the world, the Eris can hang on to a signal better than either of our previous 'dumb' phones.