Cell phone for newbie?

I've been driving for 6 weeks now, it's obvious I need a good smart phone. I tried reading and searching threads but I'm not getting the understanding I need.

I hate cell phones and the first one I ever bought was a month ago at walmart and it just died. So a newbie at cell phones as well.

Can I get a few recommendations? Feel free to be specific, I won't hold you responsible if it doesn't work out.

Questions:

Location: since I'm living out of the truck and I'm driving anywhere in the lower 48 except the deep south, location seems irrelevant but verizon wants a location. I'm out of portland or but I'll be there very rarely. Is there any location that would be better to base my cell phone account out of? I guess they need a billing address but I don't even have one now, will have one in portland soon. This question is baffling me: where am I? hehehe

Carrier: Sounds like Verizon is the better choice and that's the carrier for my dead cheapo phone, so I could keep the #. But I am not in love with verizon, will go with att if that makes sense. Best coverage is important.

Features:

I want to be able to use my laptop in the truck, tethered to the phone. Can't do that now. The laptop is very old but I want to upgrade soon.

GPS: I will be buying a separate GPS unit, being able to connect to the phone sounds nice.

Rugged. I am tough on devices, it needs to survive the occasional drop

Apps: Droid seems like the better choice for me

Specs: doesn't have to be the fastest or thinnest and camera/video capability is no biggie. A nice bright screen is desired.

Plan/bundles: Don't need unlimited bandwidth, just high speed internet capability. I want to get back to surfing and downloading files but not so much movies and music. No TV.

Price: I'll spend the money I need to for this. I want to get it right, what I want is value for my money.

Thanks for any answers. Getting online has been a real challenge, so if I'm not back to the thread right away, please don't let that stop you from answering. Hopefully this thread can be of use to others in the future.

 

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm off to check those out.

Any advice as to what location I specify when setting up my account / buy the phone in? Does it even matter at all?

 

aha! there's the clue I was looking for. thanks!

 

hey there fellow watkins driver. (correct?) I recently finished a 22-drop run thru Iowa. It was um, shall we say, a learning experience.

which droid?