Need help picking smart phone

Android phones also have USB which you can also use to thether.
http://www.xda-developers.com/ is a website with huge info about Android phones.
And if you want to combine a phone with a tablet.........you could get a 8" tablet which you can use as a phone.

 

Check out www.swappa.com you can get some good deals on phones.

 

Blackberry Bold 9930 through Verizon would be my choice. Although I don't think they offer it anymore as the 9930 was replaced by the Q10. You could buy one unlocked from Ebay and just connect it through Verizon, that way you have no contract. Or just get the Q10.

 

Hi. I have a Samsung with Android. I got it through Walmart's Straight talk. I think it was about $150 plus the first month which runs me $49 and change for unlimited data and voice, call waiting all that. I run mostly east of the big river and the mid-west, don't get far west but I do tend to get out Nowheresville very often for my breaks. Rarely ever do I not have signal and almost always the "G-bar" is pretty full. I don't use most of the phone's capabilities or I didn't used to. I have a laptop and I like to Skype with my family. Takes the edge off being gone most of the time. Plus I like Internet, but the problem was WiFi. $2 for an hour or $5 for a day at a truck stop (free at one of our terminals) for S-L-O-W as molasses WiFi that made Skypeing more frustrating than it was worth even trying and 20 minutes to load the glitch, patchy Google Maps Street View image which I use to preview a shipper or receiver I hadn't been to yet (awesome tool! you can drop down to street level and "walk around" so you know where the entrance is - GPS takes you to the postal street address which often ain't where you want to be, what the docks look like check out signs and any hazards) and forget about the chunky weather maps. I could do that on my phone but me and touch screens just don't seem to like each other and then the image is only as big as the phone so out comes the magnifying glass. Oh, but it was a WHOLE lot ffaster than truck stop WiFi just real small. LOL. I recently heard about this tethering thing. Thought I'd try it when I was home so one of my kids could help me and plus my WiFi at home is real fast. Kids weren't around. I Binged it and an e-how on it came up with the sight to get the download free (http://pdanet.co/a/). I followed the instructions and in 10 minutes I was connected to the net through my phone. Wasn't quite as fast as home but a heck of a lot faster than truckstop high price and free and fast enough so what I do use the net for is smooth and clear with only 1 bar on my phone (I live in one of the very few bad areas but it doesn't matter because A. none of them work well in that area and B. I'M NEVER HOME - I live on the road and visit the house for a couple days every month). But I wasn't sure that I wasn't somehow leeching off my home WiFi (even though I disconnected for the test). I mean it was too easy and free too? Nah. Gotta be something up? So the acid test came this AM when I delivered and had to wait a while for my next load. I'm in a grocery store parking lot and believe it or not my lap top says there are NO WiFi connections anywhere. It's a mom and pop in the country in SC. Nothing else around. No stray WiFi signals. OK cool now we'll know for sure and sure enough I hooked my phone to the USB on the computer and surfing away. Skyped my wife with no glitches - smooth and clear, radar and street view loaded right up. Only bad thing - an incoming call or text knocks me off line for a second or three. Big deal. Free internet anywhere? I'll deal with it - I don't get many calls or texts incoming because everyone knows I drive and will ignore it if I'm driving so they all pretty much wait for me to contact them. Then they know I'm not driving and we can converse without me running someone over - or getting busted. I don't know enough about any of the others but I'm fairly sure probably most smart phones can do it but don't take my word I'm far from a techy. Just thought I'd let you know how the phone and plan I got does. I really didn't like it (because of the touch screen and flipping the screen around when the phone moved, darned auto correct correcting things I didn't want corrected into a totally out of place similar word, etc - I liked my flip phone) until now. Now I could care less about the touch screen and other dumb stuff. My lap top (which I love) and I are mobile internet anywhere - for FREE - so funky stupid phone just got a promotion to cool smart phone. LOL.

 

Well I'll be a monkey's Uncle. I knew it was too good to be true. Well I tried. I'll ride it til it ends. Thanks for the heads up on everything.

 

Lot of good information here. I'll just add this.

If you are absolutely set against getting an iPhone, then at least get a Samsung Android phone. These are the two most popular phones on the planet and then there is everything else. If you get one of these you will have access to nearly every app that is available for your needs on the road. If/when you do have a problem then getting help is just a quick Google search away. I used to have one from the "everything else" camp (Palm Pre) and was frequently disappointed to learn that the apps I wanted would not be released in the Palm format.

I'm a happy iPhone user and my son was a happy Samsung user until he had a few hardware issues and now he is a happy iPhone user, but that's not to say there is anything wrong with Samsung in general.