[iswimalot]

Originally Posted by saddy4321

Thanks...
Do the BB peral (Black color)from T-mobile and Cingular/At&t are different in shades. i know the key pad contrast is different. Other than that, is the black shade same in color. I find the pic of Cingular is little light in shade. Is that true?

Its more of a grayish BB than a black one. They also have a Red one.

[dwc]

I have tmo and my wife has att (cingy). She gets a little better service than I do, occasionally she will have signal when i don't. Not really a whole lot of difference though. I will say that tmo's blackberry plans are cheaper and so is the basic cell service, and tmo is more wifi-friendly. I am sticking with tmo because I want the wifi 83xx next month. I want to drive my squeezebox with it.

[camaro322hp]

I have had T-Mobile, Cingular, and Verizon over the years. I have made a couple observations:

1. In my experience, Verizon has the best coverage, by far. T-Mo and Cingular were about the same.

2. In my experience, T-Mobile has the best customer service, by far. Cingular and Verizon both had horrible customer service IMO.

I'm sticking with T-Mobile, because their coverage is adequate where I live/work and most places where I travel for work, and because of their customer service and better rates.

[SanFrancisco]

Originally Posted by crypto

this thread should have been for people who had BOTH carriers so that their opinions are not biased. i had tmobile in jan 07 and it was the WORST experience i had with cell phones. it was a little worse than nextel. however, i switched to at&t in may and i dont regret it at all! i only had 1 dropped call and ironically, the person i was talkin to has tmobile.

Well on my earlier post, I simply mentioned T-Mo because it's my carrier. But I have had the other carriers too, before switching to T-Mo about four years ago.

Where I live, the SF Bay Area, all the carriers have great signals [as might be expected in "Silicon Valley"]. So coverage has not been an issue for me.

Friends have had bad coverage/signals with T-Mo [those who live in the Bay Area], but the one friend, for example, barely gets one bar with her Verizon account. So with T-Mo she got no bars, Verizon only one bar, but I guess that's better than T-Mo's zero. I feel bad for her, she tried T-Mo, hates Verizon, and reluctantly will probably going with Sprint [because she hates Verizon customer service]

I have also had Sprint [for about three years]. While their PCS signal was great, IMHO their customer service reps are "Cell Nazis." [Yes, I'm ripping off Seinfeld's Soup Nazi episode].

So for me, all signals/coverage being equal here in the Bay Area, I'll stick with T-Mobile. Even if the rumored Pearl 2 goes to Sprint first, I'll never switch back to them.

And I have heard AT&T has not improved on it's rude and condescending behavior, so I'll never go back to them. [Don't even get me started on recounting how AT&T failed to disconnect my line. Even though their computer records showed the line was completely unused for six months, the CSR still wanted me to pay for those six months, about $380. Told them to take a hike and they still send me a bill. Been about six years now.].

[tiger6]

Currently, I have a tmo pearl and my sister has an at&t one.

what i have noticed so far is that as far as the actual phone goes, hers is more solidly built. the numbers on my phone wiggle around and hers are firm, my trackball seems loose and hers is not. my back cover always pops off, hers never has. she has gone through 2 replacement phones (not because of the phones but because of her, lol) and the replacements were all just as solid. this is the only thing that i really hate about the tmo pearls.

as far as the coverage goes, she gets better reception in our house than me, but my reception is still adequate.
tmo doesn't work well in buildings, often she can use her phone in elevators and i can't.

but the advantage tmobile has is much better rates, calling plans, and minutes. i pay a lot less than her and i have more minutes. the blackberry plans for tmo are $10 cheaper than at&t.

customer service is also a lot better with tmo. i have called both and tmo's people are always courteous and if they don't know an answer they don't make one up, where as with at&t they frequently do.

i think it comes down to service area reception vs. money.
if you get good recep. from a tmo phone in your area i would suggest that. but if you don't and you travel a lot at&t has a better chance of working for you.