NYC Phone Reception
 

I'm about to get a cell phone again. I used Metro PCS before because I was broke, but now I actually need something good for work, so I'm looking to get a Droid with an unlimited data plan.

Can anyone comment on the reception of different providers in the NYC area? AT&T and Verizon are both ruled out as they don't offer unlimited data. Cellreception.com is listing Sprint as a good option (and Nextel which seems to be owned by Sprint), but I've never heard a good word about Sprint. And T-Mobile, which I heard was good years and years ago, seems to be dead last now.

Also, can any Droid owners recommend stable, powerful phones, preferably with slide-out keyboards?

I can't comment on New York City's cell service, but I can talk about Sprint and a phone that fits your criteria.

I've been with Sprint for just over two years now. Started with a Palm Pre which I replaced last December with their "Epic 4G", which now is only $99 with a 2 year contract. Last time I checked, this phone was the only Samsung Galaxy S model with a slide out keyboard. Of course 10 months in the phone world is a long time, and now there's the Galaxy S II's coming out, but it looks like AT&T is the only carrier that will have a slide out keyboard version, and I'll never go back to them.

But anyway, my Epic is still going strong after daily use, and in fact increased usage lately since I did away with my standalone MP3 player and now run a media server on my PC that I access via the phone, and I have yet to run into any real problems, and I haven't felt the desire for anything "more powerful" (although I do have the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which I actually use a lot less than the phone for music playing and web browsing -- the tab is basically a bedside PC). And I'm with you on the slide out keyboard front. It just feels better. But I do find myself using "Swype" half the time for typing, which in itself is pretty neat. New York City would likely be even better for the Epic, because of the 4G coverage that my area probably won't see for another decade. Samsung/Sprint are pretty notorious for not putting out very speedy updates to their phones, so I run the "CyanogenMod" and like it a lot.

As far as Sprint goes, my bill, while I still consider it pretty high for what I use the phone for (hardly ever any voice calls, mostly internet and e-mail, some texting), is cheaper than my AT&T bill ever was (about $80/month compared to about $100/month I was paying for a 2G Blackberry). Never hit a bandwidth cap or anything like that. The only time I ever felt truly ripped off is when I sometimes go to Canada, where I managed to rack up a $220 bill one month, and $150 another time. But really, that's my own fault. Plus, at least for my subscription, and it may be true for new subscribers as well -- I can roam to Verizon towers for free. Sprint doesn't have "the network", but if you can use Verizon for free for significantly less money, it's a no brainer.

I'm in a basement and my phone has full bars. T-Mobile all the way!

I'm on sprint but when I look at my data usage, I've never gone over 2 Gig or even gotten close 1.5 was as close as I've been.

I would say no to AT&T in NY as I'm still bitter about how their shitty service in the times square area made me miss calls and text's from my cousin when I was trying meet up for lunch. The text messages showed up 4 hours later when I was back in Brooklyn all the time (aside from being on the subway) I had 4 or 5 bars signal

Meanwhile Kyle told me he never got my messages. Interesting.

i have t-mobile here in ny... works fine and dandy here, like kyle said. they advertise as unlimited data, which is true in a sense. but it's high speed up to 5gb. once you go over, it is slow as shit. edge speeds i would gather. i did it one month using pandora a lot, so watch your usage.
however, they have terrible rural coverage. you leave a city environment and you get nothing. in the last 2 months, i was in rural georgia, virginia, and massachussets and all 3 had nothing working, while my friends with other carriers were fine.

before t-mobile, i had sprint and it too worked fine here in ny. only reason i switched is because i wanted the nexus s on t-m...
for my job where i was traveling world-wide a lot, it worked out. the nexus s comes unlocked and you can switch the sim out for a local country sim and save $.

if you're not traveling intl or going to be in a rural setting any time soon, tmobile is just fine. sprint though is cheapest, i just find their lineup of phones to be weakest of the big 4.

Sprint's the largest provider with Uncapped data now, also I've seen ads for MetroPCS $50/mo unlimited.

I pay $80/mo with a 2-yr Sprint contract for 4G (Motorola Photon). The 3g reception is very good (I've had 5 bars when my Verizon coworkers had 3).

If you're looking into 4g, the 4g coverage is pretty dismal in the city, and it's worse everywhere else. I get coverage within the square spanning 50-42st 10-8ave, but the speed there is really good (I can usually dl a show on my walk to work). 4g's basically nonexistent outside of NYC and other major cities afaik, but should be expanding. I'm guessing there are other patches of 4g around manhattan, but I haven't walked around the city much yet.

I used 15gb data in August and like 8 in Sept. Don't know how you guys can live on 2gb.

MetroPCS is god awful. That's what I used to have. I'd be outside in areas with supposedly good reception and miss texts and calls all the time.

As DWarrior said, outside of major cities there's no 4G, but Sprint unfortunately charges $10/month just for 4G which you must pay if you have a 4G capable phone, even if you can't/don't use 4G. They justify this by saying basically "if you have a nice phone, chances are you'll use more data regardless of 4G coverage".

What I wish is that they would give me a credit on my bill for the talk time I never use. From my actual most recent bill:

http://i.imgur.com/pOwbc.jpg

I don't talk to shit.

Basically same numbers as me. Phone minutes are the most useless part of the cellphone plan