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Handhelds Businesses Apple Hardware Technology

Do Working Cell Phone Demos Exist Anymore? 72

Posted by Cliff from the try-before-you-buy dept.
Peridriga asks: "I've been using the same cell phone now for going on about 4 years. I personally love it but, new technologies such as Bluetooth, WiFi, etc leave me wanting more from my 24/7 tool. I haven't gotten rid of it because I can work it in almost any condition (dark, drunk, asleep), with only occasional glances at the screen. Menu functionality, layout, ergonomics, and button layout are of real importance simply because I want a phone I don't have to think about using. The problem comes in that none of the cell stores/kiosks/provider retail outlets/etc have working demos of phones available. Simply shells of the phone model physically attached to the displays. How am I supposed to drop down $200-$500 on a top-of-the-line phone when I can't even see how it works? Does anybody know of a provider that has working demo models of phones on display so you can actually see what your buying? How about websites that review phones with their function and purpose in mind, not just the specs and the manufacturer provided marketing fluff?"
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Do Working Cell Phone Demos Exist Anymore? More

Do Working Cell Phone Demos Exist Anymore?

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  • 1. Just do it. 2. Go business. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mr. Darl McBride ( 704524 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:35PM (#8604604)
    You don't have to worry overly. Find a place that's close to your home, and grab any old phone. Most places offer 30 day guarantees now. With my most recent phone, I went returned 3-4 phones before finding one I liked. They hate you for it, but they're the ones offering the deal, so they can live with it.

    That said, surely you have some friends? Find out what they're using, and give their equipment a listen. You'll find phones to get or avoid, and your friends will usually be quite candid about them if they've had the phone a while.

    That said, AVOID AT&T. They outright lie to you about their network. In Chicago at least, you get crap, no matter which phone you choose if you're looking at the new 3G (mMode) network. The 3G phones can be rate throttled to take care of congestion, resulting in ass-quality calls, which lets AT&T put off getting new towers forever. And they *do*. They lied to me about "improving the network shortly" for most of a year before I called the local tower owners to find out where AT&T was expanding their presence. None of them were, and when I took this to AT&T, they not only let me avoid the $200 contract termination fee, but bought back the phone and refunded me for 10 months of service.

    Also, avoid the places offering "free" nights and weekends on 3G phones. They all play the AT&T game. The calls are "free," but only to the folks willing to put up with sounding as though they're calling from a reverberating sewer tunnel.

    Lastly, get a business plan. These get preferential bandwidth, and usually for the same price as consumer phones. You don't need to show a business license or do anything other than requesting the business unit. You get better phone support and better call quality. I'm guessing that their thinking is that if they make a business customer happy, it's likely to mean hundreds more phones, whereas customers always buy on price alone and will put up with being jerked around.

    Also, while I'm at it -- try to deal with a small dealer, the places that specialize in phones and car stereos are the best. You can just about always get the unlock code with the phone from these guys if you make it clear that you're only buying the phone under those conditions. They'd rather break a Sprint/AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile rule than lose a sale.

    • That's the worst load of bull I've ever seen. By 3G I assume you mean GSM, which, as far as I know, does _not_ support any sort of "rate throttling". GSM's TDMA multiplexing method means that there's a hard limit on the number of calls per cell and they each get a dedicated amount of bandwidth for good quality. What kind of phone did you buy from them? It probably had shit for RF.
    • ...The 3G phones can be rate throttled to take care of congestion, resulting in ass-quality calls...

      ...calls are "free," but only to the folks willing to put up with sounding as though they're calling from a reverberating sewer tunnel...

      ...get a business plan. These get preferential bandwidth...

      Any celluar engineers out there that can validate Darl's claims that during peak congestion periods a lower quality of service is provided in order to allow more calls to be terminated? I was under the impress

      • Re:1. Just do it. 2. Go business. (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        IAACT:

        AT&T's new systems are GSM, they're not 3G. The base TDMA technology that underlies 3G yes, has a hard limit. 3G (3G CDMA, almost used by Sprint and Verizon but not quite yet) is a soft-limit technology.

        AT&T has never to my knowledge claimed an actual 3G network.
      • 3G GSM is UMTS, which is a form of CDMA.

        This is why AT&T shot themselves in the foot by rolling out 2G/2.5G GSM when 3G was on the horizon - They rolled out an entire new network, when they knew that 2-3 yeards down the line, they would have to roll out YET ANOTHER network because UMTS and oldschool GSM use entirely different modulation techniques and band allocations.

        Meanwhile CDMA2000 (2.5G/3G) and cdmaOne (2G) are entirely forwards and backwards compatible. cdmaOne phones will work with CDMA2000 t
    • AT&T Wireless is presently a dead company walking. The deal is signed, they're on the way of being folded into Cingular. So, I wouldn't expect any major upgrades to their network... they're not going to get any better.
    • 10 months of service refunded? Did it ever occur to you to return it within the first month if you didn't like it? Jesus!

      If everyone did the same, it would be impossible to get good, cheap service. Rethink your actions. It's not "cool" to get a 10 month refund for something you could've figured out after the first day. Yep, you sure ripped them off.. sigh

    • The 3G phones can be rate throttled to take care of congestion, resulting in ass-quality calls, which lets AT&T put off getting new towers forever. And they *do*. They lied to me about "improving the network shortly" for most of a year before I called the local tower owners to find out where AT&T was expanding their presence. None of them were, and when I took this to AT&T, they not only let me avoid the $200 contract termination fee, but bought back the phone and refunded me for 10 months of

    • 1. mMode is ATTWS's brandname for their GSM implementation. It's not 3G. USA doesn't have 3G yet (unless you count Verizon's recently launched 1xEV-DO, technically 3G by IMT 2000's definition, but it's data-only).

      2. AFAIK, the adaptive codecs are primarily designed to improve voice call reliablilty when signal strength is low. It does allow them to put off constructing new towers, but it's an issue of coverage/signal strength rather than capacity. If all they wanted is capacity, they could've default the w
      • Are you sure there's no 3G in the US? My Sprint LG 5350 phone says Qualcomm 3G CDMA on it and supposedly all my data connections are supposed to be over the 3G network.. I could be wrong... but i had a huge battle over the data connection and kept getting 2G connections because of the type of cable I was using (serial) and finally got a usb cable that allowed 3G calls..
        • 1xRTT (currently deployed widely in the U.S. by both verizon and sprint) is technically 3G. It is, however right down at the bottom of the definition, barely scraping by, in much the same way that many definitions of broadband may include ISDN. Most people refer to it as well as GPRS as 2.5g IIRC, GPRS just missed the cutoff to be termed 3G, whereas 1xRTT just made it.

          Either way, Many people, especially those who pride themselves on knowing too much about cell phone technologies, like to make

  • radioshack (Score:5, Informative)

    by rmm4pi8 ( 680224 ) <rmiller@reasonab ... Yet minus author> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:36PM (#8604611) Homepage
    the radioshack's that i've been in, both in boston and pennsylvania, have fully working models of samsung, ericsson, and nokia phones, possibly others. perhaps there is a radioshack in your area which might also have working models as displays?

    • Re:radioshack (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Thursday March 18, 2004 @08:55PM (#8605223)
      Most RadioShack locations have fully working units of every model they have underneath their glass case, just walk anywhere near said glass case and a salespersion will attac.. er, assist you. You'll have the rep's attention because selling a phone earns them a bonus that usually doubles their pay for the shift.

  • Just buy the phone (Score:5, Insightful)

    by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:37PM (#8604620)
    Return it if it doesn't meet your needs or expectations. Do it enough, and you have created an incentive for them to provide working demos again.

  • Website Demos (Score:5, Informative)

    by waldoj ( 8229 ) * <waldo@@@jaquith...org> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:38PM (#8604628) Homepage Journal
    A number of manufacturers provide website demos of their phones. For example, I bought a phone this week [waldo.net], for the first time doing so on-line rather than in a store. I was comfortable doing so because Sony provides a demo of the phone (the T610) [sonyericsson.com] on their website. In addition, the provider to which I have switched, T-Mobile, provides demos of the phones on their site [t-mobile.com].

    It ain't as good as the real thing. Just yesterday -- after ordering my T610 but before getting it (I'm anxiously awaiting its Monday delivery) -- I saw a T610 in person for the first time. I was surprised at how tiny that it was. But there were no surprises -- it functioned just as the demonstration showed that it would.

    -Waldo Jaquith
    • Your understanding of the word "demo" isn't anything like mine. If you're demo-ing an interactive device, the demo has to be interactive too. Otherwise it's just a fancy graphic presentation of the device. Which is what Sony Ericsson provides. It certainly doesn't allow you to probe the features. And it doesn't give any real indication as to how the device functions in the real world -- as your suprise about the size indicates.

      I bought my current (and first) cell phone online, after spending a lot of time

  • Sprint Stores (Score:5, Informative)

    by jamus ( 1439 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:39PM (#8604633) Journal
    Every Sprint Store I've been to had working models. Not those little kiosks in the mall, but brick & mortar stores. A link [sprintpcs.com] to their store locator.
    • Yeah, I even go in there to make calls sometimes.
  • I hate this TOO!!!

    I hate phones with slow loading menus. Half written call logging and poorly designed SMS interfaces.

    If I were you I'd take them back on their 30 day guarantee's and make it cost them money for not letting you try out the phone yourself.

    Its a hassle, but if everyone did it, it'd cost them less to show some display models.
    • That is my biggest problem with my motoral T720i. When you press any key there is a very noticable delay before the action takes place. So of course i push the button a million times before it does anything then all the keey presses register and the phone goes bezerk

  • phonescoop (Score:4, Informative)

    by cft_128 ( 650084 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:41PM (#8604667)
    www.phonescoop.com [phonescoop.com] has user reviews, forums, articles and the full spec of most phones available in the US. Also has a handy search feature.

    I have noticed in the past that some smaller independent dealers will let you play with the phones.

    Good luck

  • When I was recently looking for a new phone, the first thing I did (after narrowing the list to phones with features I wanted) was to find friends/coworkers with the models I was checking out and ask them about it. After that, I messed around on their phones a little bit, looking through the menus and whatnot.

    If this isn't an option (one of the phones I was looking at wasn't owned by anyone I knew), you might try RadioShack. You wouldn't have to buy there, but last I checked them out, they had working mo

  • Australian Experience (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mopp ( 126852 )
    Just yesterday I encountered the same experience in Sydney. While looking for a good, compact Phone/PIM combo phone the salesguy suggested the Nokia 6280.

    It certainly was a lovely model of a phone, small and nice weight. But when asking to see a working version so I could check out the PIM features, he replied 'We only do last-minute ordering because the prices are always dropping and we don't want to be stuck with inventory that costs too much'.

    Bit annoying really, but understandable.

    • If Nokia wanted to sell the phone they would supply the vendor with a working demo at a discounted price. I worked for a computer service company and if we have customers wanting to see a particular HP printer for example, HP will sell us a demo for anywhere from 25-50% of normal cost for us to use. They will refund most of the money when we return the unit after it gets old. Thats just the price of doing business in my opinion.
    • Hypothetically speaking...

      Most of the wireless stores I see have MAYBE 10-20 phones for sale at any point in time. Say every one of them cost $500, with a market life of one year and a salvage value of 20%. That's a $5-10k investment and a final $4-8k cost over a year. So over ten years, the store will cough up $40-80k in demos. When the commercial space the store sits in costs in the neighborhood of $100k per year, whining about the $4k in demo stock is just pathetic.

      Would you put up with that sort of re

  • Strange... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by djonsson ( 542920 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:47PM (#8604711)
    I haven't seen any store with working demos on display, but if I ask nicely they always let me try the phone out before deciding. I bought two phones last year, one in Sweden and one in France, and I think I played with at least 5 to 10 phones in the process.

    Good luck!

    • Re:Strange... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Gossy ( 130782 )

      I ask nicely they always let me try the phone out before deciding.

      You don't even need to be particularily nice, these places are trying to sell you some fairly expensive equipment after all. Ask if you can try some real phones and they will bend over backwards to get you the real deal.

      Nowhere shows the real phones on the stands because they're so prone to being nicked, but if you show some real interest they'll bring out the real things for you to try.

      Other people's advice isn't bad though - see what pe

      • Nowhere shows the real phones on the stands because they're so prone to being nicked, but if you show some real interest they'll bring out the real things for you to try.

        The real problem is that if they put a real phone on the stands, they tend to get stolen. Their options are either to go with a glass box, or the plastic models... which still need to be chained down to keep them from being stolen often.
      • Nowhere shows the real phones on the stands because they're so prone to being nicked

        You think that's bad? Kids around here keep nicking the dummy phones from my shop. I mean, what do they think they can do with it? It's an empty phone shell with a bolt through it!

  • Verizon is excellent (Score:4, Informative)

    by joelparker ( 586428 ) <joel@school.net> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:59PM (#8604795) Homepage
    Verizon has a two-week return policy,
    so you can buy a phone, try it as you wish,
    and if you don't like it you can return it.

    I have done this *many* times with them,
    and each time the return process was easy,
    fast, no questions asked, with a full refund.

    Hope this helps!

    Cheers, Joel

    p.s. I'm not affiliated with Verizon,
    just a sastisfied customer.

  • What stores are you looking in? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    CompUSA (aka: CompUSSR [penny-arcade.com]) has working models of cell phones on display.

    Yes, they are attached to the table with those little steal-proof bungie cord thingies. But the phones themselves are fully working models, powered on and sitting in their chargers / docking stations.

    Quite playable-with, although you'll probably have to talk to a salesperson if you spend too long prodding buttons.

  • howardforums (Score:4, Informative)

    by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @08:19PM (#8604923) Homepage Journal
    howardforums.com [howardforums.com] is an excellent resource for everything to do with cellphones. All of the content is from real users, and there is a wealth of it there.

    You might have to dig for what you want though. It might be helpful if you had a couple of models in mind to start with and searched for reviews on them.

    • Personally I would suggest the LGVX 6000.. Theres so much to do with it (Its Verizon)... I posted a REALLY good hack on howardforums for the speakerphone mode..
  • Ask the person that is working if they can get a phone from their stock, power it up and show it to you... Simple as that.... Cell Phone Demo's are a waste of stock for them, and the only real time I have ever seen a demo, was when Sprint was introducing their new Camera Phone...

  • As the customer, demand service (Score:3, Informative)

    by thedanc ( 449477 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @08:24PM (#8604960)
    I just bought a phone at Radio Shack. They have what looked like actual phones in the display case, but it was locked. I just had the salesperson bring out two actual phones, open the boxes, and let me use them until I decided which one I wanted. I bet most places with salespeople on comission would gladly give you the same service.
    • I've had plenty of my customers do exactly that, examine two or three phones from stock and then choose the one they like. All too often though, the customer will then turn around and say "but I don't want that one, it's been handled!"

  • AT&T (Score:2, Informative)

    by primal39 ( 409681 )
    The AT&T stores in my area (southwestern PA) all have working demos of their phones. I will stay out of the debates regarding service, and instead answer the question as asked.

  • Just go up and ask (Score:4, Informative)

    by LaszarusLhong ( 608390 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @09:07PM (#8605307)
    Just go to a store location, preferably not a mall kiosk, and ask the rep there.

    That's what I did when I wanted to find out if the carriers had a signal in my apartment.

    I simply asked to borrow a unit. They let me take one home although they did take a deposit that was refunded when I returned the phone. You probably wouldn't have to do that just to try it out in the store.

    Cingular was the coolest about this, it's a shame they had the crappiest reception in my apartment. They had the phone I wanted too. Sigh

    Cheers,

    Lasz
  • Just as an opportunity to plug a friend's business: CNY Digital [cnydigital.com] sells nextel phones and provides demo models for customers to try. As far as I know the owner buys several of each unit as a business expense because, like the poster argues, its hard to sell someone on a 500$ phone they've never seen.

  • Ask (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Thursday March 18, 2004 @09:46PM (#8605638) Homepage Journal
    Most mobile phone stores I've been to either for my own stuff or as a helper for a friend that doesn't want to get screwed, will pull a real unit out of a box, put it together and plug it into the wall for power if you want to try it. Often there's a box already opened with a phone that has some juice in the battery. The N-Gage I bought was being demoed to someone when I turned up at the store.

  • ATTWS (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Maybe I'm just super-lucky, but the ATTWS store nearby (Ann Arbor, MI), had working demos of every single one of their phones. Eh.

  • Check their website (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RevAaron ( 125240 ) <revaaron AT hotmail DOT com> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @10:55PM (#8606137) Homepage
    I have seen some pretty comprehensive demos on the vendor's site. You do not see them for every phone or every phone maker, but they are around. I remember a really good one for a new Series 60 phone... cannot remember which though. It was an almost perfect emulation of the phone and a lot of its functions.

    Not sure how rare they are- I haven't been shopping for phones- but it may be worth checking for.
  • I worked in an internet cafe back when Sprint rolled out their PCS system.
    They came by, set up a booth in our store and gave all us Cyberguides training on how to sell the phones.
    They also left us a nice working phone with no restictions on calling.

    We made many an international friend that summer.
  • The Cingular store here in Independence, Missouri has a working model of every phone they sell. This was really helpful when shopping

  • Verizon (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Full Verizon stores (not kiosks) have working demos of most of their phones, at least the ones I've bought mine from (4 in the past 6 years because I'm a geek, not because they suck). And their claim of having the best nationwide network seems to be true - drove from Boston to LA in January and very rarely lost service.

  • nice (Score:3, Informative)

    by XO ( 250276 ) <blade.eric@NospAM.gmail.com> on Friday March 19, 2004 @12:23PM (#8610686) Homepage Journal
    Well, as it's probably well known, I am a radio shack store manager... and in my store, the sprint phones are dummies attached to a cabinet type display, with real ones locked inside my glass cubes at the counter. The verizon display is currently live phones attached toa cabinet type display, but as soon as Verizon can get dummies for all their phones, I am going the same route that I have gone with Sprint.

    If little punk bastards wouldn't steal things that don't belong to them, we wouldn't have to have dummies :(

    The website I use for all cell phone model information:

    phonescoop.com [phonescoop.com]

  • Ask (Score:2)

    by aonaran ( 15651 )
    I know it's not the geek thing to do but when you see a phone that you think you might like, walk up to the sales guy's desk and ASK to see a working one. I've yet to come across a place that doesn't have them there and a battery charged up ready to demo. They just put the $5 shells out in the open so kids won't swipe a $200 cell phone.

    • Re:Ask (Score:2)

      by lga ( 172042 ) *
      They just put the $5 shells out in the open so kids won't swipe a $200 cell phone.

      Believe it or not those shells cost much more than $5. Some of them can be more than half of the cost of the real thing.
  • Just start keeping an eye out for people with phones in public, and chat them up when they get off the phone (or when it's just on their waist)!

    Seriously, I've gone through a bunch of phones with bad UI, unused features, or just too fragile, only to find out later from friends that I had made a mistake.

    On the plus side, this can lead to job leads, dates, whatever! (I'm serious.)

    If you especially ask people in your area, your more likely to get honest answers about coverage area than the guys at the local

  • 1. Go to a corporate store of the particular carrier. An offical-looking store may not be an actual corporate store. Use their website or customer service # to locate one. 2. Go to the one downtown. Some corporate stores have working display phones, some don't. But the ones downtown usually do. It's best to call the stores and find out. 3. If a corporate store has dummy phones on display, ask the sales rep to show you a working one -- they usually have them behind the counter. (The exception here is Cingu
  • 1. Go to a corporate store of the particular carrier. An offical-looking store may not be an actual corporate store. Use their website or customer service # to locate one.

    2. Go to the one downtown. Some corporate stores have working display phones, some don't. But the ones downtown usually do. It's best to call the stores and find out.

    3. If a corporate store has dummy phones on display, ask the sales rep to show you a working one -- they usually have them behind the counter. (The exception here is Cingula

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