mobile phones

Best value for money is the Samsung A411/A412. Second would be the Nokia 6120 Classic.

Have to agree with John. My samsung A412 is giving very good
rural coverage. While not saying it is the best, it is certainly
meeting my needs & was available free on a $20 plan. Model
may have been upgraded by now. cheers.....oldbaz.

To get the features of your HTC - PLUS - get excellent coverage you only have one option and that is the Palm Treo Pro. (I know this because I have just been through it.)

It is a Windows Mobile device with a Blue Tick and the coverage really is very, very good.

cheers

Hi , Gotta put in a plug for the Nokia 6120, had it just on 2 years and it is great, we also use it for internet access in our travels ( Data packs), also we are very pleased with the coverage, living in rural SA . and have toured the west and Qld and the coverage is great,
Ours were $585, but now you can get them prepaid from $249,( or on a $20.00 plan)
The writting is a bit small but very clear , every thing else is A1.
Cheers Des.

Make sure you get one with a "blue tick" regardless.
I did a fair bit of research before buying ours (we moved to a rural place) and pretty much seems that the Samsung A411 is one of the better phones in regards to reception. We should know because we only get two bars out here and most phones won't work in the shed (not even the Samsung) it will get reception just inside the door and ring but we have to take calls outside!

We got ours a year ago now, one pre-paid and one on a plan but purchased both outright - it cost $200ea back then so $100 is a bargain!
Battery life isn't too bad considering the low signal and that it probably has to search all the time. Only thing I don't like is that it doesn't come with any software for a Mac Computer, but at least I can still use bluetooth to at least change the boring ring tunes!!!

So check out the Samsung (I believe there is some difference in reception performance between the A412 and the 411 though - 412 not as good from what I've read on Whirlpool). Otherwise some brick size / shaped Telstra phone seem to do ok reception wise - but it was a brick! I'd also look at Nokia, the Telco guys told me that some model we were looking at was tested and was good but didn't get the blue tick because even though it had reception it didn't actually show any bars on the screen. So if that's true then getting a good phone can be hit and miss - if some don't show bars well others might be showing more bars compared to what they should for the actual reception strength they get!!!

Anyway sorry for the ramble, my summary would probably be: go for a phone that has the telstra blue tick because it has been tested to have better reception than others in country areas (on Next G network).

I have one the Telstra T6 phones with the blue tick.
I havent tried it outside the metro area.
Has anyone else tried them in rural areas

Slightly off topic...but I have an LG550 which seems to be as good as the Samsung , but as I have installed a thru glass antenna(9db ) and the reception doesn't seem any better with or without the antenna connected, does anyone know how to test to see if the thru glass antennas are working ??

The only phones to consider are those working on the Telstra NextG network i.e. 850 MHz.

The Samsung A411 can be bought prepaid for $99 from KMart, Target, JBHiFi etc and every owner seems to impressed with teh range from it.