The only thing I've learned to the last 5-6 years is everyones experience is different.

Here's my story. I manage my company's IT department and cell phones fall under my responibily. As a company we use Verizon because of their complete network across the USA. Most of our employees travel to the major cities and any phone will work great in those areas. We are to the process of converting those users to the new Razor. However, we do have people that work out of the Kansas area and travel to feedlots and cow-calf areas. For those users they find the LG 4650 work pretty well.

Now my personal experience. I live and farm in an area that Verizon admits their signal strength is weak and does not plan on improving. Over the last 5-6 years I have been able to try many different phones because I can switch them with other users and I make the decisions for my company vendors are more willing to work with me. The best reception phone I had was an old Audiovox 9155. Then I switched to Motorola v265, Motorola v60s, LG 4650, Motorola Razor, and now Motorola V325. What I found is most (if not all) phones with a fixed antenna will not have as good of reception as one that pulls out. The Razor does have better reception than some other fixed antenna phones but it does not compare to the V325. I'm still not excited about the V325 and will continue to look for a better phone for my area. But its the best of the new phones available today that my company and I have tried.

Good Luck with your decision. It's a hard one to make because everyones situation is different.

Dave