I started a new job, and was lucky enough to be put on call, and given one of these phones so that my company could reach me anytime. At the time, I had a Nokia 6190 from PacBell and I was looking forward to getting rid of it, and using the company phone. It's been three months, and I still have the Nokia because the Nextel phone sucks! The phone is bad enough that the executives at my company have been switching to Sprint... and this is after buying nearly a hundred of these phones!

First the positives. There are only two, actually. The walkie-talkie feature is useful, and the speaker phone is very, very nice. It's the only thing I would miss.


The negatives

1. The walkie-talkie feature: My brother also has a Nextel phone for his company. You would think that we could set up the walkie-talkie feature so that he and I could talk to each other... NO WAY! It's not possible to share those privileges at all.

2. Coverage: I'm in the middle of Los Angeles sitting in my office right now. I get "No Service" when I try to use my phone. I go outside, and I get one bar of signal and it is very likely that anyone I talk to will get cut off. I can't drive down the freeway from the beach to downtown without dropouts. This kills me!

3. Ergonomics: Nextel claims this phone won some design award somewhere. Whomever gave this phone an award didn't use it. 90% of the phones people use have raised buttons. This allows you to dial the phone without looking at the buttons. This phone not only has flush buttons, but they've also modified the standard phone layout! This is a dangerous phone to dial while you drive.

4. Battery life: 16 hours standby. The Nokia is 3+ days!

5. The phone book: After watching the video, and looking at the manual, I still have not figured out how to add and change phone book entries. The Nokia didn't require this level of study.


I'm not impressed with the phone or Nextel's service. The best testament of my level of disappointment is that I'm willing (and am!) to pay PacBell $50 a month while having Nextel service for free.




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