<p>Happykid’s phone has fallen one time to many, and is barely limping along, and Happydad’s barely holds a charge, so it is time for new phones for all of us. Like the author of the Verizon thread, I’ve checked out the phones at the Sprint store, at Radio Shack, and with Sprint’s website. The reviews I’ve found online aren’t very heartening, so I turn to your collective wisdom.</p>
<p>Happykid sends texts and will want to take photos. A phone with a picture chip that we can remove and then download would be nice. Right now she is favoring the various slider models, and is attracted to the green Restore.</p>
<p>Happykdad uses his phone to call his mom in Miami once a day, and to call me about once a week. He’d also use it to take photos. His current phone is a flip phone, and he’d probably like one like that.</p>
<p>I use my phone to call both of them and on rare occasions to take photos. I like my ancient Sanyo flip phone, and would be happy with another flip model.</p>
<p>Please advise!</p>
<p>If you are with Sprint, there are multiple models of phones that do what you want. I go online to order whatever phone is $0 - $20 cost at the time I need to upgrade, and usually there is a $150 model that is discounted so pay only 0 to 20 difference. My H and I have the Blackberry Curve, which is a flip-phone version and cheaper than other Blackberries I’ve had. My S has an LG Rumor2, and he texts like mad on that thing, and my D in college has the LG Rumor and she does everything on that. We finally splurged and got the data plan for all of us because I had to have it for work, and then my H saw how convenient it was to be able to get email and internet on my phone, so they gave us a good deal for all of us to have it. We were already paying for all-you-can-text per month because the kids and their friends used texting so much, so it was an incremental step to do the data-plan-for-all. All of our phones take pretty good photos. All the phones are holding up pretty well through normal use, including dropping once in a while. We haven’t dipped them in water, as previous models didn’t seem to like it when my S left his phone is his pocket through the washing cycle.</p>
<p>And I meant to add, even though we have those phones with a data plan now, you don’t have to have a data plan to get these phones. Get a phone that is zero or low cost to upgrade that matches your needs, and think of the data plan as an option you add later or not.</p>
<p>The LG Rumor Touch has the best reviews that I’ve found online, so I’m leaning toward that one. Happykid likes the Samsung models (Seek, Trender, and Restore) because they come in bright colors. However, she is a theater tech major and tends to drop things from ladders or out the window of the light booth. I’d like her next phone to last for a while!</p>
<p>My D’s previous phone was a fancy Samsung … she seems to like her current LG phone better because the movement mechanism on the Samsung eventually became wounded.</p>