"Sim card" phone questions...

[Froggystyle]

I have a Verizon PDA phone right now, and love the phone and service. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for crap in Havasu for the most part, and none of the digital stuff works there. No e-mails, no internet etc... Additionally, my Wi-Fi card doesn't work there either.
I travel there a lot, and need to gain my connectivity back. I am thinking hard about either just getting a Sprint Wi-Fi card for the laptop, or even possibly switching services. I am out of and have been out of contract for years. I pay full price for the phones so I can switch if need be... I have found my customer service to be far better in this case.
Here is the question... what carriers use the Sim card, and can you actually take your phone number, contacts, e-mail etc... with it when you switch phones? What I want is to have my expensive PDA phone stay in the RV when I am on the boat and get a more durable flip phone... maybe even a ruggedized phone for the boat, which I tend to spend a lot of time on. My phone is so fragile that I need to squirrel it away to keep it safe, and I never hear it ring or vibrate when I am out there. Not that it gets any kind of service in Havasu anyway. Does the sim card hold all that information? If not, can you get bigger sim cards?
Thanks folks...

[Boozer]

Sim cards hold very little data. Phone numbers and names from your address book can be stored on a SIM card but that is it. The SIM card is not meant to be a storage device, it is meant to serve as a network identifier for each individual subscriber, think of it as a credit card for your cell phone. By having a SIM card you are able to remove it from one phone and put it into any GSM phone and have that phone work with your information as far as your phone number and your account goes.
T-Mobile and Cingular are the only GSM carriers in the United States at this time that I am aware of.
Switching your service to a GSM carrier and SIM card type phone will most likely not help you solve your data dillema. I would check with all of the carriers to see what their coverage foot print is like and make sure that Lake Havasu is part of it. Most often people make the mistake of thinking that if their phone works somewhere their data will work too but that is definitely not the case. I believe (but am not positive) Cingular and T-Mobile both have data services in Lake Havasu, but I don't think that Edge is available there yet so you would be able to get emails and such but you would not be able to browse at high speeds.
If you are looking for phones that can have large storage capacity look for a phone with a SD or mini SD memory card. Most PDA type phones these days have SD or mini SD slots so you can add a couple gigs of memory to the phone if you would like too.

[That Guy]

I have a Verizon PDA phone right now, and love the phone and service. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for crap in Havasu for the most part, and none of the digital stuff works there. No e-mails, no internet etc... Additionally, my Wi-Fi card doesn't work there either.
I travel there a lot, and need to gain my connectivity back. I am thinking hard about either just getting a Sprint Wi-Fi card for the laptop, or even possibly switching services. I am out of and have been out of contract for years. I pay full price for the phones so I can switch if need be... I have found my customer service to be far better in this case.
Here is the question... what carriers use the Sim card, and can you actually take your phone number, contacts, e-mail etc... with it when you switch phones? What I want is to have my expensive PDA phone stay in the RV when I am on the boat and get a more durable flip phone... maybe even a ruggedized phone for the boat, which I tend to spend a lot of time on. My phone is so fragile that I need to squirrel it away to keep it safe, and I never hear it ring or vibrate when I am out there. Not that it gets any kind of service in Havasu anyway. Does the sim card hold all that information? If not, can you get bigger sim cards?
Thanks folks...
Look and Wes getting all technical and shit....:D I will ask the resident expert in my house...my 18 year old son...he will definitely know what's up...:) You in Havi this weekend? If so, give me a call.

[bear down]

I have the t-mobile mda phone (windows pocket pc). it works great in havasu. I get access to wifi and e-mail (outlook). if you have the IT capabilities you can VPN to your office/company network on the road either via wi-fi or through the t-mobile network. if your phine ever get damaged or want to upgrade the sim card is interchangable and you can down load your conatacts/calendar when ever you want. when I am on vacation I take my sim card out of the big phone into a little cheap t-mobile phone so it does not way me down. I damaged my phone one time and t mobile sent me a new one all I did was change out the sim card plugged the new phone to my computer and it downloaded all 1k contacts, documents,videos to the new phone. hope this helps

[Riveratz]

I have a Verizon PDA phone right now, and love the phone and service. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for crap in Havasu for the most part, and none of the digital stuff works there. No e-mails, no internet etc... Additionally, my Wi-Fi card doesn't work there either.
I travel there a lot, and need to gain my connectivity back. I am thinking hard about either just getting a Sprint Wi-Fi card for the laptop, or even possibly switching services. I am out of and have been out of contract for years. I pay full price for the phones so I can switch if need be... I have found my customer service to be far better in this case.
Here is the question... what carriers use the Sim card, and can you actually take your phone number, contacts, e-mail etc... with it when you switch phones? What I want is to have my expensive PDA phone stay in the RV when I am on the boat and get a more durable flip phone... maybe even a ruggedized phone for the boat, which I tend to spend a lot of time on. My phone is so fragile that I need to squirrel it away to keep it safe, and I never hear it ring or vibrate when I am out there. Not that it gets any kind of service in Havasu anyway. Does the sim card hold all that information? If not, can you get bigger sim cards?
Thanks folks...
I orginally had the same problem as you with A Verizon 6700 PDA phone. Switched to a Nextel Blackberry (That worked good) and now I am in a Windows Treo 700 from Sprint that works great there. Also I have a Sprint Air Card from Lalhc here on the boards that work great in Havasu also. Sprint has the best data coverage that I could find.

[Froggystyle]

Thanks for the advice guys... So, if I get this correctly, I can actually sync all of my contacts and stuff straight from the computer to each phone, and then it will know who it is on the network by the sim card...
How does T-mobile or Cingular work at Havasu for data?
What may be the easiest is to just get a wifi card from Sprint and be done with it... I am just thinking that having the ability to have two phones would be really clutch...

[bear down]

I get great reception on my phone in havasu...I am able to download e mails from out look, surf the web on my phone with out a wi-fi connection and the speed is comparable to dial up speed to give an example. if you wanted, you can buy two phones that had pocket pc (either the same model or different) you could just interchange the sim card from phone to phone, but you would need to updated either both phones contact list or files wither by connecting it to your main computer or having a memory card for transfering files, videos, presentations.

[lalhc]

Froggystyle - check you PM's. I just sent you some info on Sprint products.