It seems to be very hard to get objective reviews of RF and voice
quality of phones.  Which is a pity.  This is complicated by the fact
that the general user has no way of gauging relative RF performance of
a phone without owning several, so user reviews are never a reliable
measure unless you happen to know a reviewer who knows what they're
talking about .

Happily all carriers have 30 day return policies, but that's often not
terribly convenient if the one place you go that has problems isn't
very convenient to get to or a place you're at at least once every 30
days.  

If it's a car you're in while in teh problem area, a phone for which
there's an accessory jack that supports an external antenna would of
course be a plus.

All I can say is that the RF reception capability of my Droid seems a
lot better than my MiFi, and that historically, the RF performance of
Motorola products has been relatively decent.  But that doesn't do you
much good.

Robert Peirce <bob@peirce-family.com> wrote in news:bob-
05AE37.11224108022010@5ad64b5e.bb.sky.com:

The best RADIOS all have MOTOROLA printed on them.  It's why all the
cops use MOTOROLA-brand radios when their lives depend on it.

http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=191
I highly recommend the Motorola ROKR Z6m here.  I've been carrying one
branded Alltel so it isn't all hobbled up like the same exact phone
Verizon sold as the Z6tv hawking their crappy TV service, since 2007 and
it's just a great phone.  It has a nice camera that takes great
pictures, stored on its unhobbled up standard microSD card (up to 2MB
only, microSDHC not supported).  You can also put MP3 files on the
microSD card and use them as ringtones, different for every user in the
huge contacts database, move files on or off internal memory with the
copy or move commands.  There's no need to use internal memory for your
pictures/music/etc., unless you want to use a picture as the background
or screen saver, which you are free to do, even straight off the card.  
No special software is needed to move files on/off the motorola's file
structure.  Just use any file manager and plug the card into your
computer.  The music player in it works great, especially with a
Motorola S9 or S9HD stereo bluetooth headset that fully controls the
phone from the headset buttons.

The radio transceiver in it is typical Motorola quality....very
sensitive, very good in noisy situation on a crowded city system and
seems to work in may places other phones refuse to work in.

It's a nice, tiny phone and the Alltel-branded ones are totally
unhobbled if you can find one.  The slide is very rugged and made of
metal, not plastic.

The stereo speakers are in a little slot in the back of the phone made
to turn any flat surface into a sound projector!  The slot and bottom of
the phone work against the hard desk surface to create a little sound
"horn" like a PA speaker that makes this phone REALLY LOUD, too!  The
ringer rings through both speakers and turns head wide open.  

Nice phone, works great.  The original battery finally gave up on 24/7
service, so I bought another OEM branded Motorola BT50 from Hong Kong
DELIVERED FREE for only $2.19 off Ebay!  I have 3 spares they were so
cheap!

http://catalog.ebay.com/?_pid=59253117&_trksid=p3907.l1428
$50 used in nice condition or $90 new on Ebay....

Ask the cellphone using residents of that "one area" what kind of cell
phone they have, who their service provider is and how well it works.

If everyone there uses Blackberrys you are out of luck!!

My old Motorola RAZR V3M had the best reception and voice quality of
any cell phone I've used.  Avoid Samsungs if those two characteristics
are important to you.

My wife and daughter have always liked the feature set of LG phones, and I
have to say my experience with them is that their software is rock-solid. No
quirks or weirdness.

That being said, their phones fail to make and hold calls at times when my
Moto phones have had no such trouble. I have and still use a Moto e815, Razr
v3m, Krzr k1m, v325i, and v750, and every one of them gets stellar reception
and has a crystal-clear voice quality I find sorely lacking in the LG's.

HTH, YMMV,
Dean

Per Robert Peirce:

I've had tMobile service for well over five years now and our
house seems tb in one of tMob's many marginal coverage areas.

My experience has been that Nokia candy-bar phones (3595, 6010,
and a few others) give me a connection more often than any of the
other phones I've had (Moto v180 flip, Razr flip, Samsung flip,
and a couple others that I cannot recall.