Nokia 9500 as first cell phone--help!

[Skoobouy]

Hi everybody,

Lately I've come across a golden opportunity to purchase a Nokia 9500 Communicator for a gonga price. Problem is, I don't have the faintest clue about modern cell phones!

The biggest question I have is: how do I find out what carriers I can use with it? The guy I'm buying it from uses T-Mobile, but I'm not so sure I want them. Are they the only ones?

Also, does anyone else here have a 9500? Is there a place where I can find good Symbian Communicator software? I feel a little like I'm returning to the days of the Jornada 720 HPC...

Thanks for any help.

[donbacardi]

Skoobouy:

I myself just recently purchased the Nokia 9300 Communicator which is kind of similar except that your phone will have a camera and it will be quite larger in size. T-Mobile might be the best choice in the USA for you. I live in Germany & my carrier happens to be Vodafone. These folks are OUTSTANDING as for customer service & care as well other services that they provide here. Just yesterday, I found out after speaking with a Vodafone operator, that they will introduce E-Mail Push Service for my Nokia 9300 by the end of June, early July timefame. Same service as that used on a Blackberry.

As for software, I looked in the US Nokia.com website & I didn't find any software that was available for purchase (at least not yet).

Here are a few links form the Nokia (UK) website where you can download software from:

http://www.nokia.co.uk/nokia/0,,63519,00.html

http://www.nokia.co.uk/nokia/0,,63513,00.html

These must be purchased:

http://www.softwaremarket.nokia.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayDevicePage&SiteID=nokia&Locale=en_US&Env=BASE&resultsPerPage=10&deviceID=9500


You can download to your laptop & then install by syncing with your phone via Bluetooth or Infrared. Hope this helps you out.

:beer:

[Janak Parekh]

DonBacardi makes some good points, but there's one more very important consideration considering we're in North America.

http://www.phonescoop.com/phones/phone.php?p=490 has the specs for the phone. It's GSM, so that only T-Mobile and Cingular are reasonable carriers for the phone. However, there are two versions of the phone. One is a North American version, which supports the 850, 1800 and 1900 frequency bands; the other is the Eurasian version, which supports 900, 1800, and 1900 frequency bands. If you have the Eurasian version, then only T-Mobile will be useable, as their network runs exclusively on the 1900 band. If you have the NA version, then Cingular is a choice; their network is a hybrid of 850 and 1900 across the US.

--janak

[donbacardi]

Learned some points myself as for what's available in the US of A.


:werenotworthy:

[Mark Kenepp]

...If you have the Eurasian version, then only T-Mobile will be useable, as their network runs exclusively on the 1900 band. If you have the NA version, then Cingular is a choice; their network is a hybrid of 850 and 1900 across the US.

--janak

As Janak points out, Cingular is not exclusively 850 GSM. You can use a phone that only supports the 1900 band on Cingular, i.e. the European version would work fine.

You would probably get better coverage with Cingular if you have a phone which supports both the 850 and 1900 bands.

[Janak Parekh]

As Janak points out, Cingular is not exclusively 850 GSM. You can use a phone that only supports the 1900 band on Cingular, i.e. the European version would work fine.
I sort of meant the opposite. ;) I wouldn't recommend the use of a phone that doesn't have both 850 and 1900 on Cingular -- they've inherited AT&T's network, which had a lot of 800MHz licenses throughout the US, and you'd be cutting out substantial coverage. In that case, I'd go with T-Mobile instead.

--janak