rfi: mobile phones in the US

The minutes were expensive as hell and they charge you when someone calls you!

i presume the charging to receive calls bit stems from the whole free local calls thing that everyone is used to? the whole thing just seems crazy!

Right, so I need to upgrade my HP iPAQ, and i'm either looking at an iphone 3G or an AT&T tilt. I use the thing for music, webstuff, texts/email, calendar, notes(rarely), and reading rss feeds.

Any suggestions? The extended battery life, overall developer base, and ruggedness of the iphone is attrative, but the full keyboard and stylus+touch screen bit of the Tilt is also good.

Reviving this one for a friend, because surely SOMEONE here knows: she's from the UK for an extended stay but can't for the life of her figure out how to get a cell phone contract going here given that she doesn't have a social security number. Solution? (She's planning on going the Sprint route, if that helps.)

when I was back in the states for the summer last year I got an AT&T pay as you go card. only needed some sort of ID - maybe a passport would work? no idea about Sprint though. (IIRC could be problematic as sprint phones don't usually take GSM cards, do they?)

Thanks there -- my friend confirms that she's needing a Blackberry given its necessity for work, but the only non-contract Blackberry she's found, via Boost Mobile, won't cut the mustard on service/price levels. So Sprint's a better option but again requires a contract, thus the problem -- she says that attempts to purchase over the phone/online just aren't letting her do it without the SSN.

if she has a friend in the US she could set a contract up in their name, pay them, etc. - might get messy though, especially if she needs to terminate the contract early (may have to pay as much as $200 in fees)