Shopping for a new cell phone

I've had my phone for about two years now. Pretty long time if you ask me. Anyway, I have the T-Mobile SDA, which I dropped the very first day I got it. Very annoying. But I've dropped it many times since. It's a pretty sturdy phone and works no matter what I do to it. Only thing is, it's beginning to look very banged up, especially since the front face plate is hanging off. So I've been shopping around for phones.

At first, I looked at Verizon phones since I have an employee discount with my employer. Not feeling too hot about the non-GSM phones, but they do have a pretty darn good network. I eventually decided against switching since everybody I know is on T-Mobile and so are most of my sister's friends (I have a 4-line family plan). So no go there. I'm looking at Windows Mobile phones too and Verizon doesn't have that great a selection out there besides the Motorola Q. I hate Blackberries.

So I decided to look back at T-Mobile. I narrowed it down to the Dash and the Shadow. Both made by HTC, a company known for smartphones that lets their customers brand their own phones (The Google phone is supposedly coming from here). After actually playing with them, I decided on the Dash. Problem now is if I upgrade my phones, I need to renew my contract to get a good rate. That's another 1 or 2 years. Not a problem really, but I don't like being locked in. So now the beauty of GSM kicks in. I am shopping for the Dash on ebay now, since I can just plug my SIM card right in and have a working phone. With Verizon, you have to call them to change your ESN and crap. Well, while shopping, I also called this guy that deals with unlocked GSM phones, including overseas phones. I don't really have my eye on anything overseas, so I didn't do any business with him. But if you know anybody looking for an unlocked GSM phone from overseas, let me know!

So, anyway, I'm bidding on a couple of Dashes on ebay. I got my sister's Nokia and my refurbished Olympus camera on ebay, and both times I got pretty good results. I like ebay. So hopefully by tonight, I would have a Dash for about the same price I would get at T-Mobile without signing another contract. Sweet!