Not true at all.

Phones with great reception and lots of features:

Motorola V9 (razr2)
Nokia E62/N73/N75/6620/6682
HTC 8525/8925

These are all GSM phones of course...

I have to agree with bad reception. I'm a Nextel user and the i860 phone I have comes with all the bells and whistles. However the reception stinks in areas like state parks, etc.

Yet I'm not sure if it has to do with the phone having a lot of features. I think mainly it's due to lack of towers out there.

My best friend switched from Nextel to another provider. Mainly because Nextel customer service was so bad and pretty arrogant. But also due to the fact she would lose reception leaving any major city on her travels between home and work.

I'm not sure who she's with now, but I know she's pretty happy that she has hardly any dropped calls.

I've come to a conclusion. It seems to me, that if a phone has lots of "cool" features on it (camera, games, wallpapers, ring tones) the reception of the phone isn't as good as a cellular phone with less features. Maybe it's just the phones that I've tried, but that has always seemed to be the case.

I have a cellular phone with Verizon, an LG3200, which has nothing aside from text messaging on it. I can use this phone wherever I go, even with those that don't have cell towers in the immediate area, and still not be roaming.

I also have a Motorola v323i. This phone has *everything* on it. Camera, wallpapers, internet, bluetooth capability, the works.

However, it seems that this cell phone gets a lot of dropped calls in the same areas that I would be able to use the LG. I checked online, and the coverage area for both phones is almost identical, so it's not due to the towers.

Does anyone else think that because you may have a nicer phone with many more features on it, that it cuts into the reception or quality of actual phone calls?