BBERRYNEWS

I’m considering the Bold 9650.

First, some quick background:

My current carrier is VZW, and I have about 3 months left on my contract, so I’m eligible to upgrade my phone at a discounted price. I’m not opposed to the concept of letting the contract expire and then switching to another carrier – my VZW experience has been fine; no major complaints, although coverage at my house with my current phone – a Motorola – is…consistently inconsistent, I’ll say.

So, my options appear to be (1) upgrade to the VZW Bold now and re-up the contract for another two years; (2) pay full price for a VZW-branded Bold and then go month-to-month when the contract expires; or (3) wait until the contract expires and then go with a subsidized Bold from another carrier.

I’ve found information here that helps me with some questions; e.g., I learned that a Sprint-branded Bold won’t work with VZW service, under any circumstances.

I’ve also learned that Sprint-branded Bolds are not SIM-locked, but VZW-branded phones are SIM-locked. I’ll assume that you can obtain an unlock code for a VZW Bold from any of the myriad reputable vendors of such codes?

Two questions I haven’t yet found the answer to: With the Bold having Wi-Fi capability, does this apply solely to data, or to voice as well? If I have a wireless network at home, does that render irrelevant the fact that VZW coverage at my house isn’t always as good as I would like? Also, I’ve read that the Bold doesn’t auto-detect Wi-Fi networks – that you have to force it to both look for & connect to them? (For example, at an airport or a hotel lobby?)

Next question: As I travel a lot to & from Canada, I’m hoping to obtain a Rogers SIM card, and use that network while I am there – usually 5-6 times a year, for 4-5 days at a time. Any issues that I need to be aware of? I seem to have found that the Rogers SIM cards only cover voice usage, not data.

Again, thanks to everyone. I think I found a lot of what I was looking for on the search function, but there were these few questions that I just didn’t seem to find the answers to.