the map adds that verizon uses are true
i never have issues with my palm centro on the verizon network

my sister is always getting disconected on he iphone in denver

over the holidays in capitol city NM my BIL gave up trying to make calls by walking up to a 1/2 mile from my parents house just to get one bar....we finally went to starbucks in town and they were able to get all they needed done in an hour.

cool iphone apps/att and no service
ok palm apps/verizon and conection in even remote parts of western USA
i'll take a reliable service every time

My wife has a habit of wanting/buying/getting stuff she rarely uses just because she has to have it. I doubt she'll use an iPhone to anything close to its capacity. How much shttttuff can you cram on a 16GB and have it work with decent speed?

That would re-enforce my point of going refurb if you can...and as to the speed, I don't know as the only experience I have is occasionally looking up something on youtube on some of my friends' phones. They seem reasonably quick, but I have no idea how much of their capacity they are using

Can you tell any difference at all between a refurb and a new one?

I haven't seen them in person but I have to assume there would negligible differences. The standards all manufactures seem to have for their refurb stuff is pretty high. We bought my sister a refurb Dell laptop because it was at such a discount. If there was not a sticker on the bottom the laptop that said "Refurbished" we would have had absolutely zero idea that it was not brand new. That's my limited personal experience

I think the refurbs are the ones returned in the 30day trial period mostly... Only difference is warranty... Refurb comes with 90days... New comes with a year.... You can load a 16gb up... I have over a thousand songs on mine plus pictures plus vid...

Refurb was all I could get my hands on with my 1st gen.

Dropped that one a dozen times before I finally cracked the screen last year.

Put a screen protector film on it (it's now basically an iTouch) and gave it to the kids, 6 and 9. It spent 3 weeks on the road with them over the summer, just got back from a 7 day cruise and gets used every day.

Still going strong.