Every summer, my family all gets together with all of our spouses and kids at a house on a lake in Northern Wisconsin. Where the house is located is just outside of the Verizon coverage area, and within in the AT&T coverage area.
My sister and her husband both have iPhones and AT&T service. Neither of their phones work, even though they are supposedly within the coverage. It will take my sister's iphone a couple hours to send a simple text message.
My oldest daughter has a Samsung, I forget which model (she has had several of them, because they apparently break easily)... No service for her up there either.
My wife and I both have Motorola phones, and even though we have Verizon service (which we are actually not even in a Verizon zone while we are there, if you look at the coverage map), our phones work just like they do here at home. Flawlessly.
I actually take great joy in pointing out to my daughter (usually while she is struggling to text her boyfriend on her crap Samsung phone) that I am able to send texts with ease, make and receive phone calls normally, and surf the internet with no problems on my Motorola phone. My favorite thing is to call my wife (who is in the next room) and carry on a conversation for a few minutes, hang up, and ask my daughter if her text has sent yet.
For my purposes, I have yet to see a phone out perform my motorola.
