New Android phone in Toronto - Bell? Rogers? Someone else?

Samsung Galaxy S II is the current king of the Android phone market. My girlfriend has the Galaxy S I. It's an awesome phone except for one MAJOR problem, which makes her regret having bought it: the headphones are proprietary, meaning you cannot use any headphones on the unit except the ones that came with it. Hers broke and she was rightly pissed when she found out she had to replace them with shitty earbuds all over again. I have an HTC Sensation which was a Bell phone that I unlocked and use on Fido. Why? Because, as much as I hate Rogers/Fido, I LOATHE Bell and advise everyone to stay away from them. Bell does absolutely everything in its power to fuck up the internet for everyone in Canada. Though I haven't been a customer of theirs since the 90s, they still fuck with my internet by proxy and they're trying to make everything even worse. They are trying to force companies that aren't owned by them to enact pricing schemes that the companies don't want to enact. They are throttling the internet connections of countless Canadians who aren't even their customers. They are fucking fucks and for making the internet worse across this country they should be punished by you. You should not give them your dollars. Yes, Rogers internet is also evil, but they don't have the reach or power of Bell. Here's what I have on Fido: Unlimited (local) talk and (international) text - $35 (you can add unlimited LD for Canada for $10) Value Pack (Call Waiting, Voice Mail, all that crap) - $10 500mb Data plan - $25 Why so little data? I feel it's all I need. I have wifi at home and work so the only time I DL via non-wifi is limited. I just set all my major DL apps (podcasts and such) to DL only when in wifi zone and I never go over my 500mb limit. Easy peasy. If you're heartset on a Galaxy S II, just find out how to unlock it and you can use it on Rogers or Fido now (there are people who sell unlock codes on Craigslist for $20 or so--just search for the model and the word unlock). However, if you want half-decent headphones, I'd check thoroughly into that issue. For the model my GF has, this information is NOT in the manual.

After around 3 months of use: All seems okay. It's probably not the Very Cheapest Service available, but I guess I'm still on the Louis CK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk school on this stuff: I have a pocket-sized computer that gives me instant access to multiple libraries' worth of information, lets me videochat with my friends, etc, etc. It is completely magical. If it costs seven dollars more a month that I might have hoped, I can deal with that. Network covereage and service is pretty good. The phone is really great. iPad data sharing works fine. Tethering my latptop using the phone works fine. Kies works fine. Customer support, when I've had to deal with it, has been predictably a bit on the crappy side. There have been multiple problems with the billing for my iPad data sharing plans, and they've taken a couple of phone calls to resolve. I'm probably more patient than the average person with this sort of stuff (I teach negotiation classes as part of my work, so dealing with bad phone support is a kind of a fun learning game for me), but problems to ultimately get resolved, even if they take a little longer than expected. The support people are generally friendly and reasonably well-informed. If stellar customer support is your main criterion, you probably shouldn't choose Bell, but thus far they have not been deal-breakingly bad... fingers crossed...

ManInSuit, I'm curious if it works with other headphones. Have you tried? Even try your iPhone headphones. Does it work? Dobbs - just tried now. My old iPhone earbuds seem to work fine with my new Samsung Galaxy S2 from Bell: The sound is fine, the mic works, clicking the button to pause playback works...

ManInSuit, I'm curious if it works with other headphones. Have you tried? Even try your iPhone headphones. Does it work?

Thanks all for the help!! I went with Bell, because as near as I can tell, they and Virgin (their subsidiary) are the only people currently offering the Samsung Galaxy S2, which seems to be pretty widely regarded as the best Android phone out there right now. Although it seems that people seem to have happier experiences with the customer support at Virgin than Bell, I chose Bell over Virgin because Bell offers data sharing and Virgin does not. I did all this now because I didn't want to miss the 6 GB promotional plan being offered now on all the major carriers. Way too early to tell, of course, what my three-year-contract (ugh) experience with Bell will be like. But for now -the new phone is pretty amazing. To state the very obvious - smart phones sure have gotten better in the 3+ years since I got my iPhone 3g.

bonehead, the last CDMA smartphone that you could get from Telus was the BlackBerry Style, which was introduced last October. The fact that all of the big three and some smaller carriers have the GSM iPhone in Canada and NONE carry the Verizon CDMA version tells you what the state of things are here. You can get the GSM BB 9900 from all the majors but you can't get the CDMA 9930 from any carrier- not one. CDMA was buried in Canada two years ago.

jeather, that's really weird. My girlfriend is also with Bell and no headphones but the ones that came with it work. Everything sounds ... encoded or something. She spoke with Bell and they insist they're proprietary. I googled it and found out one can buy a clunky adaptor. ManInSuit, thanks for the link. Nice deal but 3 year contract is nuts in this day and age.

The Nexus S as well uses standard headphones. Telus, at least, was still selling CDMA smarphones as of this spring (and I note that they have one old LG model still for sale). We switched to Rogers at work this March because they didn't offer the GSM model people wanted and IT was getting pissy about having Rogers phones for the international travelers only. I wasn't aware that Telus had completed their switch yet.

My Galaxy S uses any old headphones I have handy. This is a Bell phone because Bell has the best group plans. I have no love for Bell, but they've still got by far the best rates for shared minutes/data.