I love sony ericcson I've had 4 or five different ones. They are all reliable and they have had great reception...in my experience. As with all cellphones though they require updating, keeping a phone for years isnt really an option anymore. The technologies evolve so quickly and what happened with me a couple times was the network stopped carrying my service because I was so long out of contract. They are durable, cheap and reliable and the cost to upgrade (after the allotted time) is minimal I highly reccommend them....