You can't be certain, but most phones available today have excellent reception - there isn't much difference between them. (My phone is bang up to date, whereas my sister's is five years old, and we both get about the same reception. What you can do is to make sure the phone has 'roaming' capabilities, and is tri-band, so that it can be used abroad. Also, choose a reliable telecommunications network to provide your service.

The Nokia mobile phone brand is by far the best. It has the best reception. The worst reception is Samsung, they have not yet perfected the 'internal antenna' technology. Although the reception is affected by the phone itself, the company that you choose to be connected with is also very important. Investigate the company's coverage and talk to some current customers of a particular company and ask their opinion.

I am in disagreement because i was a Nokia level 3 tech...and we have alot of issuses with our nokia phones, more then some other brands...I am by no means putting down the nokia brand...but for one example...the nokia 8860...bad reception...from NOKIA factory...so you cant say that Nokia is THE BEST...because each carrier use branded name phones there system that works better on some carriers rather then others... ex. nokia works well with the new cingular/at&t GSM but when u go to alltel...wow nokia doesnt work to well...

Adding to the first answer, the only real dependant factors are: The type of phone (Analog[TDMA/CDMA] like those old brick motorolas, or Digital [GSM/GPRS]). Analog phones usually work better in rural areas. I have a buddy who lives in a mountainous area, and driving up to his house we both checked our cells - he had an analog with full reception while mine had none on the same network. The second factor is the network provider. How well does their network cover areas you are frequently in? How often do they expand it, and do they have roaming contracts with other providers in dead spots? Most companies have maps of their coverage on their websites.

I'm sure it is evident that there are a lot of answers to this question. I believe that answer varies based on a lot of factors. One of the factors that influence reception is your location. what works well here doesn't work well there and vice versa. I work for an oilfield services company and we don't just go out in the boondocks occasionaly, we are there all the time. Every carrier that I'm aware of will give you a 10-15 day grace period at the beggining of your contract to try the phone and exchange it if you don't like it. We depend on these phones 24/7 so we must have good reception. We aproached this by having a manager carry the phone for 2 weeks. If it didn't work, we exchanged it. We went through around 5 phones and finally found one that worked, and worked much better than the others. For us it was a Motorola V262. I'm sure that if you look around the net, you will find someone with a 262 that says it has terrible reception. The truth is it probably did...for their area. Take advantage of the grace period. most don't tell you about it, but it will save a huge headache, especially if you are signing a 2 yr contract. Judge each phone honestly without regard to its brand or model.

Already some good info. Any carrier that wants to attract and keep customers should allow a trial period. At US Cellular you get 30 days to 'test the network'. It's obviously critical that you use that time to check out the phone's performance in those areas where you will need it most. You should ask the salesman which of their selection perform best in areas you will be using it. Unfortunately, there are still outright unethical sales people out there, so you must be cautious. A good thing to do is to call a repair center, a retail store that has one or more repair techs onsite, and ask a tech which phones they DON'T have problems with, or even which phones THEY personally use...same for a salesman. Phones may be great in one part of the country, poor in another. Important to note: You get what you pay for with cell phones.

Buy it, us it and then you will know.