Right off I have to say that when it comes to cell service and phones and the inherent contracts: you get what you pay for, in more ways than one, and buyer beware! I do my research, ad nauseum, before getting into a new contract or into bed with a new cell provider. I've been a Nextel subscriber for two years with an i90 and an i730. Both lovely phones - service very professional from Nextel - coverage and features what I expected. But like I said, I researched that to death before I bought their phones or their service. Got the phones from Amazon.I, too, was taken by the looks of the RAZR, and so was my wife once she saw one. But was it as good as it looked and was it worth and worth switching carriers for? For one, Nextel wasn't making it easy to stay with them - they got into bed with Sprint and I had Sprint for years and still have nightmares about their customer service. (Plus, the price for an "upgrade phone" for Nextel was *unacceptable* from my point of view. Everyone knows you get a cheaper phone with a new contact!)I got two RAZR's at a local retailer - sorry Amazon, but your rebates with Cingular aren't worth the effort - and paid $99 each, best price *anywhere.* I got a family plan which is on par with Verizon's and saves me a bunch of money over Nextel. A *bunch* of money. Two words: rollover minutes.I spent just an hour charging the phone, reading the manual and configuring the phone to function as well, if not better, than my i730, which is a *great* phone, and noticed similarities in function and detail and quality to Sony, Motorola and Nokia phones friends of mine have. I repeat: I read some of the manual, which is something many people seem to avoid.For anyone complaining about the phone/ address book, shame on you. I was worried about the address book based on reviews, but after five minutes with the manual and using the phone, I got the RAZR to do *everything* my nifty i730 could do and then some. There are so many ways to configure the address book it's silly. You can assign and create "categories" for numbers and addresses and even have the phone only display certain categories so you only have to flip thru the numbers you want to flip thru.As for the complaints about battery life, the RAZR has a six-plus hour talk time on it, better than half the phones on the market today. I can say that cos I feel like I've researched about half the phones on the market ... :) Do this: plug your phone in when you go to sleep at night. I can *guarantee* you it will be fully charged in the morning.Fragile phone? How clumsy are you? I've beaten up lots of phones over the years and you should expect just about anything this side of a brick to break when you drop it. Half of my i730 is made of the same material the RAZR is and has a lousier belt clip to boot, which has allowed my i730 to fall the the ground way too many times. I'm happy with the material and it's expected durability. Stop throwing your delicate, *expensive,* micro-electronic device around like it's made of teflon. *Be careful.*I am not on the camera-phone bandwagon primarily because what is required to merge unlike technologies is by it's nature usually expensive and difficult. (A good example is the ROKR, the so-called iTunes phone. I have an iPod, and if that phone had come close to actually blending the best of the wireless world and the abilities of iTunes and the iPod,I would have bought it, but it came far short of doing that cos blending two ideas like that isn't the easiest thing to pull off well ...) The RAZR is not expensive because it has a great camera or a large memory stick or can capture full-motion video and zip it over to your dorm room buddies in the blink of an eye. It's expensive because it's a *slick* looking phone and makes other phones on the shelf self-conscious. Most of the professional reviews of this phone gave it low marks for camera abilities, so don't be surprised by that. Want a good camera phone for Cingular? The Sony s710 got great reveiws; good luck getting it for less than twice what the RAZR costs. That's the difference.Last thing - I got the phone knowing I have 30 days to send the whole thing back if it's not working out for me. So there's a little consumer-friendly cushion to give me some time to fully evaulate the phone. Still, I did my research so there wouldn't be too many surprises when I got the phone.Hope this helps.