I "upgraded" from an old nokia 6010 that was working perfect for over 4 years to a LG cu500 That can't even stay connected for more than a minute! Dropped calls like crazy. People on the other end keep hanging up on me because they could not hear me! HELLO? HELLO? HELLO? And the 3G Hipe that cingular keeps pushing is NO GOOD as well. I signed up for the full media package with video and all the bells and whistles and the video would go into buffer zone forever after playing about 15 seconds of a 3 min clip. This was my second CU500 phone from cingular. New sim card, new phone, same problems. My signal was always 5 bars strong in the 3g mode, yet, still dropped calls and nobody could hear me. My best guess about this phone is that LG rushed this phone to market to compete with the razor from motorola.(As we all know that the razor is always sold out at the cingular stores.) I would not recommend this phone to anybody who needs a reliable source of communication. Cell phone quality has dropped in the last 4 years since I brought a phone, so I can't really recommend any brands. Cingular service has been PERFECT so far before I brought this phone so go figure what's the problem. There is another reviewer on this page having the same problems as I did as well.