Need a replacement for my G2; what phone should I get (or wait for)?

[jessx]

Last fall I got a T-Mobile G2 which I love, but now after recently moving to my cousin's place for the year I've found that I get terrible reception here with T-Mobile. I can get 2G speeds at best and making calls is next to impossible. So I hate to do it, but I already need a new phone with a new carrier. My cousin has Verizon and gets great reception and speed here and according to the coverage maps for the carriers I checked, only Verizon and U.S. Cellular provide good coverage for this area. So a new phone with Sprint, T-Mobile or AT&T is out unless I can get one of their phones to work with either Verizon or U.S. Cellular which looks pretty iffy from the brief research I've done on it.

So I'm coming here to try and determine which other Android smartphone I should go for. I'm looking for something as similar to the G2 as possible, specifically in regards to its specs and physical QWERTY keyboard (a must); I don't want to have to *downgrade* and settle for a lesser phone now that I've gotten so accustomed to using the G2. I went to a Verizon store and aside from the "upcoming" HTC Merge (which would be great if it ever actually gets released) the closest thing they've got is the Droid 2 which I'm not all that fond of...the physical keyboard is vastly inferior to the G2's (IMO) and I'm not a big fan of Motoblur. Also the online reviews of the Droid 2 (both standard and global) aren't as good as the ones for the G2 with the general consensus seeming to be that HTC phones are the way to go. So what other phones, either out now or coming out soon, are comparable to the G2 and would make for a good replacement?

 

[cpjr]

You need to wait, a lot of new phones coming out in the next couple months.

 

[Martin030908]

There are devices coming but I don't know about with a physical keyboard... Bionic is touch only, so is the Thunderbolt and LG Revolution.

Those are the 3 phones coming to VZW next (as stated at CES)... so I don't know if that's gonna help you.

 

[hookbill]

HTC the way to go? I don't agree with that, I think Motorola makes THE Droid and everything else is a wannabe Droid.

 

[guidot]

HTC the way to go? I don't agree with that, I think Motorola makes THE Droid and everything else is a wannabe Droid.

Go hook! +1^

Sent from my MetiCk/DavrosModded A855.

 

[jessx]

Doesn't necessarily have to be an HTC, just a phone comparable to the G2, particularly in the physical sense. Right now I'm eying Sprint's Evo 4G Shift which is supposedly more or less the same as the G2 and the HTC Merge, or at least very similar. The problem with the Evo 4G Shift would be that I'd have to pay full retail for it ($550.00) plus the cost of starting a new plan with Verizon plus the cost of canceling my contract early with T-Mobile, so all told I'd likely be paying around $1k for a 3.6 inch phone all because of T-Mobile's crappy coverage. Then there's the issue of getting it to work with Verizon which seems like it could be tricky.

I can wait a bit longer for the new phones coming out this year, I'm just concerned about the lack of physical keyboards on any of the new high-end Android devices that have been confirmed or released lately...I don't want to decide to wait and then find 6 months later that there still aren't any new keyboard phones on the market and on the right network(s) that are comparable to or better than the G2. I haven't really been following this type of thing until just recently though so I'm sure others here know better than I do what the odds of that are...so roughly what are the odds of a G2-like phone coming out for Verizon or coming out unlocked any time soon? If the odds are slim to none then I'll probably just get something now but if there's a fairly reasonable probability of it then I'll wait.