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Intro 

For those of you who are thinking about giving someone special a cell phone for the holidays, but have held off because you wanted to be sure you buy the right phone, we're here to help you make the right decision. We've done all the work for you, narrowing down the best choices for every person on your gift list on every national carrier. Because you have many people on your gift list, we've limited our selections to phones that sell for $250, most cost much less — especially with a contract.

We believe the first step in choosing the right phone for someone is to choose the right carrier. The freedom to choose a carrier near you with the best coverage, calling plans or just the one he's been on forever, ensures the gift recipient the best experience once he or she has the right phone to use on that network.

To choose what phone to buy your loved ones as a gift, you need to consider how they're going to use it. Some people are still a bit scared of mobile phones and may only want them "for emergencies." At the other end of the spectrum are people who will try to do everything on their phone; and of course most folks actually fall somewhere in between. Find the type of person you're buying for, and in most cases you'll find a phone for him on whichever network you deem the best choice.

Consider Prepaid

Just In Case 

Before you go off researching which network is best for your loved ones, there are few types of people who are probably better off with prepaid phones and plans than with the big five carriers. If they fall into either of these categories, your work here is done.

There are people, maybe like some of your parents, grandparents, or other older relatives who still refuse to use a cell phone, but say they'd like one to have in case of an emergency. They're just going to leave the phone off sitting in their purse or glove compartment until some suitable occasion arises, and then they'll turn it on and call to tell us they'll be two hours late for dinner one Christmas. Many of us just get another handset and add them to our family plan, or hand them down one of our old phones and help them subscribe to a cheap monthly plan, but this is a waste since emergency users are where prepaid really shines. Why pay $20-30 a month for a cheap plan when most these folks will barely use $30 a year in pre-paid time. We would recommend a number of prepaid networks, but 7 Eleven has two huge advantages: you can top your minutes up at selected stores all around the country, and minutes are valid for a year, not just a few months - perfect for infrequent users.

7 Eleven prepaid service: Nokia 3100
(Out of all the new phones on 7 Eleven's new GSM prepaid service, the 3100 is the only one with a normal keypad, so it won't confuse your older relatives.)

Leaving Home 

No matter how much parents of guardians try to instill good values among teens, everyone makes mistakes, especially financial ones, when they step out on their own. Who can resist all those temptations? Prepaid phones help this generation control their spending, while still providing access to phones and services all their friends will respect or even be jealous of.

Boost Mobile: Motorola i830
(Boost mobile is only available in certain states, however it is very popular among urban youth in those states.)

Virgin Mobile: Flasher V7
...or: MTV Slider

Keep on Talkin

Light Users 

Every other type of user out there will probably wind up on a monthly plan with a national carrier. We've outlined choices on the four most popular carriers.

(We've left out the fifth, Nextel. There are so few Nextel phones to choose from that the appropriate phone for each person will be obvious — there's only once cool phone, one cameraphone, etc.)

My mom can barely figure out how to change the channel on her TV, let alone program her VCR. But like many other people, she knows how to gab on the phone non-stop and can (with a little help) figure out how to put her oft-called contacts into speed dial. Even with tech support, she's still not going to try text messaging or browsing, in fact it's unlikely she'll change her ringer. Each of these phones has standard keypads and simple menus. They are physically reliable, with solid build quality, decent battery life and good signal strength. They should be both drop- and dummy-proof.

Cingular: Nokia 3120

Sprint: Nokia PM-6225

T-Mobile: Motorola V180

Verizon: LG VX-4600

Heavy Users 

You know the type, they practically have a hands-free kit permanently affixed to their ear. They are always on the phone whether it's for business or for personal use. In fact, you might think they're on the phone a little too much. This crowd doesn't just need long battery life and great signal strength, they also need a few of more advanced features like customizable wallpapers, downloadable ringtones and easy to use text messaging. These people tend to make the most of their phones, so we've chosen ones packed with tons of useful features.

Cingular: Nokia 6230

Sprint: Audiovox PM-8920

T-Mobile: Nokia 6600
(While T-Mobile has many feature laden phones, they have very few that satisfy the needs of this type of user. If you are an experienced phone buyer, you are probably better off buying an unlocked Motorola V551 or Nokia 6230 from an independent dealer for this person.)

Verizon: LG VX-7000

School Kids 

It's pretty common that Jr. High and High school kids get their own cell phone these days, especially in major cities. Family plans let parents control the spending, but give kids the freedom of their own phone number. Sadly, most parents just hand down old phones to their kids or get them the cheapest model available. Parents, do your kids a favor and buy them some street cred. You don't need to spend much to get your child a phone he will actually like. Each of these phones has a camera, is good at text messaging, has musical ringtones and best of all, it looks slick. Your kid won't be embarrassed when he has to pull out his phone to call you.

Cingular: Motorola V220

Sprint: Samsung A680

T-Mobile: Samsung e715

Verizon: Motorola V265

Feature Focus

Showoffs 

These people tend to talk about their phones more than they talk on them. They don't need reliability so much as they need a phone that turns heads, both when it's doing nothing as well as when it's doing something that's not very phone like. Novel design and extraordinary features like video playback or wide-screen web browsing are far more important than how well these phones actually make calls. To their credit, each of these phones is also quite capable at that as well.

Cingular: Nokia 6620
(Cingular is also selling the Motorola RAZR V3, the ultimate showoff phone, but at over $400 even with a contract, it was too expensive for us to recommend.)

Sprint: Samsung MM-A700

T-Mobile: Sidekick II

Verizon: Kyocera KX2

Texters 

Some people are always on the phone, but you can't every remember them talking into it. These people are probably using it to send text messages or log into an instant messaging client or even send email. Like showoffs, voice calls are far less important than other features to these people, but in their case what's important is written communication. We've selected phones that come pre-loaded with an AIM client, and usually can log onto at least one other IM service as well as send text messages and access most email accounts. Also like the showoff phones, these are still adept at regular voice calls in addition to their specialized abilities.

Cingular: Motorola A630

Sprint: N/A
(Sprint offers browser-based access to AOL, Yahoo! and MSN instant messengers to all PCS Vision users. However, no phones (other than expensive smartphones) come with a dedicated IM client. Since any newer model Sprint handset is equally capable of instant messaging, and no smartphones are sufficiently affordable, we can't recommend a specific phone for this user.)

T-Mobile: Sidekick II

Verizon: LG VX-7000

Shutterbugs 

Some folks will sacrifice everything for megapixels. They have been dying to have a good camera on hand, even when they leave their digital SLR at home. Although none of these phones is ready to compete with even $300-400 digital cameras, they do take better than average snapshots. And since your shutterbug will have his cameraphone with him all the time, he'll be taking many more interesting pictures. The high powered sensors in these cameraphones shorten battery life a bit, but they're such good phones that they're worth recharging a bit more often.

Cingular: Sony Ericsson S710a
(Cingular swears the S710a will be available this month, however in the event it is not, the Nokia 7610, a megapixel smartphone, is available for Cingular through Nokia USA and should be in Cingular stores as well.)

T-Mobile: Sharp TM-150

Sprint: Audiovox PM-8920
(Even though this phone has a megapixel camera - with a flash and macro setting no less - it takes the least impressive pictures out of this bunch. We hope Sprint has some better cameraphones soon.)

Verizon: Kyocera KX2

Emailers 

A few unfortunate souls do all their business by email, but work for companies too small or too cheap or too - whatever - to buy them a proper Blackberry. However, that shouldn't stop them from being able to go laptop-free when they need a break from luggin one around. These people need a powerful phone with powerful PIM applications and a powerful email application. These phones are much smaller and less expensive than the Blackberries or Pocket PC Phones that many companies provide for their employees, but they still provide powerful tools for email warriors.

Cingular: PalmOne Treo 600

Sprint: PalmOne Treo 600
(Even though the Treo 650 is available in limited quantities on Sprint, we still recommend the 600 since it falls in our price range. The 650 is brand new, and thus quite expensive.)

T-Mobile: RIM Blackberry 7100t

Verizon: PalmOne Treo 600

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