A good phone for use with WIND in Italy
 

Hello all,

I am planning to buy an cell phone for use with a Wind SIM card in Italy. I would also like to use it along with the Wind Mega 100 hour prepaid data plan.

Any recommendations on a good phone? Main thing for me is that the phone support internet surfing with the maximum coverage throughout Italy. I am confused about the HSDPA vs. EDGE vs. GPRS vs. UMTS support of the phones...

Someone told me my phone must support UMTS in order to use internet/data on the phone. Is this correct?

what UMTS frequency must it support? 850, 1900, 0r 2100?

Thank you all,

850 and 1900 are right out. Not used in Europe. According to both this webiste and GSMWorld, Wind is GSM 900/1800 and UMTS-2100. Any phone that has those bands should work fine. The higher the GPRS slot-class the better.

In short:

HSUPA is fastest
HSDPA is still fast
UMTS is fast-ish
EDGE is semi-fast
GPRS is pretty slow

You need both 900 and 1800 MHz GSM on a phone to get decent service in much of Europe. Adding 3G 2100 is good.

GSM stuff has backwards compatibility. If it supports one of the protocols on that list, it'll support everything below it. The only exception is EDGE; not all 3G phones support EDGE. (My Sony-Ericsson K610i doesn't, e.g., although my 2.5G Z310i does.)

Thank you both,

So, based on the nice list you put together, going with a HSDPA 2100, I would have UMTS 2100 covered as well.

Yes, true. Of course if you get a HSDPA phone is the best solution. But remember that Wind has HSDPA coverage just in main cities.