Back in the old days (I've used mobile phones since they were brick size) we could always see relative signal strengths when looking at new phones. But now that most of my time is spent in a home office, it's very important to me. We're only 2-3 km from the centre of the city - but live in a hilly suburb. Since we moved home we've discovered just how weak the signal is here. We can get a message saying we missed a call and to check the answer phone. And we were sitting in the same place when the message came through as we were when we "missed" the phone call.

We looked at the Vodafone signal booster - but they've made a poor marketing decision to tie it to the vodafone network - it's clearly not a technical decision because it doesn't apply overseas. We're not going to Vodafone network for various reasons - but also have good reasons for staying on Vodafone for mobiles.

So when we're looking at new phones, we want to know the strength of signal reception. The only other criteria that really matters is battery life - although we also like flip top phones if possible. The only use of the phones is phone calls and messages. Even our current Nokias (probably five years old or more) have more features than we ever use. Our problem is not even Consumer provides information on the relative signal strength of phones.

I doubt we're the only people in NZ who want this information. But we haven't found it anywhere obvious. Does anyone have any sources for this info - or failing that, and suggestions for how to evaluate it for ourselves.

Thanks