Picking out your cell phone is like being torn between best friends—there’s the rock groupie who attends every concert, the overachiever prepping for grad school, and the one plugged into Facebook at all times. Cell phones have personalities which match different features and perks, but the trick to picking the right phone is figuring out what fits your needs and lifestyle. These are my top 5 picks for back-to-school shopping 2009, and with cell phones this great, you’ll want to tote your little buddy in your backpack everywhere you go.

For the text-messaging junkie texting during lecture

The LG enV Touch perfects text-messaging convenience and style with a spacious, easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard, a dedicated text-messaging button, a Favorites keyboard button for favorite contacts, and two brilliant touch-screen displays. High-end features like the added 3-inch touch-screen on the front upgrades the enV Touch with a sleeker design than its Voyager and enV3 predecessors. You definitely won’t be disappointed with the integration of touch-screen interface and flip-open full keyboard that will hold your attention way longer than that last text message conversation.

For the aspiring Mr./Mrs. Trump with a Business degree

The RIM Blackberry Curve 8900 Smartphone is a necessity for the grad school wannabe who needs fancy multi-tasking capabilities so they can edit their resume and schedule their week all while recording notes for class. With its full, improved HTML web browser, Wi-Fi network with UMA support , built-in GPS, the thinnest full QWERTY Blackberry keyboard yet, more downloadable productivity tools and applications, and a thinner, light-weight design, the newest Blackberry definitely delivers. The new UMA support allows for free calling within the Wi-Fi network. This phone’s balance of work and play will help you transition seamlessly from student to mobile professional.

For the music junkie at every campus concert

Sony Ericsson W760a is the multimedia lover’s dream with some of the best music and gaming features of any phone on the market.
Highlights include TrackID to record and identify unknown songs, Shake control to change tunes, gaming functions that include tilt control motion sensor, Media Go entertainment organizer that drags and drops media between PC and phone, Walkman quality tuner and sound, SensMe playlists created according to your mood, and picture blogging capabilities direct from your phone.
Add in the MegaBass stereos right on the face of the phone, and you have a virtual concert tucked away in your backpack.

For the one with the latest, high-tech gadgets in his dorm

Sony Ericcson Cyber-Shot C905 blows other camera phones out of the water with an extraordinary 8.1 megapixel Cyber-Shot camera poised on the other side of the phone. It has shares lots of smart features with the Sony Cyber-Shot camera including four different resolution settings, face detection, Smart Contrast, Photo Fix, and GPS tagging, plus a 160 MB internal memory and a memory stick slot to add up to 16 GB to your picture capacity. With a camera this killer on your phone, you might find yourself spending more time taking snapshots then making calls.

For the Trust Fund baby/Ivy League School student

The Samsung Memoir is ridiculously expensive, tricked out with top-of-the-line features, and the most uber-luxurious toy a student could ever need. If you’re looking to splurge, this would be it. The near $600 price tag comes with a high-res 8 MP camera with 16x zoom and Xenon flash, perfected TouchWiz interface with customizable drag-and-drop widgets and easy navigation, strong multimedia capabilities, HTML browser, and a virtual touch-screen QWERTY keyboard.
It’s main focus is the feature-rich camera and its solid construction. If you are willing to spend on it, you might find yourself eating Mac&Cheese for a few months, but you’ll be styling with a really sweet phone.

Cool Phone Disclaimer:

If you are signing up for a standard two year contract with a wireless carrier, your credit score may be checked and bad credit could stand in the way of you and your perfect mobile companion. A poor credit score might not stop you from texting, but it may mean you have to pay full price for your phone instead of a promotional price. Also, the carrier may require you to sign you up for a prepaid calling plan if they find too much bad static on your credit report and score. Here is yet another significant reason to keep your credit health in check: it might just cost you a really cool cell phone.

The first thing that you are going to need to do is to acquire a free copy of your credit report from each of the three major reporting bureaus. Once a year, all three credit agencies are required to give you free access, so take advantage of this by requesting a free copy once a year rather than spending money for your credit score.

Now that you have a copy of your credit report from one or all three of the main agencies, the next step is going to be to go through each of the reports, checking every entry for accuracy. If you find items that you do not agree with, then you can file a dispute with the agency to have them removed. The agency has thirty days to verify if the item is accurate or not following your request for a dispute. If they cannot verify that the item is accurate within this 30 day period, then by law they must remove it from your credit report.

Once you know what is on your credit report, you can start working on paying off your debts. Your credit report will detail all of your past and current debts, and what status they are currently in. If you stopped paying an old credit card bill, it will appear in your credit report. If you are currently paying for a cell phone plan monthly, that will also appear. Your credit reports will display both positive and negative listings, so you need to find the negative listings and find a way to have them removed, either because they don’t really belong there or by paying them off.

It is also vital that you continue to pay all of your bills on time. Some utilities report to your credit agencies, and cell phones also report. Keep your bills paid on time, and pay off your loans and credit card bills on time and your credit score will go up over time. Your credit report is not only about bad debt, but also good payments and good faith attempts to pay off your debts. If you keep your balances down and you work hard to show that you can and will repay your debts, then lenders will look at you less as a risky borrower and more as a healthy proposition.

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