Verizon Wireless

Upside: Easy to create and send picture messages; great online messaging tools; can upload pictures from PC to your phone.

Downside: Airtime charges; may have trouble accessing the site from firewall protected PCs; can't use Bluetooth or infrared port to send pictures.

Bottom line: Verizon has great online features and picture-messaging packages, but you must use its service.

LG VX8000 Check prices

Ease of use is what Verizon promises. The company boasts of the ability to send a picture with just four clicks. Even better, it takes only two clicks to upload your photo to the Pix Place online album, where you can store up to 75 picture or video files.

Kyocera KX2 Koi Check prices

From the site, you can upload shots to your PC, share your album via e-mail with your friends, send pictures to Verizon customers with MMS-enabled phones or e-mail addresses, and edit and create new albums.

Verizon lets you upload images from your PC to the online album, which you can then upload to your phone at no cost. The user-friendly site also features a multimedia gallery of greeting cards and songs. One warning: we had to shut off our Norton Internet Security firewall to log in to the Pix Place Web site. When you sign up for Verizon's unlimited in-network calling option for $5 a month, you can also send unlimited picture and video messages to other Verizon Wireless customers, plus an additional 50 messages to camera phone users on other networks; for $10 a month, you get 250 additional messages, and $15 gets you an extra 500 out-of-network picture and video messages. If you don't opt for a picture-messaging bundle, you're charged 25 cents per picture sent, received, or stored online, plus airtime.

Get Pix now: Verizon's online photo storage site lets you view pictures uploaded from your camera phone.

Camera phones include: 

• LG VX8000

• Kyocera KX2 Koi

• Motorola V265

More cell phone resources from CNET: 

• New cell phone reviews • Camera phone reviews • CNET's favorite camera phones

• Cell phone buying guide • On Call: Answers for your cell phone questions • CNET's quick guide to 3G

• CNET's quick guide to Bluetooth • Ultimate cell phone headsets • Camera phone secrets

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