Well, my previous 2 phones were the Nokia N90 and the nokia N93i. They were both foreign and had HORRIBLE service while I owned them in the US. Back in november I bought the US version of the N96 and its service is FLAWless and crystal clear. Im now looking into selling the N96 for an N97, but it looks like I would have to get the UK version of that phone. Was it just coincidence that my 1st two phones had crappy service? Or is the signal directly affected by it being a non US phone? I would probably reconsider getting the N97 all together if its gonna have crap service like my n90 and n93i as my house is a dead zone. thanks
You might want to check if those were made in China, there had been imitation copies of the Nokia N-series going around and if those look exactly like the real thing (made in China). I don't think there would be any limitations placed on the original phones unless those were made in Japan because Japan has some very stringent rules in place about having their phones exported to other countries. And yes Nokia is generally a good brand owing to the fact that their Symbian OS is one of the most flexible ones in the market where you can basically install anything you like on the phone. I have been using Nokia brands for the past few years (N70 then N82 about a year ago), however I am considering of switching to Samsung's Omnia 8GB soon. You might want to consider that as an option too, it uses Windows Mobile OS and its design is pretty cool (touchscreen, etc).
check what band you current phone is on and compare them to the last two. if they are different, that could be what is causing your problem. if the n97 runs on a different band than the n96 then there might be problems, but im not sure. EDIT: i would watch out, the US uses gsm 1900 and europe and asia use gsm 1800. im not sure if thats where your problems came from but its the only thing i can think of edit numero dos: if you must buy from europe, the french version might work because they are on the gsm 1900, also a tri band phone may work but its not gonna be the same as a 100% american phone