If you page through newspaper ads in a big city like New York or LA, you'll find ads for a lot of cool phones I won't review, like the Samsung SGH-D600. I won't review them because I get most of my phones through the carriers, who control more than 80% of phone sales in the US. I'll make occasional exceptions for phones the manufacturers want to push in the US through direct sales, like the Sony Ericsson Walkman W800i, or phones that independent dealers specifically contact me about, like the Motorola SLVR L6.

The bigger question is why carriers don't sell these cool handsets (and the even cooler handsets coming out of China and Korea.) A Cingular rep once explained the banal truth to me.

• First of all, carriers want handsets that aren't any trouble. They don't want to have to train their salespeople on too many products, so they want to keep the product lines relatively short. They also want to deal with big manufacturers with reliable supply chains, not little guys with no English-speaking support people.
• Second, carriers only want features that will help their strategic goals. High-megapixel cameraphones are worthless without high-speed networks to send those multi-megapixel picture messages. Phones that sync music with your PC only become useful if you're trying to compete with another carrier's music-on-demand service. Handset features are not about consumer choice - they're about maximizing carrier revenue.
• Third, carriers want handsets that will work best in the US. That means handsets with the North America-only 850 Mhz band, which counts out direct importation of a lot of cool European phones.
• Finally, carriers want to deal in bulk. And the bulk of US customers want voice phones.

That doesn't mean you can't get phones like the SGH-D600. It just means you have to be crafty. Go to smaller, independent authorized dealers in your city, not the official carrier stores. Look at well-known Web sites like www.dynamism.com, www.mobilebee.com, and even Amazon. Check out newspaper ads. Dealers will usually sell these cool phones bundled with T-Mobile plans for reasonable prices.

Samsung SGH-D600
Lowest Price: I bet you can find it at around $200 with T-Mobile activation if you hunt around. An unlocked version sells for $419-525.
Who does it work with? Either T-Mobile or Cingular. This one is quad-band, so it can hit everybody's networks.
Why is it so cool? It's as cute as the Samsung e635, but it has performance. Lots of performance: a 2-megapixel camera, 80 MB of RAM, a memory card slot, Bluetooth and even stereo Bluetooth music output for super-cool wireless headphones.
So what's the down side? You're going to have to hunt for it.
Would I recommend it? I'm excited about it, and I'm not getting one. Why don't you get one and tell me what you think?
More information at: Phone Scoop