I am having a hard time on deciding what to buy for when I go traveling next year. I will be in Japan for about 4 months and I want something that has a good battery life, full internet usage, email access, and can be international.

A good media player and a camera are a plus to kind of cut down on what I have to carry so that would be nice. It would be nice to not have to carry around an iPod, camera, and smart phone with me. The camera might be a must b/c most phones are not capable as most stand alone cameras...

Is there a good smartphone out there that will work on both sides? One that works fine here in the US and one that works fine in Japan on their networks?

Any input or advice would be fantastic =D

i think the simplest answer to this enquiry is the nokia n95... but the battery might cause problem on times (which means you could stock up and buy a few spares so when you get to power you charge em all up and then set off)

youll probably find tonnes of knockoff n95s out there made by nolcia or nokla round that side of the world (possibly worth buyin one when over there just for comedy value)

I was considering getting the N95 soon...however I am not going to be going on my trip until April or later next year...I know the N95 will still be viable but will it be cheaper to wait or possibly some other model to buy at that point?

see now thats a very good question... because my contract ends about that time and i currently have a n93 and want to upgrade to a n95 as it stands now... but who knows what will come along by that time. hopefully some sorta n95i or somethin similar (takin some of the upgrades from the american n95 along with some more hardware/firmware fixes) will have come along by then...

well see tho :S

yeah my contract expires in a month but there is no phone that cingular offers that is worth upgrading from my 6682 for now...

Maybe if the rumor comes around that cingular will support the N95 then I would pick it up through them to get it at 400 bucks or some crazy cheap price...

Hopefully you are right about something like an N95i...

the "i" = "intensely long battery life"

If only...