Don't know if this is the proper place for this but here goes. Would like to purchase an Iridium phone. Give me some pros and cons and does anyone know where to buy one at a bargain. How about minutes for them.
Thanks

don't buy; rent.

i bought an iridium several years ago. used it on 2 trips. mother board went bad. had to trash it. bad deal.

i have used explorer satellite to rent a sat phone on my last 4 trips to africa. great company to do business with. new phone every trip. no problems. as far as i am concerned renting is the way to go unless you will use the phone for someting other than staying in touch while on a hunting trip

I have an Iridium and love it.I purchased it from GMPCS in Florida. I purchase yearly all world minutes for it and use it across the world.

I also bought an Iridium. it isn't worth the aggravation of renting one two or more times a year.

I have found it to be extremely useful at times here in the US. For example, when we got whacked by hurricanes. We had no phone service for days. I carry it to my hunting camp due to the extremely weak cell signal.

We bought an iridium several years ago and recently traded it in for the current model and we use ours quite a bit. We have storm issues as well as regular power outages. bought from Andy Cool, explorer Satellite. Suggest you buy, not rent!

I ahgree with Bryan Chick; contact Andy Cool, we have used his equipment on several trips to SA, Zim and Canada...he has good equipment and is fair. We always rent....I'm concerned about something going wrong with equipment during long periods of non use.

I have purchased other sat phones first then an Iridium.It is first class gear.I have used it all over VERY remote parts of Australia and VERY remote parts of Southern Africa.Worth every penny.Text messages with it are very handy too.Reorganised my 2008 elephant hunt in Zim via a mate in Austraia while holidaying with the family in a National Park in Zambia.
Buy it,you will not regret it.

bigguy...: yea, we also have a bgan unit, for email, and since I worry about the same thing, I power it and the iridium up and surf the web a couple of times a month.

I got a refurbished Iridium from Outfitter Satellite. It has worked great for the last 8 years with no problems. My friend just bought a newer model from them this last year and is also very happy with it. The refurbished models save you a few hundred dollars.