Telstra's blue tick (Credit: Telstra)

The announcement of Telstra's CDMA network shut-down in April 2008 certainly ruffled the feathers of rural customers who had been concerned about losing their existing network coverage.

To counteract these concerns, Telstra established the "Blue Tick" as a way of indicating to its customers which Next G capable handset has superior reception in regional areas, as per Telstra's own in-house testing procedures. These tests include practical handset trials both in the labs and on the ground in remote areas, emulating typical usage where possible.

Because we haven't tested these claims ourselves we suggest that you don't consider the blue tick a guarantee of clear reception, but more a recommendation to help start the conversation with your local mobile phone dealer about which handset will best suit your needs.

As with all mobile phone technologies, this list fluctuates; with phones being added and subtracted as they become available or are superseded. Below is the current list of blue tick phones reviewed by the editors at CNET.com.au.