A couple questions about the Eternity?

Not with message tones, I think, but definitely with ringtones under a certain length and 300kb.

Music is automatically sorted by ID3 tags in the music app (sort by artist, album, song, genre; your choice), and yes, you can still organize into folders. Pictures are sorted by date added but you can make folders to further sort them.

This phone is old, and if you buy one, it's likely to be dysfunctional like most of ours are by now. I recommend looking at a newer phone. SE1 or SE2? Either way, both are getting pretty old, and SE1 (the better overall phone, IMO) is probably impossible to find in mint condition. Better luck just looking for a newer dumbphone that is about the same on features. I don't recommend getting either edition of the SE, especially as you can see on this forum, more people just are trying to keep their phones working rather than being on top of the market (as we were above the Iphone 3G for specs) when our phone came out, with active development on this forum which has now ceased.

Does  anyone else know for sure if you can add your own text alert tones?  Any recommendations about the ones from Amazon that say New? (From Amazon directly, not a 3rd partly.)

On the Samsung Eternity, you can set a custom text tone (I only used custom ones since I added a delay to make the tone louder). But like Toast said, the Eternity is pretty old (if you find a working one, it'll work fine, but there are better options now). In your case, I probably wouldn't get the Laser (at least new) because it would require buying it off contract, which would be a couple hundred dollars at least. For that much, you could get an older T-Mobile smartphone with MUCH more features than any dumbphone. I've even been looking into (a little) getting an unlocked Android phone since browsing on my Laser is kind of a pain (Opera Mini helps but I can't goatbreak so I have to confirm for every link click.. It's convenient when I have poor signal but otherwise is a pain in the butt). Another advantage to a smartphone is that it will most likely have a capacitive touchscreen display, which makes on-screen typing much easier.

Toast is right though, there really aren't any good dumbphones out there anymore (unless you are looking at plain flip phones, then you could look at the low end Nokia;s which are pretty good for what they are). Now it's usually split between people who want a smartphone and people who just want a phone that makes calls.

After a while of using my Eternity, I hated typing on it. The resistive screen was a little too unresponsive (actually, thinking about it, it might have just been the laggyness of the keyboard making it feel slow.. Not really sure since I haven't typed on it in a few months). Also, with resistive screens you can't have multitouch so you have to lift your finger off the previous button to hit the next one. On good on screen keyboards (with a capacitive display) you don't have to lift your finger, so it feels a little more natural. Personally, I think I like typing on a physical keyboard better though (although I type pretty fast on my iPod, but only in landscape. I hate typing in portrait on my iPod). With a physical keyboard, I can put my finger in the area of the keys just without pressing down, so I can kind of plan ahead so my fingers are in the right spots to make typing faster (that probably didn't make any sense...).

But you are right, it is just my opinion. You're also right about more moving parts breaking easier. My Laser has been having some problems lately with it turning off when I slide it too hard. I'm assuming there's some wire or something in the mechanism that's getting in the way but it's pretty annoying..

It's only around 100 bucks. That's probably a good year's worth. I like the HTC HD2, an old T-Mobile model which you can install android on, but it's starting at $350 new.