Mobile phone to take abroad on holiday

[wolf63]

I am off to the US for a short holiday in August and, as I am going alone, I want to keep in touch with family back home.

I want to take an easy to use mobile phone that I can use to make calls, send texts and surf the web to check my emails and send emails. Inbuilt wi-fi would be brilliant!

What are the names of the 'features' that will allow me to do this ie SMS?

How much (roughly) would it cost to call/text or surf ?

[ZebUK]

The only thing I'm aware of is only tri-band mobiles will work in the US.

[Whickerman]

I'm on O2 here in Ireland, same signal as the UK, and my phone works fine in the US and Canada. (It's a cheapy Sony Ericsson W200i).

But for internet you'd be better off with an i phone or similar