Decisions, Decisions
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My contract with Cingular ends in a few weeks and I'm looking to get a new cell phone. I'm not necessarily looking to leave Cingular, though I haven't been thrilled with their coverage. However it's getting better and I know it's either them, Verizon, or T-Mobile, all of which have had pretty good service at our new house.
I think the Sony Ericsson W600i to the right is a very cool phone. It's gotten great reviews, is small, can store some music along with working as a phone, and is a reasonable price. However it's got one small flaw.
It's a Sony product.
After their debacle with the rootkit, I'm committed to not buying their products. So that one's out.
I checked with Cinglar and I saw they have the Razr in black which is a very cool phone. I mean, after all the commercials and holding one in my hand, I like the size, weight, and feel. I'm not thrilled with the flip format, as I prefer a candy bar or a slider, but hey, I've had a Motorola for a year now and I've gotten used to it. But I don't like the interface, which is slow and not intuitive for me, and the synch with my PC isn't that smooth. I'm still considering it, but it's not on top of my list.
My wife has a Sidekick and I got her a Sidekick II for Christmas. She loves them, but she does more data work than I, especially using the chat feature for work. I don't really chat very much, and I don't really care about data or browsing , or really even a camera. Mostly I want to synch my phone book and (very few) appointments easily and just have a rock solid phone.
So I'm looking for suggestions. I really like Nokia phones because the interface is great, they synch easily WITHOUT a special kit that costs $29.99 or $59.99, and I've had great luck with them. I'm considering grabbing an old Nokia 6820 as I used to have a Nokia 6800, great story as to how I lost that one. Remind me to write about it. That phone made it easy to enter appointments as well as contacts, the interface was outstanding, synch easy, etc.
The LG the V also looks cool. I like the cool factor as I've rarely had a "cool phone". At least one to make my 13 year old jealous 🙂
So I'm wondering what phones you like out there. Ones that have good battery life, good sound because I'm somewhat deaf, good PC synch, and a quick, intuitive interface. Don't care about a camera or video, etc. Mostly I just want a good phone that acts as a modern phone.
Steve Jones
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RAZR V3, if synching is important to you though dont get this phone, but i find the clarity of voice hands free and coverage very good...
ROKR from motorola is cool if your an itunes person because of its itunes music downloads, but the battery isnt great
Id also be looking at the new nokia N series phones these look very promising...
HTH mate
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Life is far too important to be taken seriously -
Just bought myself the RAZR V3, and to tell you the truth I'm not thrilled with it. I'm rather deaf myself and have a hard time hearing with it- but the speakerphone works good. It's slow and the ringer is way to low for me. I've missed more calls in the last month since I've bought it than I've missed in the last year. A friend of mine has one of the new nokia N series and I wish I would have went with one of those instead. Oh well!
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I'm a big fan of the i-mate K-Jam (it may be called something different in the US) - in fact I'm a fan of Windows Mobile devices in general.
People talk about music playing phones which is all well and good but what's a music playing phone? At the end of the day its just some a hard/flash drive and some multimedia software. All Windows Mobile devices have all that and more.
I've got a Virtual Earth client on it which is very cool - well it will be when Virtual Earth covers places other than the US
Its got MSN Messenger so I'm never off that - which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your opinion!
I can check my email on it which I like very much!
I use it to sync my work contacts list with my personal contacts list.
I'm getting a bluetooth GPS unit and TomTom software which means my phone can be a sat nav device as well as a phone, mp3 player, MSN Messenger client, VE client and whatever other gubbins you want to load onto it.
Other stuff worth looking at is the i-mate JasJar (don't know how it is branded in the US) which is like a mini-laptop, or the upcoming Motorola Q which looks very cool.
Of course, if you don't want an all-singing, all-dancing phone and instead just want something that looks very cool you should ignore this and get a RAZR!!!
-Jamie
Jamie Thomson
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson -
A phone you might want to take a look at which i presume is also available in the US is the Samsung D600 its got the cool factor and my brother says it syncs fine with his pc. Im afraid to say i have a sony k750i which is a great phone but i purchased it before their rootkit nightmare.
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Nokia 6230i because it is a Nokia (after having various phones we vote them the best) hence the various chargers, headsets etc are widely available and mainly the same for all that brand.
It takes standard multimedia cards (MMC) for storing music, pictures etc and these can be bought in various sizes and usually slot into the laptop for quick transfer of mp3 files etc.
It has a good camera with zoom and various modes producing respectable picture quality
The interface software is good, synchronising with Outlook easily so contacts and calendars are easily kept up to date. I use the infra red link but bluetooth and data cable also available. The software is downloadable and maintained so it's worth checking for a later version before installing from the supplied cd.
I'm really pleased with mine and I'm not a gadget nut, they are just tools, but this does a great job.
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I like the looks of the RAZR very much but others' comments above would put me off! That and the fact Motorolla make it!
I'm a PDA phone fan myself, and a Sony one at that, so I'm going to plead both their cases. I understand concerns after the rootkit issue, but they really do make good phones (I also hate Motorollas as they've just never done it for me, and Nokias haven't been great for me in the past, and other brands have failed to impress).
I've had a Sony Ericsson P900 for the past 18-20 months, and when I upgrade I'll be getting the newer version of that. It's got a small flip panel with access to a touch screen that you use with a stylus, and can do everything through that, or you can do everything through the keypad with the flip closed. You can also permanently remove the flip and only use the touch screen if you want (it can be replaced but you use a supplied tool to get it on and off). It has a Memory Stick Duo slot which I have a 128Mb stick in, which does me fine. Copying files to the PC is easy by Bluetooth or just taking the memory stick out (you can hot-swap when the phone's on unlike a lot of phones), and sync is easy too with the docking station & software that comes in the box with the phone.
It runs on Symbian (which many don't like but I have no probs with), and does everything I need - phone with good address book, calendar/planner and other common PDA functions, MP3 player (just plug in the supplied handsfree headphones and switch on the music player) and camera functions. If it doesn't have something you want, there are plenty of free Symbian applications you can install on it.
Battery gives about 10 days standby and a fair few hours talk time, and is still performing well after 18-20 months of use. Takes a couple of hours to charge and I just stick it on charge normally twice a week.
I've just checked SE's US website and the nearest equivalent you guys can get is the (slightly better) P910a, which also has a keyboard inside the flip panel.
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I just got my 15 year-old son a Motorola MpX-220 (his choice). Uses MiniSD to store video and audio files and he is really happy with it. It uses Windows Media Player for music and video files. Cool for kids
Personally, I would go for one of the Blackberry devices. Windows PocketPC, Outlook, IE, PocketWord, touch screen, the works. The lower-end models are comparable in price with the MpX-220 (it cost $149 after $50 rebate--I hate rebates!). Ultra-cool for adults
Dan
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I am from the UK and to be honest I have never been a fan of motorola Phones, they seem primitive compared to other manufacturers and the people I know that have had a RAZR are not impressed many stories of issues with them.
I used to be a Nokia fan and had them for many years the first being a very old brick type phone (cannot remember the model, but was an early business phone). My last two phones have been Samsungs and I think they are great, many features and easy to use, I currently have a D500 which is fantastic, never crashes, decent camera and features and can hold 200 texts in memory ideal as it allows me to monitor how many I have sent and also what I have send when I am drunk. My contract is up soon and I am looking at upgrading to a D600 which is even more feature packed than the D500.
Personally I would not go back to Nokia and would not touch a Motorola, I am a converted Samsung man, and it is well worth looking at what they have on offer in the US.
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I have a Siemens SX66 which is a great phone for my needs. I think that if you tried that form factor for awhile, with the additional capabilities it offers, you might actually see it as worthwhile to do data entry. I also have an external bluetooth fold up keyboard and mouse, but that is not really needed. When I went on vacation this year, that is all I took and I could still do large amounts of emails, Word docs, Excel, etc. I also was Browsing the web, reading an ebook, and listening to a Gb of music on the SD card for leisure. It can change the way you live in many ways.
That being said, a phone is a VERY personal choice! Best wishes in your search.
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Personally, I am a huge fan of the sidekick. My fiance' bought me one for christmas in 2003 and I have been adicted to it ever since. I think the thing I use most on it is the email feature. I am also notorious for logging into the web interface and entering information directly in my notes section on the phone (for instance, I love sending myself directions that way). Other things I like is the clarity of the sound, the loud ringer (trust me, if I forget to set to silent, the emails will wake me and my fiance up at night), the ability to do ssh on it (I administrate a couple of linux boxes so this is a huge plus), the wireless internet (if your company has outlook web, this is a good way to read your outlook wireless web easily), and others. If you do any text messages (which I presume at this point you don't), the full keyboard on the sidekick is a godsend. The camera is a convenience, but certainly not a selling point (its only a 640x480 res camera), but I have found that it is pretty good if you are looking at a sunset and want to snap a picture, or in one case I used it to grab a blue screen of death to send to the ops group. Other than that, I like that I can use the keyboard to type someone's name that I want to call (for instance, if I want to dial my mom, I just type MOM and there I get all of her numbers). You also have AIM and Yahoo Instant messanger, which again may be something you don't use now, but I think it is something that you will use in the future ( I have noted a lot of companies are moving to using AIM and Yahoo as ways of communicating). The browser is pretty quick since tmobile uses a special proxy server (its a augment of a Squid proxy server) which not only does caching (to make google pop up faster for example) but will also form fit pages to the sidekick's screen. The screen (as you already know) is impressivly large, and I love how the sidekick2 feels when you are using it as a phone (though usually I am using handsfree when I am driving etc.) As a tech guy, I think you wouldn't go wrong with the sidekick. Also, I am sure you are already aware that the service is cheap (I pay 80 a month with internet) and you can get free tmobile to tmobile to make calls to your wife. As far as sync goes, I assume you want to sync with outlook, and for that there is a program (it costs extra) from tmobile called intellisync. Since I personally don't use outlook (only at work) it would be a waste of money (at home I use thunderbird and mail (mac)), but as a developer of hiptop apps, I have never seen complaints about the program on any of the hiptop forums.
If you don't want to go sidekick, I would suggest getting a blackberry. I personally don't like the form factor, and the operating system on the blackberry isn't as nice as the sidekick, but it has its pro's over the sidekick, big one being you can plug it into your computer and sync your contact using free tools. Development on the blackberry is nice too, since you don't have to send your apps to tmobile(or anyone else) and have them approved before being able to distribute (and you don't have to distribute through tmobiles servers like the sidekick). If you are looking for something for work as well, you can invest in a BES (blackberry enterprise server) and have access to your lan as well. The ringer is loud, and so is the speaker for phone conversation (and speakerphone) I would say all three are comparible to the sidekick. Price wise, the blackberry is a bit more expensive than the sidekick, but the service is comparible (again I would suggest tmobile because your wife has it, I personally have saved tonnes of money since my fiance and I are on the same network). The blackberry can also handle more documents than the sidekick, the sidekick can handle simple pdf, simple word doc, and text files. The blackberry can handle all of the microsoft document formats.
Anyways, hope that helps and good luck, buying a new cellphone can be a headache some of the time, especially with the pushy cell phone dealers out there.
Aleksei
(ps no I don't work for tmobile, I just write apps in my spare time for my sidekick because I like doing it
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Just FYI... the latest issue of Consumer Reports has a good review of cell phone devices and services. Me, I'm still using my cheapo Audiovox from 2000 with my Sprint PCS account. Still works pretty well and I need zero fancy features.
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My husband recently got a RAZR, personally I think the ringer is extremely loud. They sell a big fancy kit ($40 or $50) to plug it in to your computer but all you actually need is a USB cable and drivers he downloaded (not sure if he had to pay for them or not). I think it's a really cool phone but I wouldn't get it for one reason. It's a flip phone (yuck) and it's flat when you open it except for the hinges, which stick up and poke me in the cheek when I'm trying to talk. : )
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If you are going to consider as sidekick, take a good look at a treo (or any other smartphone). I think that you'll be much happier with it over the danger network services that the sidekick uses.
I've had a treo 600 now for well over a year. I can browse the web, listen to mp3s, get emails, and caledar reminders from appointments I set in outlook. Plus, I can install any number of applications that allow me to do even more with my treo as needed. Only a smartphone allows the functionality and flexibility to do all of this. (I still haven't needed to buy any type of mp3 player because of the falling prices of the SD cards and ptunes).
However, if I was in your position right now I would let the contract go into the month-to-month status for a while and get one of the new treos coming out this summer. I am awaiting the 700w (windows treo). If it works well, I'll be upgrading soon.
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