It's the New Phone

  • Article

I finally lost my patience with my old mobile provider last week & decided it was time for a change.  While I was changing, I decided that maybe it was time for a
Smartphone...

Wow.  It definitely isn't perfect yet, but this is by far the best mobile device that I've ever used.  Having instant connectivity (unlimited, at that, so I don't have to worry about usage) definitely increases the usability -- I automatically get e-mail from three accounts (including a POP3 account that I setup just for the phone so that my partner can e-mail me grocery lists & such easily...).  I can check weather or news or whatever I need instantly.  I sync podcasts to it and use Windows Media Player 10 to listen to them on my way to work and on my way home. 

For fun, I even put all of Casablanca on the 256MB miniSD card I got for it (took ~140MB, so I could probably still squeeze another movie on there if I felt the need).  Believe it or not, it's actually quite watchable...I can see using it to watch stuff recorded on Media Center, if I ever decide to go that route at home.

More thoughts for the phone:

  • Can't wait for Voice Command to come out for the Smartphone.  This would be a real blessing, particularly with a Bluetooth headset.
  • I want to spend some time to see if I can get streaming radio to work on the phone.  I haven't really had a chance to try it yet.
  • I'd love to have some basic network test tools on the phone -- ping, nslookup, and similar.  I might have to see if I can do some of this myself.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 28, 2004
    good choice..looks interesting..btw, where did u buy and how much did u pay??
  • Anonymous
    October 28, 2004
    In the US, AT&T Wireless is the only vendor with this phone currently. They've got a special on their website.
  • Anonymous
    October 28, 2004
    Amazon has this phone for $-25 after rebates.

    I have it as well. I am very happy so far.

    I use the dvdtosmartphone app to get movies onto the phone at a reasonable size. Star Wars took 140 megs and is crystal clear on the phone. I might try to reencode down to 80 megs or so, and then get multiple movies on simultaniously.

    I might upgrade to the unlimited bandwidth plan, i am not sure.
  • Anonymous
    October 28, 2004
    If anyone is interested in try-before-you-buy, check out the new DeviceEmulator on http://barrybo-test (and \barrybo-testpublisheddroplatest). It's a PocketPC and Smartphone emulator that runs ARM code. The drop includes no-wire ActiveSync support, so you can use AS to install applications, etc.

    Boot with "/MemSize 256" and you'll have plenty of RAM watch big movies in a little screen on your PC. Folder Sharing lets you mount a directory tree from your Windows machine as a virtual storage card, giving you unlimited storage space.