It’s surprisingly difficult to find any good research information about cell phones on the internet. There’s so much that comes back for searches, but little sense of who you can trust about these things.
Anyway, for several years I’ve been using a company-issued cell-phone, but the thing is on its last legs. I’m thinking it’s time to go independent., but I have no idea how to shop for a phone.
I’ve made do with a Nextel i1000 for all these years — a supremely under-featured phone — and clearly I haven’t been inspired to shell out for the cutting edge devices. I’ve just recently considered getting another PDA after several years without a Palm, so I’m curious about hybrids in that area, but not likely to spend more than $500 for something. Is there anything good that comes in a little lower? I wouldn’t mind one that plays MP3s, but I’m not sure if the phones that do that are good enough, or if I’d just end up wishing I had a dedicated player of some sort. Or, since I’m not really into the frills, should I just take a free one from whatever service is best.
Speaking of services, is there really that much difference? Should I just get Jennifer to switch her Cingular plan to a family plan and go with what we know?
So if by any chance, faithful reader, you have advice, I’m all ears.
P.S. It has to play nicely with Macintosh. My powerbook has bluetooth; is any phone going to do anything cool enough with bluetooth to make that a must have feature?
Well Joe…if I had my choice (which I don’t, I’m going to be stuck with a “old” v60 and Centennial service), I was going to go with the Sony Ericsson T616. It has Bluetooth and IrDA and I believe it’s web enabled. It’s not as fancy as their P800, but it’s also $50 with a service plan from AT&T.
Joe, my experience is that there is quite a bit of difference in service in the Chicago area depending on one’s location. The flat landscape makes for a lot of ground clutter between you and the antenna, and the mostly-brick construction of most residential buildings doesn’t help. With the ATT service I had, I could just barely get any reception inside my apartment on humid days, and supposedly the Nokia 61xx series phone I had got better reception than most.
This may have changed for the better since I moved.
I’ve never had a phone that did anything cool, so I’m not qualified to talk about features very much. I’d think that a picture phone would be fun if you knew other people that could send and receive with you. If I was going to get anything fancy, it would probably be data service on a CompactFlash card to use with the hypothetical PDA I’d get to go with it.
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