Let's talk cell phones
I was going to wait until mid November, when my current Verizon contract expires, before switching to a GSM carrier and getting a new GSM phone, but two things are conspiring against waiting until then...
1) I'll probably need to spend a week in Bulgaria on business some time next month.
2) I've been looking into cell phones so much lately that my itch for new technology is getting the better of me anyway.
At this point, it would be cheaper to allow my Verizon service to overlap with my new (probably Cingular) service than it would be to pay an early termination fee to Verizon. If I can put off my trip to Bulgaria until near the end of October, I'll only be paying for less than a month overlap anyway. Plus, I found out that I can start at Cingular with one phone number and still transfer my old Verizon phone number later.
Here are the two phones that I'm most interested in right now:
The HTC TyTN:
The i-Mate Smartflip (also made by HTC):
Both are quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) phones, so they do GSM all over the world, and they both do GPRS/EDGE packet data. Both phones run Windows Mobile 5.0. (Yeah, I know... Windows. Bleccchhh. But even though it's Windows, these phones seem to perform pretty well anyway.) Both phones have lots of cool PDA and web features, speakerphone, camera, play and record music and video, USB, Bluetooth, etc.
The TyTN is the first phone I've seen so far that not only supports the new UMTS/HSDPA standards (for broadband-speed data) in addition to quad-band GSM, but does UMTS both in the US (850/1900) and in Europe (using the new 2100 band). It further support wi-fi for use in hotspots. The phone has two cameras -- a good quality 2-megapixel camera for photos, and a second low-res user-facing camera for making video calls. I love the idea of having a QWERTY keyboard instead of suffering through multi-tap/T9 texting. I can also simply write by hand for some uses, since the phone has a touchscreen and handwriting recognition.
While the TyTN is remarkably compact for all of the features crammed into it, it ain't no RAZR. That's where the Smartflip begins to win me over. It's very slim, much more stylish than the TyTN, it folds open so the mic is in front of my mouth instead of halfway up the side of my face (something that bugs me about small non-flip phones), and its main screen is nicely protected when closed. It slips very comfortably into a pocket (I had the Qtek version of this phone to play with for a while). But it has a slower CPU, its one camera isn't so great, EGDE data is as fast as data gets, and it uses a funky non-standard USB connection among other minor drawbacks.
Of course, with GSM phones which use SIM cards, one tempting (albeit extravagant) option will be open to me -- simply buy both phones.
I could move my SIM to whichever phone most suits my needs at any given time.
Even with all of the speculative talk going around about the mythical "iPhone", to tell you the truth, I feel no temptation to wait to see what Apple might come up with. Both of the above phones play music, but that's not really an important feature to me, so it doesn't bother me much that as music players they are nowhere near as good as an iPod. Until cell phones can hold 60 GB like my iPod, I'm going to want my iPod instead of something more like an iPod Nano in capacity anyway.
Besides, my gut feeling is that any new Apple phone is going to be too feature-starved for the gadget freak in me. If Apple makes a phone at all, it will likely be very elegant, simple to use, and narrowly focussed on doing a limited number of things very well. The phones I'm looking at, especially the TyTN, are like Swiss Army knives. Unless Apple resurrects the Newton -- and throws in a mobile phone and an iSight and an iPod the same time -- what they'll make won't be what I'm looking for anyway.
If Apple really does end up releasing an iPhone, then sometime later after their first phone is released, and assuming that phone is successful, maybe they'll consider doing a Newton-like PDA phone. I'm still skeptical, however, that Apple will ever take the Swiss Army knife approach to making a mobile phone, the kind of phone that appeals to a technology geek who wants his phone to go at least half way towards being Batman's utility belt.
1) I'll probably need to spend a week in Bulgaria on business some time next month.
2) I've been looking into cell phones so much lately that my itch for new technology is getting the better of me anyway.
At this point, it would be cheaper to allow my Verizon service to overlap with my new (probably Cingular) service than it would be to pay an early termination fee to Verizon. If I can put off my trip to Bulgaria until near the end of October, I'll only be paying for less than a month overlap anyway. Plus, I found out that I can start at Cingular with one phone number and still transfer my old Verizon phone number later.
Here are the two phones that I'm most interested in right now:
The HTC TyTN:
The i-Mate Smartflip (also made by HTC):
Both are quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) phones, so they do GSM all over the world, and they both do GPRS/EDGE packet data. Both phones run Windows Mobile 5.0. (Yeah, I know... Windows. Bleccchhh. But even though it's Windows, these phones seem to perform pretty well anyway.) Both phones have lots of cool PDA and web features, speakerphone, camera, play and record music and video, USB, Bluetooth, etc.
The TyTN is the first phone I've seen so far that not only supports the new UMTS/HSDPA standards (for broadband-speed data) in addition to quad-band GSM, but does UMTS both in the US (850/1900) and in Europe (using the new 2100 band). It further support wi-fi for use in hotspots. The phone has two cameras -- a good quality 2-megapixel camera for photos, and a second low-res user-facing camera for making video calls. I love the idea of having a QWERTY keyboard instead of suffering through multi-tap/T9 texting. I can also simply write by hand for some uses, since the phone has a touchscreen and handwriting recognition.
While the TyTN is remarkably compact for all of the features crammed into it, it ain't no RAZR. That's where the Smartflip begins to win me over. It's very slim, much more stylish than the TyTN, it folds open so the mic is in front of my mouth instead of halfway up the side of my face (something that bugs me about small non-flip phones), and its main screen is nicely protected when closed. It slips very comfortably into a pocket (I had the Qtek version of this phone to play with for a while). But it has a slower CPU, its one camera isn't so great, EGDE data is as fast as data gets, and it uses a funky non-standard USB connection among other minor drawbacks.
Of course, with GSM phones which use SIM cards, one tempting (albeit extravagant) option will be open to me -- simply buy both phones.
I could move my SIM to whichever phone most suits my needs at any given time.Even with all of the speculative talk going around about the mythical "iPhone", to tell you the truth, I feel no temptation to wait to see what Apple might come up with. Both of the above phones play music, but that's not really an important feature to me, so it doesn't bother me much that as music players they are nowhere near as good as an iPod. Until cell phones can hold 60 GB like my iPod, I'm going to want my iPod instead of something more like an iPod Nano in capacity anyway.
Besides, my gut feeling is that any new Apple phone is going to be too feature-starved for the gadget freak in me. If Apple makes a phone at all, it will likely be very elegant, simple to use, and narrowly focussed on doing a limited number of things very well. The phones I'm looking at, especially the TyTN, are like Swiss Army knives. Unless Apple resurrects the Newton -- and throws in a mobile phone and an iSight and an iPod the same time -- what they'll make won't be what I'm looking for anyway.
If Apple really does end up releasing an iPhone, then sometime later after their first phone is released, and assuming that phone is successful, maybe they'll consider doing a Newton-like PDA phone. I'm still skeptical, however, that Apple will ever take the Swiss Army knife approach to making a mobile phone, the kind of phone that appeals to a technology geek who wants his phone to go at least half way towards being Batman's utility belt.
Comments
Guess there aren't as many cell phone enthusiasts around here as I thought.
Give us a simple phone that works, and not a lot of crap we don't need.
Exactly. Let it be a phone first.
My feeling about cell phones is that if I'm going to carry one around -- if I'm going to carry any device around with me at all -- I want that device to do as much for me as possible to justify its existence.
The only reason I'll happily forgo iPod capability is that the main place I listen to my iPod is in my car. I very seldom walk around listening to my iPod. If I use my iPod on the go at all, it's usually because I'm in an airport or on a plane, in which case I've got a carry-on bag along with me, and one more little device in my bag hardly matters.
Of course, if I could have the equivalent of a 60 GB iPod plus all the cool features of the phones I'm thinking about, all in a fairly lightweight package, I'd jump at that. I'm not, however, holding my breath.
Part of what I'm looking for out of a phone is high speed data and world-wide compatibility. To me, that's just flexibility, not "a lot of crap". There's nothing you need to fuss with to enjoy those features -- it's just a matter of your phone doing what you want it to do, but doing it even better.
Then a nice QWERTY keyboard (I do a lot of texting)... And it [the phone] must be as small as possible. I don't carry things on my belt. Must be able to fit into a pants pocket.
Now there's a conflicting pair of goals. At least the TyTN is on the small side for things that have QWERTY keyboards.
Allow me to sync with my MAC.
Unfortunately, sticking to phones which sync with OS X really limits your choices. Neither of the phones I'm looking at do right now, and I'm not expecting OS X updates anytime soon to support them. I am, however, willing to look into hacking together sync support myself. (Hopefully, if I can a driver which supports some particular Windows Mobile 5.0 phone, it will be close to what's needed to support any other such phone without too much tweaking.) In the mean time, I do have Parallels running on my MBP, so I'll have a virtualized PC to sync with until such time as someone (maybe me) manages to hack the Mac sync support I want.
My feeling about cell phones is that if I'm going to carry one around -- if I'm going to carry any device around with me at all -- I want that device to do as much for me as possible to justify its existence.
Even if that means the device that you carry around is the size and weight of a brick with 3 hours of battery time? No one is saying an all-in-one can't be done. It's just how practical is it when you look at what the size, weight & battery impact is going to be.
The only reason I'll happily forgo iPod capability is that the main place I listen to my iPod is in my car. I very seldom walk around listening to my iPod. If I use my iPod on the go at all, it's usually because I'm in an airport or on a plane, in which case I've got a carry-on bag along with me, and one more little device in my bag hardly matters.
Of course, if I could have the equivalent of a 60 GB iPod plus all the cool features of the phones I'm thinking about, all in a fairly lightweight package, I'd jump at that. I'm not, however, holding my breath.
Part of what I'm looking for out of a phone is high speed data and world-wide compatibility. To me, that's just flexibility, not "a lot of crap". There's nothing you need to fuss with to enjoy those features -- it's just a matter of your phone doing what you want it to do, but doing it even better.
Now there's a conflicting pair of goals. At least the TyTN is on the small side for things that have QWERTY keyboards.
Why is that conflicting? My Nokia 6820 is still one of the smallest with a full-size keyboard. Not to mention, I can type out a text message, with proper spelling and punctuation in half the time as someone using a numeric pad.
Unfortunately, sticking to phones which sync with OS X really limits your choices. Neither of the phones I'm looking at do right now, and I'm not expecting OS X updates anytime soon to support them....
That's OK, it's important to me and I'll wait until one does. (Mine currently does.)
Even if that means the device that you carry around is the size and weight of a brick with 3 hours of battery time?
Even in what you quoted from me, you can see that I said that small and light with good battery life is important to me. The Smartflip is very good in the size and weight department, and not too shabby for battery life (not stellar either).
My point was that I don't think music capability has to add much size, weight, or battery drain to a phone, even with today's tech, so long as you stick to iPod nano-like storage capacity.
Why is that conflicting? My Nokia 6820 is still one of the smallest with a full-size keyboard.
You know, I'd seen one of those and had forgotten about the 6820. I'll admit, while it's a bit weird looking, that fold-out keyboard solution is damn clever. I'm still not sure I'd go for this phone (tiny 128x128 display, reviews say the camera is not so hot and the speakphone awkward), but it would be more tempting if it were quad band. I'd love to hear an explanation of the economics of this. Can it really cost that much more to do quad-band instead of tri-band?
Clever though it is, I don't imagine we'll see too many phones adopting the 6820's split keyboard layout.