Smartphone Me
Posted on | March 5, 2008 at 10:52 pm | 3 Comments
I’ve repeatedly gushed about my Palm T|X PDA, but lately I’ve been thinking about replacing it with a smartphone. My current cell phone contract is up and my old Motorola RAZR is on its last legs. The T|X itself is falling victim to the dreaded digitizer problem, where the touchscreen is not working very well. And the second keyboard I bought for it is falling apart. The first one, an infrared keyboard, had problems almost from the beginning. The second one, a bluetooth keyboard, has not dealt well with being carried around in my backpack and has not held up. It is literally falling apart, and almost every day a new piece comes off it. Plus, I’m just getting tired of carrying around two devices all the time. It’s especially hard in the warm months, because then I don’t have a jacket pocket to put the PDA in. And I really do need the PDA with me all the time because I have to keep referring to it for information, mostly about the stuff I do for my dad. I keep pretty extensive notes about his financial and medical issues, not to mention all the account numbers and passwords and such in an encrypted database.
There are a lot of smartphone choices out there, but it really comes down to either Palm OS or Windows Mobile for the operating system. One thing I like about those is the ability to install third party apps on them. There isn’t much out there in the way of third party apps for Symbian OS and Blackberry. (I really don’t like the Blackberry screens too.) It appears I’m in a weird position, because the important things to me are 1) being able to make calls and 2) organizing information. I don’t care about media (the strength of the Symbian world); I don’t need to play music or videos or games on my phone/PDA and chew up battery power. That’s what the iPod and the PSP/DS are for. I don’t even really care about e-mail or web browsing (the big thing on Blackberries), since I usually don’t want to do that when I’m out and about or at work. I just want to be able to make calls and review/update/enter information. I want something that makes it easy to enter information without a separate keyboard or touchscreen/digitizer pad. A full QWERTY keypad on the device is pretty much essential, but it has to be somewhat comfortable to type on. I’m comfortable with not having a touchscreen on the smartphone, as that doesn’t really work out too well anyway. I’ve found that using a stylus is kind of annoying.
My current carrier is AT&T, but I can be persuaded to switch if there’s reason enough, and if it’s not going to cost me too much. (I get a discount on my monthly bill from work if I use AT&T or Verizon.)
I’m not sure about staying in the Palm world, partly because I think Palm OS is on the way out, and partly because I think they don’t make very good hardware (re: the TX digitizer problem, and both of the keyboards, which were Palm-branded). I want something a little more future proof. The Treos look okay, but I’m not quite sure they’re my thing. The new Palm Centro is cute and compact, but I think the keyboard is too small and wouldn’t be comfortable to type on for very long. And the screen is too small. But the big advantage of sticking with the Palm world is that I would be able to use the same data without having to convert it, and would not have to re-buy a lot of applications, especially if I neutered the T|X in the process and moved the apps from it to the new device. Note that I would still probably keep the T|X around for eBooks, WiFi web browsing, and a few other things that the bigger screen is nice for.
So that pretty much leaves me with the Window Mobile world. Many of the apps I use on my Palm have WM versions available, and I may even be able to transfer some of the data directly to those. One of the applications on my T|X that I count on is DateBk6, a Personal Information Manager application. There’s no WM version of it, but there is a PIM for WM called Pocket Informant that looks pretty similar (maybe even better) that I would probably want to use. However, the problem with using any PIM on a WM machine, including PIM extenders like Pocket Informant, is that in order to sync up the PIM data with a PC, you must have Microsoft Outlook installed on your PC. I don’t have that. I use Eudora for my e-mail and the various Palm applications for contact, calendar, memo and task data. So if I went to WM, I’d have to buy Outlook for my home PC (I don’t want to sync with my work PC, which does have Outlook), and I’d only be using it for the PIM capabilities and not for e-mail. I really dislike the way Outlook does e-mail. I just really need to be able to backup the data on the PC and modify it/enter it there as well as on the PDA. I also don’t care much about modifying Word/Excel/PowerPoint documents, which is a big draw of the WM (and to some extent, Palm) world. The business functions of a smartphone don’t appeal to me, though it appears that smartphones cater exclusively to that market. No one makes a really good personal smartphone, from what I can tell. Nevertheless, I’m leaning heavily towards Windows Mobile. And though I’m not keen on hitching my PDA wagon to Microsoft, I think WM has a brighter future than Palm (not to mention bigger market penetration).
I’ve played around with the Motorola Q Global (which runs WM) and I like it a lot, but I haven’t taken the plunge yet. The screen is pretty big and the keyboard is comfortable. The phone is slim and not too big, and I think I would be okay with it in most pants or jacket pockets. It gets fairly decent reviews. But again, I’m not too keen on having to buy Outlook.
So… does anybody have any suggestions? I’ve done a lot of research on this, but still haven’t completely made up my mind. It’s daunting, but I need to do something soon.
Latre.
Edit: Yes, I’ve thought about the Apple iPhone, especially since it looks like it will be getting some decent third party application support, but it’s a bit out of my price range right now and I don’t think the PIM capabilities are quite up there yet. And I’m not sure about the virtual keyboard, though it looks like it might be pretty easy to use.
Comments
3 Responses to “Smartphone Me”
March 5th, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
How can you NOT just run out and get an iPhone and one for me??
Seriously, do I need to call the cops?
fahey xxxx
March 6th, 2008 @ 2:54 am
Aside from everything else, Windows Mobile means you get a 1-day battery life, compared with Palm devices which often last up to a week.
I can’t believe anyone with even a lick of appreciation for the history of the past couple decades would worry about future application support for an OS with the installed fanbase of Palm, but if so, wait around a few months for the first Android phones to come on the market.
March 6th, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
How can you NOT just run out and get an iPhone
Ok