Last year, I posted a blog entry called: The problem with "mobile is that it wants to be more than it is
In it, I complained that the mobile providers are concentrating too much on gadgety, feature-bloated handsets and not enough on basic units that are just a phone and nothing else. Not long after that, I bought a used t610 on ebay. It's small, has bluetooth and the Mac can see it in iSync and that's about it. Lately, it's been blasting noise at me if I'm on a call and the signal starts to fade so I'm looking at possibilities for replacement.
What am I looking at? Helio Ocean, HTC Touch and the TMobile Shadow. You may notice that each of these is quite a bit more than just a phone. One's a custom media/smartphone, the other two are Windows Mobile phones with new clever UI's. They have decent cameras in them, and decent high-speed wireless connectivity. They're also right around $200 which is the only reason I'm considering them at all. If money was no object I would have already gotten a Nokia N95 a long time ago.
Why the change? Price, mostly. I have a hard time with the idea of spending $300+ on what a lot of the 'smart phones' go for but $200 is a lot easier to swallow. Since each of the three that I'm looking at are on different networks, I have to include the provider information in the decision as well (I'm on TMo, so I'll have to fight to get the new subscriber price, Margo's on Sprint and it's coverage is flakey for her, and Helio's poor customer service is the stuff legends are made of)..
The t610 isn't dead yet so I still have time to make a decision. I'm sure I'll post something here when the choice is made. I just wanted to go on the record as saying that, yes, I am a hypocrite before someone notices me fiddling around with a new fancy phone.
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