What phone should I get?

[ciphergoth]

I need a new phone. I'm almost totally at a loss about what I want. I don't know whether I should get a smartphone, or whether the browser/diary/etc facilities of a normal phone are enough. Any ideas?

Rules (updated):

• 3G, Bluetooth
• No Microsoft
• Must work in San Francisco

Update: Currently tempted by the Sony M600i...

Comments

[devilgate.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, I just got an M600i this morning. It seems quite nice so far. Unfortunately, I tried to use it earlier to leave a comment on this entry, and it got lost. I assume that I did something that jumped me out of the browser before the comment was posted, and I'm being charitable and putting that down to unfamiliarity.

Disappointing, though, that the text was gone when I made my way back to the posting page. In Firefox it almost certainly would have still been there.

Anyway, I don't have a lot to say about the device yet, but I quite like what I've seen so far.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I bought an M600i last week. I am still in love with it.

Good points:

* 3G along with a sensible battery life -- at last!
* Weighs no more than an old Nokia 6310i, i.e. 60% as much as a Treo or an HTC TyTN
* The phone functionality is much better integrated than any Micro$oft phone I've ever seen
* The keyboard is about as good as a treo for text entry, but much better for numeric work (i.e. being a phone)
* PuTTY (need I say more?)
* Able to run Documents to Go for UIQ 3.0 happily, for those unavoidable fits of Micro$oft office interaction (DtG is better than the built-in QuickOffice suite, although if your needs are fewer you can probably do okay with the latter as it's free with the phone)

Disadvantages:

* Memory Stick Micro. I sprang for a 1Gb stick; larger sizes are currently distinctly expensive or unavailable.
* UIQ 3.0 lacks third-party apps at present, compared to Series 60 v.3. I expect this will moderate with time, but the lack of OPL or Python (as yet) is annoying.
* Likewise, Think Outside claim their keyboard driver is in beta test -- but it's not available yet. (OTOH, they tend to be fairly prompt in releasing stuff, so I expect external keyboard functionality will show up soon.)
* No camera. (To my eyes, this is an advantage -- if I want to take photos, I'll carry a real camera, thanks.)
* No Wifi. I'm on T-Mobile web'n'walk so I couldn't care less, I've got up to 2Gb of free downloads a month and they're only clamping down on egregious over-use. But if you're with a carrier who charge by the Mb, this could be painful. (I expect they'll fall into line behind T-Mobile and 3 over the next year, though.)
* Sync protocol has changed with UIQ 3.0 and OS/X and Linux don't support it yet. (But bluetooth file exchange works, and it can read vCards, so unless you really need Calendar integration and push email you're not going to care too much.)
* SMS reader doesn't thread messages. (On the other hand, apart from the Treo, whose SMS reader does? I smell a third-party niche application ...)
* Email client doesn't seem to have a setting whereby you can auto-delete stuff that's more than n days old. (Again: probably a minor third party app will fix this eventually. And this assumes you want to read email on your phone, rather than using something bulkier.)

All told, I'd give it 8/10, and as UIQ 3.0 throws up some third-party apps, this may improve to 9/10. It's the closest thing to a modern successor to the old Nokia 6310i I've seen -- a decent business phone that isn't overpowered by spurious entertainment crap and that does telephony properly -- and comes with 3G and the new features I need.

You missed a negative

[meta.ath0.com (from livejournal.com)]

The M600i is only tri-band, which sucks if you want something that works internationally. (In particular, the lack of GSM850 will limit the network coverage in the USA.)