The Best Mobile Phone... Ever



So if you've been keeping up with this blog, you'll know that my phone plays an integral part of my music experience. First discussed was my Kyocera 7135. This was a cool phone, though it was a bit on the large size. It was a Palm Phone that had an MP3 player (though a bit fickle). Once that phone was no longer supported by Verizon, they sent me the Treo 600 (w/ a camera) as a replacement. Originally I was quite excited about it, but that quickly faded. Having a picture phone was nice, and it allowed me to take photos where cameras weren't allowed (damn HOB), but the quality was quite poor (see Shelby Lynne below).

This past weekend, after only 6 months, the speaker died on the phone. Since it was a replacement, it wasn't covered by my warranty... and since it was a manufacturers defect, it wasn't covered by the insurance. I was not a happy camper. Looking at my options, I was a bit concerned. I had looked into not getting an uber--palm-pda-phone, I looked at changing carriers, and I looked at just upgrading to the new Treo 650. So while I'm always excited to upgrade, I had been hearing about some problems syncing the phone with Entourage... so this wasn't an easy decision. I finally decided to bite the bullet and use my $100 credit for renewing my contract with Verizon to buy the new Treo 650. I got it home and had it wirelessly syncing with my PowerBook within an hour. What a great surprise! I was instantly smitten and quickly came to the conclusion that I couldn't ask for a more perfect phone. Here's the things I love most about my phone... (I am so smitten, I almost put this in poem form)

- Bluetooth (and the Missing Sync software) allows me to wirelessly synchronize all my contacts, calendar events, tasks and notes from Entourage.
- It has an MP3 player, using RealPlayer. Again, thanks to Missing Sync, it mounts my SD card directly into my iTunes for easy music transfer.
- It uses the new Palm OS, so besides just looking a helluva lot better (bye bye pixelation) I can export my Delicious Library CD catalog to my FileMaker Mobile and then sycrhnoize to my phone. I will never buy a duplicate CD again (yes, I have that many CD's that I've accidentally bought duplicate copies)
- It's camera is a huge improvement, and it even has a video camera option! This will make the Dar Williams show at the HOB so much more pleasant.

Other general observations...

First off, I can't believe these phones, which as so expensive, are so disposable. I can't believe that I have a $400 phone sitting here with a bad speaker that is now not worth anything!

Secondly, I'm glad I got this Treo, as I guess the next Treo 700 will have the Windows Mobile OS on it (yuck!)

Posted: Mon - October 17, 2005 at 09:05 PM           |

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