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Saturday, March 17 2007, 8:21 PM

My new phone totally rules. Over the past few weeks I've found some pretty neat apps to make my phone even more useful. The neatest could easily be the Google Maps client for Windows Mobile devices. It brings all the features of Google Maps into the phone, and integrates pretty tightly with standard phone functions. For example, I can plot maps based upon addresses for people stored in my contact list, or call businesses that are found via searching. It also can interface with a bluetooth GPS unit and plot your course, or get directions to and from your current location. It's quite cool.

I've also found a full-featured IM client, a weather app, a RSS reader, a media player that plays shoutcast streams, and a newer release of the windows mobile PuTTY SSH client. Combine that stuff with the normal features of the phone, and I can do most of the things I could do from a regular computer. I'll probably put together a more comprehensive list of the neat stuff I've got installed in the wiki somewhere. It seems like it could change a lot.

Aren't gadgets fun?

google ppc6700

Monday, February 26 2007, 12:41 PM

I'm totally digging my new phone. I haven't done much in the way of software downloads for it, but I'll get there eventually. I did install PocketPuTTY, so I'm SSH-enabled wherever I can get the data service or a wifi-connection. I'm also quite pleased that HTC/Audiovox decided to use standardized plugs with the phone, and that Canon did the same with my new camera. They both use the same standardized cable, which is pretty damned nice in my opinion. I was able to buy a couple additional cables at CompUSA, so that I could leave one at work and one connected to my workstation at home. This lets me charge my phone or transfer data between the phone/camera and the computer without disconnecting or transporting cables. Pretty nice in terms of convenience.

I'm totally not digging the fact that my receiver (an Onkyo TX-SR603) decided to take a crap on me over the weekend. When I last used it thursday night, it worked fine. When I went to watch some Star Trek with Jessica on saturday night, it worked less than fine. The monitor video outs, both S-Video and composite, where pretty much dead. No picture at all, even from the internal configuration menu. After much and annoyance, I plugged my TV into the Video1 outputs, which worked, so we were at least able to watch Star Trek. Not a permanent solution though. It's a good thing that I purchased that product protection plan when I bought the receiver though. I took it up to Circuit City yesterday, and they're going to send it off to their service center for repairs. If they can't fix it, I get a new receiver. I'm actually hoping that they can't fix it, so I can get the newest model of the same class (TX-SR604), which has newer nifty features like HDMI inputs and outputs.

frustrations homeaudio onkyo-tx-sr603 ppc6700

Saturday, February 10 2007, 6:26 PM

My current cellphone contract with Nextel is up on the 20th, so I decided it was time to decide whether I wanted to stay with Nextel or get a new phone with another provider. My phone usage has changed in the past few months, and I've really been taking a hit with text messages. I decided that I wanted a phone that had something better than the small numeric keypad so typing in text messages wouldn't be such a pain, and I also wanted a plan that would accomidate text messages in bulk.

A few coworkers have some pretty neat PDA/SmartPhones, so I asked around for their experiences with the phones and carriers. After a few 'interviews', I decided that I wanted to grab a PPC6700/XV6700 (same phone, but different model number depending on the provider). It's a Windows Mobile Smartphone, which kinda goes against my anti-Microsoft/Windows mentality, but my coworker that has this phone is quite happy with it, and recommended it highly. It has both WiFi and cellular internet capability, bluetooth, and a slideout QWERTY keyboard. A cool piece of gear all in all.

Both Sprint/Nextel and Verizon carry this phone. I was initally planning on just upgrading my Nextel service to Sprint with this phone, but the Sprint/Nextel website wouldn't seem to allow it. It was like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book. However, unlike the real books that give you paths through the story that are both "good" and "bad", I never found one path through the upgrade process that let me out alive. I gave their customer service a call, and was told that they could upgrade me, but that they didn't have that phone in stock currently, and that I should check around at local Sprint stores. Honestly, I don't know if the sales rep completely understood what I wanted to do. It's my guess that he was a Spanish-language representative, because his english was pretty bad, and had a thick Spanish accent.

After that failure, I considered looking around a bit more. Verizon had the same phone for $100 less on the website, so I decided giving them a shot. I was sure that I was going to go into a Verizon store and buy the phone, but I didn't know how Nextel would interpret me taking my current number and allocating it to another plan with another carrier. I gave them a call to get the firm date on when my plan ended and to see how that action would be taken, and whether it would be considered a breach of my contract. The sales rep seemed attentive to the situation and asked wether there was some reason I was inquiring about those details. I explained the situation, and how I found the same phone with another carrier for $100 less, and was planning on switching for that reason. She put me in contact with another rep in a different department. She offered to match the Verizon price, and apply $100 in manufacturers rebates at the same time. The price instantly dropped from $399 to $199 - $100 better than Verizon's price.

That was plenty enough to get me to stay. It also turns out that the Sprint plans are a bit less expensive as well. The base-rate Verizon plan that includes the unlimited data service is $79/month, which also counts the phone service. My base phone plan with Nextel was $49/month, and Sprint will match that with the new phone. The data plan is only an additional $15/month, and I added a text messaging plan for $5/month. So, my plan will weigh in at around $70/month.

Did I need a new phone? No, not really. But anyone that knows me knows how much I like cool gadgets. This certainly is one. I've already done some checking around, and there are a few good instant messenger clients for this phone which support all the large chat networks (AIM/MSN/Yahoo) along with Jabber. There's also a stripped down version of PuTTY available, which will allow me to use SSH on the phone as well. The fun will never end.

cellphone nextel ppc6700 sprint verizon

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