Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Droid, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian....AAAAH




Two nights ago, in a typical act of klutzery, I spilt a strongly brewed cup of herbal tea on both my personal laptop and my cell phone. Thankfully, my laptop survived after a restore, which is sort of amazing considering the damage the tea did to the finish on the kitchen table (should I be worried about my stomach???). But my phone? It spent a day flickering and sputtering, and finally quit just before I went to sleep.

I had planned to put off my smartphone purchase for another couple months, but it seems absurd to buy anything else just to have it for a couple months. I still may grab a $15 go-phone to give me deliberation time, but I would love all of your assistance... And so!

Here are my priorities, in order:

-A fabulous web browser.
-Outlook 2003 compatibility.
-GPS.

It sounds like I can get a good browser on any decent smartphone. I'd go with Windows Mobile, but it sounds like the newest version requires Outlook 2007, and my work is still on 2003 (ha).

That's it! I'd love to be able to do some of the other fancy things, like set my phone to download NPR news each day so that I can listen on the Metro, or scan bar codes for comparison shopping, but those things are small compared to those above.


Thoughts?

-Jess MINIFAD: Droid, iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian....AAAAHTweet this!

2 comments:

  1. I've been looking for a phone upgrade for a while, and I finally settled on the HTC Eris (a Driod phone on Verizon). Here are my thoughts...

    Blackberry (Symbian) - overpriced unless your company is paying for it and has Blackberry Enterprise Server

    Palm Pre - after playing with this phone for one minute I have to say the keyboard and UI are horrible, which is enough for me to not give it a second thought

    Window Mobile - I had this on my HTC Fuze (aka Touch Pro) on AT&T. WinMo 6.5 is definitely an improvement over 6.1, but it's still geared toward using a stylus and feels very unstable compared to the iPhone and Droid interfaces.

    iPhone - overpriced compared to a comparable Droid phone (especially the 3GS), no user-replaceable battery or memory, must use iTunes software, only available on AT&T (horrible coverage compared to Verizon), and you can only load apps approved by Apple

    Droid - less expensive than comparable iphone, multiple handset choices (from multiple vendors), multiple carriers (not stuck with AT&T), takes micro SD memory cards, syncs with Google & Exchange accounts at the same time, excellent on-screen keyboard that learns quickly, and a growing app store (most apps are currently free)

    If you want a physical keyboard (not necessary on a phone, in my opinion) or a high-res screen, then the Motorola Droid has both for the same price as a 3GS. After talking with many people who have tried both the Droid and the Eris, the general consensus was that the Eris is actually a superior handset, despite only costing $100. It was cheaper for me to end my contract with AT&T a year early, and to go with the Eris on Verizon, than it would have been for me to upgrade to an 8GB iPhone 3G (not even 3GS) and commit to an additional 2 years with AT&T.

    The advantages currently held by the iPhone (more apps, easy to use, feeling of social superiority) are likely to be lost to the growing Android platform in the near future. Well, everything except the pompousness anyway...

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  2. I may have to seek this Eris out, then.. Although absolutely EVERYTHING has an iPhone app, and I'd be sad if that weren't the case on the Eris..

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