Marines and cellphones in news

[gaijin6423]

I used to have a Motorola Q before my wife made me switch to Cingular/ATT. Now, I have a Blackberry, and I have no clue why I didn't get one sooner. As far as the interface is concerned, I think the Blackberry OS is quite a bit easier to use than the Windows Mobile-based ones. I'm sure that some people will be more comfortable with having a start menu, etc., but I personally never got my Motorola to work all that well for me. There were too many complications every time I tried to set up an email account on it, etc. My Blackberry is ridiculously easy to set up and use, and *sniff!* I'm going to miss being able to look at porn while in the field. (No coverage where I'm headed to.)

Be very careful with Verizon's "unlimited" data plans if you go with them. There are unpublished rules as to what your daily/weekly/monthly bandwidth usage can be, and you're going to both get the data turned off and have to pay an insane fee. For the casual user, this is not really a problem, but I've known one or two people who have been bitten by this.

 

[Gatordev]

Be very careful with Verizon's "unlimited" data plans if you go with them. There are unpublished rules as to what your daily/weekly/monthly bandwidth usage can be, and you're going to both get the data turned off and have to pay an insane fee. For the casual user, this is not really a problem, but I've known one or two people who have been bitten by this.

Good info. Is there any way of actually finding out what the values are? I'm sure if you ask, the answer will be, "Oh, no, it's UNLIMITED!"

 

[gaijin6423]

I want to say that it works out to about 5Gb worth of transfer in a billing period, but I could be wrong. The only reasons I know anything about this is because I did the Marine's taxes who sold me my Q (VITA rep), and due to one of several class action lawsuits against Verizon were over this. For what it's worth, though, ALL cellphone carriers are on record as saying that the unlimited upload/download should NOT, in fact, be unlimited. The ones other than Verizon just seem to be better at concealing what the actual limit is.

 

[phrogpilot73]

AT&T has limits, unless you sign up for one of their tethering plans. That's where people generally go over their data limits, when they use their phone as a wireless modem for their laptop. I think you're right about the 5gb limit, and I believe that's what it is for AT&T as well (unless you have the tethering plans). A smartphone choice is very personal in my opinion, what some people like - others won't. Case in point - I was a diehard Palm OS guy, then moved to Windows Mobile (what CE is called now). My wife had a Blackberry, and didn't like it - she's on WM now as well. My suggestion for any new potential smartphone user is to go to a store that has working phones (vice mockups) and play with the phones for a while. Don't go straight to WM, Palm or Blackberry on the recommendations of others, because you may end up not liking it (either the form factor or the operation). Pretty much all of them can do the same things, with the exception of one or two things, and they can all be "hacked" to do even more, or tweak the user interface (with the exception of the iPhone). Another good place for info on smartphones is: www.treocentral.com, www.crackberry.com, www.wmexperts.com, and www.phonedifferent.com. TreoCentral is focused on PalmOS/Treos, WMExperts is focused on all WM devices, PhoneDifferent is iPhone, and Crackberry is Blackberry, duh. They all share the same user base, so if you join one - you're a member of them all. Very good editorials, reviews, and forums so if you're looking to do something specific, or are curious what potential issues/problems are - you can find it there. If you're looking for the iPhone experience on Verizion, the HTC Touch (with TouchFLO interface) is supposed to be coming to Verizon sometime this year...

 

[Gatordev]

My suggestion for any new potential smartphone user is to go to a store that has working phones (vice mockups) and play with the phones for a while.

That's the plan when they come and visit here shortly. Thanks for the links, phrog. I'll point them towards them later. I thought the HTC Touch looked pretty sweet, but the review I read (non-Verizon version) didn't come out quite as good as it looked. Anywho, they may decide they don't want a smartphone, so guess I'll see.

 

[phrogpilot73]

That's the plan when they come and visit here shortly. Thanks for the links, phrog. I'll point them towards them later. I thought the HTC Touch looked pretty sweet, but the review I read (non-Verizon version) didn't come out quite as good as it looked. Anywho, they may decide they don't want a smartphone, so guess I'll see.

I toyed with the idea of going to Sprint, or picking up the European version of the HTC Touch (it's GSM), because the Touch made me drool. I think it's form factor is nicer than the iPhone, it's got WM 6 Professional - so you can add programs and tweak/hack to your heart's content, and it's got a customized Today screen that I really liked. Getting it in my greasy little hand made me realize a couple of things - The form factor is very, very nice. TouchFLO is nice, but it's not implemented across the board, only on the HTC specific apps. I'd have to add a soft keyboard (the ones that it came with would require the stylus), and after fiddling with some of the soft keyboards (to include the iPhone), I realized that I like my honest-to-god QWERTY keyboard. That's part of the reason I ended up with a Treo 750.