So, since I kinda doubt we’ll move over to AT&T anyways. What do we think about some of the smart phones from Verizon. I’m looking at the VX6800, Samsung SCH-i760, or Palm 700wx runing WM6. I think I can safely say that since I’m not using this like a hardcore business user would be, I can stay away from Blackberry or Palm OS, does that sound right?
What, no love for the Blackberry?
Maybe it’s because I was an early adopter, or maybe just because I tend to stick primarily to email, but you’ll have to pry my Crackberry out of my cold dead hands before I ever get near an iPhone.
I just upgraded to the Pearl, which handily doubles as an MP3 and video player. On-board storage is pretty minimal, but that was easily solved with a 2MB MicroSD flash card, which cost me all of $20. Given that the cards are the size of my pinkie fingernail, I could easily carry around 8MB worth of music and video by just swapping cards when I feel like it (or just wait for 6 mths for 8MB cards to be available at reasonable prices).
Some of the newer models even include integrated GPS and full qwerty keypads… with, y’know, buttons. I’m sure the iPhone is great in sunny warm California, but how in the hell are you supposed to use one with mittens when it’s -20C with windchill?
IMO, once you go Black(berry), you never go back. 
I was under the impression that the BB is really geared more towards business enviroments (not that I know how that is different), but I’m looking to be able to use for internet access, email, light calander use and whatnot.
I don’t do much texting outside in December, but even so, I played with one a little at bestbuy and had a hard time hitting the buttons, they seemed so close and tiny. But GPS would be nice, I’d rather return the Garmin and just use the phone.
The Pearl was specifically targeted at the consumer gadget user, actually, and has little to recommend it to business users. They’ve come a long way, baby.
As far as email experience goes, it whups most of the competition quite solidly. You can set it up to send/receive from any POP email account (mine uses my Gmail account, which has POP functionality, but you could also do this with most ISP accounts as well). Also, many of the other devices will only check for new messages at set intervals since they’re using “pull”, while the Blackberry will receive in real-time since it’s a “push” device.
Calendar is pretty easy to use, since it follows the same format as Outlook Calendar. You can set it up to synch to your desktop, though I usually just input manually out of laziness. I’m waiting on a simple solution to integrate it with 30 Boxes, which should be along very shortly I’m guessing.
The only downside, IMO, is the browser. It’s not that it’s bad… it’s just slow if you’re outside the high-speed area and a little bit kloogy when dealing with sites that aren’t formatted for mobile browsing. That seems to be common with most of the other PDAs I’ve tried, though, including the Treo and Motorola Q (haven’t had a chance to try the iPhone, since it’s not yet available here in the wilds of Canuckistan).
So we* checked out AT&T and Verizon to see if we could lower our bill, looks like, one way or another, we may be able to. Then I asked about data plans on the PDA style phones. Depending on the phone (BB vs Not BB) it’s somewhere between $30 and $45 per month. I assume that’s on top of a voice plan. Hmmm, I’m not sure I want to spend $350-$550 just to screw around on the internet. I may be able to convice the PTB to do this phone if by switching plans we can save considerably more then that. It may be possible. With Verizon we’re spending about $400/mo, AT&T said they could get our bill down to about $300. Now we just have to see if Verizon can beat (or come close) to that.
*I should mention that this is a business phone plan with 88 lines, hence the ‘we’ and the $400/mo phone bill.