The bummer of my A630 saga was that I am desperate for a device with a keyboard that does decent e-mail, web, and IM (without SMS). I love my SMT5600 but T9 doesn’t cut it. If only someone made a compact thumb-keyboard with Bluetooth and some sort of retainer to hold a phone…
So I contemplate the following:
- Sidekick on T-Mobile’s $30 Sidekick-data-only plan. The positives are that it’s pretty decent at e-mail, web, and instant messaging. The downside is a closed platform that is completely dependent on centralized servers. Recent outages, long-term system compromises, and the Paris Hilton incident tell me to stay away.
- Blackberry 7290 on T-Mobile’s $30 Blackberry-data-only plan. Someone at work just picked up the Nextel version, it seems nice but we couldn’t figure out how to make the browser go to a web page of our choosing. Presumably it’s mostly dependant on servers run by T-Mobile and RIM, but I haven’t heard of any recent outages or incidents. The Bluetooth stack unfortunately is headset-only. T-Mobile doesn’t officially offer it yet, their Business group says they are out of stock, and the local stores have no idea when they’ll get it.
- Uncontracted Treo 650 snuck onto Cingular’s $25 unlimited data add-on. Palm OS hasn’t turned me on in ages, it’s still single-tasking, and I’m loathe to spend $550-$700 on a device that isn’t supported by Visual Studio .NET and doesn’t fully expose it’s APIs to Java apps.
- My mothballed Treo 180 on a T-Mobile $30 data plan. Cheap since I already own the phone. With a little luck, and perhaps by raising my voice a bit, I may be able to get signed up without a contract. Downsides are that it’s a Treo 180 — slow, old OS, no color, 160×160 pixel display, that terrible green inversion backlight, no backlight on the keyboard, etc.
- Wait a few months for something better. The HTC Universal looks seriously sweet, but pricing is sure to be in the stratosphere and I can’t wait for the now-rumoured fall release. The HP 65xx may be available sooner but the expected pricing is also unappealing. And that’s pretty much everything I know of that’s due soon with a keyboard and a decent OS.
Thinking about these choices mostly just makes me more pissed at Motorola and T-Mobile for making the A630 so frickin’ lame. Every time I see an A630 product placement on TV I want to throw something at my precious plasma…
I think the Blackberry 7290 wins, if I can get one within the next few weeks. The port blocking issue has been resolved, it’s tetherable via USB, and the price is reasonable.
