[geeks] Looking for a Mobile Phone

[Phil Stracchino]

Nadine Miller wrote:
> My thoughts -- no comments on audio, since, IMO, the GSM network  
> itself is more of a problem wrt audio than the phone.  "Decent speaker  
> phone" means, "I can use it in the car when I don't have my headset  
> and people can still hear me."

Yeah, I hear you.  I'm given to understand the GSM voice codec is the
worst of all of them.  I'd actually consider Verizon for wireless
service if they had a prepaid plan that was competitive with T-Mobile's,
now that their network is theoretically open to non-Verizon-crippled phones.

> Motorola (we've had more of these than any other in the house, as  
> hubby prefers flip phones, and Nokia, has until recently, only made  
> candybars and similar) -- decent voice, crappy battery (except for the  
> RAZR V3, though even that is not as good as Nokia or Ericsson, ime),  
> decent reception.  Speaker phone's decent on the V3.  Iirc, V3 is one  
> of the top-selling phones of all time, and is still being sold, albeit  
> w/newer ROM and feature creep.

Yeah, I really liked my V3i until I broke it.  The only important change
I'd make to it is to delete the buttons on the edge of the display and
move them someplace they can't be accidentally pressed just by picking
up the phone.

What I really want is a clamshell phone - thus, *everything* protected
when it's closed - that has NO BUTTONS ANYWHERE ON THE OUTSIDE.  The
only time I could ever want a button on the outside is if I want to
answer a call without opening the phone, which I can only usefully do if
I have a hands-free headset connected,and in that case the button can
and SHOULD be on the headset.  I don't care whether it has a camera,
because cellphone cameras are crap anyway.  I have no interest
whatsoever in being able to play games on it, surf the web from it, keep
my calendar on it, send email from it, or use it as a portable MP3
player (though I would like it to be able to play MP3 ringtones instead
of bloody-awful sequenced beeps).  And I don't even care about being
able to *receive* SMS messages, let alone send them (with the sole
exception that I'd like to be able to just select an entry in my
phonebook and send it to someone else).

I want a *phone*, dammit, not a bling contest entrant.


> Nokia, while not generally falling into the "pretty" category, seem to  
> get the job done better.  Reception and battery life  of the phones  
> I've used is great.  Symbian is mature enough to be nice and stable.   
> I don't know how the different releases related to one another vis-a- 
> vis development, but there are clear demarkations between the  
> versions, which strikes me as a "good thing" for developers.  Nokia  
> may have been the first to support blue tooth tethering, not 100% sure  
> about that.  Bog simple charge port (a good thing, IMO)--standard  
> across most Nokia phones, I think.  2.5mm or 3.5mm headset support, in  
> all recent phones, afaik.  Lots of after-market support (important  
> when you find a phone you like and want to keep it).  Decent speaker  
> phone.


Noted.  Useful information.  :)


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.