Qwerty Mobile Phone Angst
A month or so ago, a friend wrote this note to help me decide which new mobile phone.
My service is with Sprint. My understanding is that if you want a high quality mobile broadband service in the US your options are Verizon and Sprint.
Anecdotally I hear that Verizon has superior coverage but a more expensive service… especially wireless broadband service. By the way, The PPC-6700 (that is, the HTC Apache) is, or is about to be, available via Verizon.
I believe Cingular has EDGE but that this is nowhere near as potent as EVDO. In truth, though, I haven’t made a thorough study of these… and as we all know, marketing numbers tend to differ from real-world performance.
Today I visited T-Mobile to see their MDA (has a Qwerty keyboard, similar to Verizon 6700) and SDA (no qwerty, but a nice big screen).
Unfortunately the T-Mobile store only had the SDA in stock. It turns out the MDA (with Qwerty) is blowing out the door as fast as they arrive. SDA (at $100 less) is also selling well, but they had one left).
These are both nice phones. The sweet part about T-Mobile is their $29.95 data plan adder. It includes unlimited T-Mobile WiFi. I just wish they had better more cell towers and thus stronger coverage.
(I am on T-Mobile at the Starbucks right now with my IBM T42 lptop, T-Mobile WiFi works great).
Net-net, I wil stay with Verizon a sthat’s what my employer supports. I want to touch and feel at least the Motorola Q before I make a decsion on my new phone.
It could be a Motorola Q, Blackberry 87xx, VX 6700, a Treo 700W (Microsoft) a Treo 650 (Palm).
I figure by this time in say 2009 I’ll make up my mind. If not sooner.
[see also: this earlier note]