Seems Doc is intrigued by the latest Palm Treo SmartPhone announcement. That is until he discovered the new Treo 700 would only be offered on the Verizon and Sprint Networks. Back in the day Verizon and Sprint were the only carriers pushing the CDMA standard — something I believe San Diego-based Qualcomm developed while the rest of the world was paving the cellular highway with GSM technology. I blew off Verizon more than 5 years ago. Why? The worst customer service and the lack of compatibility outside the “walled garden” of Verizon's neighborhood.
After a short stint with Nextel I moved to T-Mobile. Not that I'm a German sympathizer (Deutsche Telecom owns T-Mobile) but they offered the best value and they were early adopters in building WiFi networks (Starbucks). Plus, I could by any GSM phone and not be restricted by the petty offerings the carrier sold. Instead, I jumped in head first and bought a Symbian-based Sony Ericsson Smartphone – the P900. After I beat the crap out of that phone I moved to its successor the P910i. This phone offered unmatched international capability meaning I could use it on GSM networks in Central and South America, Asia and Europe. Sure, I'd pay out the nose for access. Or, I could simply by GSM chips as I traveled. But because these phones are rather pricey, the carrier doesn't offer it. However you can buy it directly from SonyEriicsson or any number of independent resellers.
Here in the USA the GSM phone offered adequate GPRS capability and with the 910i push-email. Combine that with compatibility to read PDF, MS Office and other ubiquitous files I had no reason to go back to the lame Palm OS I abandoned with my Verizon Kyocera Palm-based Smartphone in 2002. Good bye. There's no reason to be carrying a Windows CE device nor an antiquated OS like Palm. The Symbian OS is open source and the Sony Ericsson syncs seamlessly with Mac OS X 10.4.x. What more could I ask. Or could Doc for that matter?
Now I'm waiting for the new Sony Ericsson P990. Though they've compromised some “power user” features on the new phone, the addition of more memory, WiFi and more means I'll probably have to indulge.
