To all my phony friends

[pasithea]

I'd been thinking about replacing my crap phone with a less crap phone for a bit. This weekend I accidentally slammed it in a car door, wrecking the display so now I have little choice but to do so.

So.. I'd not mind some recommendations for a new phone as I've made every attempt to know nothing about the wretched things. Still, I like the idea of a combined PDA so here's a set of features and limitations I'd would like/have. If you know of anything that fits, I'd appreciate the input.

Limitations:

• Network we're using is Sprint.

Desires:

• I like the general UI design of the iPhone; touchscreen, no buttons.
• Data space for music would be nice.
• Being able to write on it as though it were a notepad like an Apple Newton would be nice.
• Ability to use as modem for Macbook (nice but not necessary)
  
• GPS (nice but not necessary)
• Access to mindless flash games (probably a negative but I kind of want it)
• Web access (nice but I probably won't use because I'm a skinflint at heart)
• Play video (nice but not necessary)
• Photos and an easy/cheap way to get them off the phone.
• gCal or iCal access (preferred) or some other method of setting multiple alarms and a datebook
• Personal wiki, note system, or a toolkit for building apps for the phone.
• Developer's kit (nice but not necessary)
• IM and/or IRC access (nice but not necessary
• Some kind of drawing app (wishful thinking)
• Voice recorder (local to phone, not stored remotely)
• Reasonably friendly file management system (more wishful thinking)
• Access to phone's data from Mac. (Yet more wishful thinking)
• Bluetooth pairing with a chorded keyboard and/or ability to plug in external keyboard and display(now I'm just being silly)

Oh, and if it could cost less than a zillion dollars, that'd be nice too. :P

Also, if there are any other features I haven't thought of that are nice to haves, suggest them. It's probably past time for me to stop shunning a technology that I haven't worked with much since they were a large black box called a Car-Fone which had a regular telephone handset attached to it. ^_^

Comments

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I may be evangelizing here, but I think it might be worthwhile to consider a Palm Treo -- one of the models running Palm OS, of course, _not_ WinMob. Out of the box it's merely okay, but there's a significant supply of (often free) software that can massively expand its functionality. My 650 has a (serviceable) drawing application, an MP3 player, a text editor, an ebook reader that reads open formats, an SSH client and a movie player, all of which were free. I got it from ebay about a year ago, $80. It's pretty rugged -- I've dropped it a few times, no damage -- and gets good battery life. I often go three days without a charge.
The only major downside of these machines -- and it is a significant one -- is that, afaik, none of the PalmOS Treos have built-in wifi. You can sometimes use an SDIO wifi card to get around this, sometimes not. :p Regrettably Palm seemed disinclined to let Treo users have wifi until fairly recently.

[kyhwana.livejournal.com]

Nokia N900?
It's Linux + X11 (GTK/qt).. but, in your pocket.

[centauress.livejournal.com]

My phone has some of these features. Most notably the pairing, data, music, and modem.

It doesn't have drawing, writing, dev, wiki, toolkit, iCal, flash. No phone I know will sync with a bluetooth keyboard.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

My Nexus One has all of those features except for Flash and talking to an external keyboard and display. And I hear there's an Android phone coming from Motorola that'll have a HD video out port. You'll have to root it to be able to use it as a data pipe for the laptop; everything else is either built in or in the app store - mostly free. Cost me $560 after tax for an unlocked phone.

I dunno how well it'll work with Sprint, though. Googling for "nexus one sprint" suggests that it'll function but the data will be ass-slow.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

I've been drooling over the HTC Touch Pro2, available from Sprint. It runs Windows Mobile, so you can download and install anything you want, you're not limited to some app store. The default WM interface is sort of a cross between Windows (with a Start Menu) and the iPhone (with a screen full of icons). Newer HTC phones come with some new optional interface that I've not used, so I can't say whether it's any good or not.

The Touch Pro2 has a slide-out keyboard for typing, but it also has an on-screen keyboard and handwriting recognition. It has a 480x800 screen, 2 cameras (3MP on the back, VGA facing the front for video calls), bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, G-sensor and a MicroSD slot. It also comes with Opera and Pocket Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote). The screen is touch-sensitive, not capacitance-sensitive like the iPhone, so you can use a stylus as well as your finger (which is very useful if you're wearing gloves).

The only problem you might have is that Windows Mobile is designed to sync with Outlook under Windows. There are third-party apps that can do the job for Mac, but they're not officially supported by Microsoft.