Cell Phone Shopping and the Unavoidable Communication Rants

Well I it is coming up on contract ending time and I am so in the market for a new cell phone.

Currently I am with T-Mobile and I have a motorola V360. It’s a decent phone I went with T-Mobile because they had a cheap data plan for like $7 a month and I have 1000 minutes, 400 text messages, unlimited mobile to mobile for $50 approx. I am not very happy with the GSM world and don’t really have any plans for T-Mobile again.

Jon the Cingular man keeps talking to me about how great Cingular is which from my readings will become AT&T again so we can murder the little orange guy. He doesn’t have any facial expressions but how can a blob be so happy? Plus the fact that unlimited data on the Orange isn’t exactly cheap.

So to my GSM brothers I am sorry but I can’t really go with you guys. So that leaves Sprint/Nextel and Verizon. Well everything I read has been talking about the much rumored iPhone or iMobile or just the Apple Phone. Which does spark my interest because well being a Mac Guy I think it would be awesome to have an iPod enabled phone and sync everything from my Mac to my Phone and have all my e-mail and just be happy in my little sync world.

If it has an awesome web browser that would work with my love of gMail, Bloglines, Stikkit and 30 Boxes which works with iCal that would be great. I am not really a big fan of Google Calendar but I like Stikkit it a bit more then both. But I can use the RSS Feed in Stikkit to export to 30Boxes and my life is great. Let me try and diagram that out.

So basically in that diagram is how I keep organized so I have 3 calendars and I use Stikkit.com to create my ToDo Lists and all my important dates because it is a rather genius idea of smart sticky notes.

E-mail is also a big concern since well I get 20 e-mails to every phone call on a given day. SMS Text Messages I average about 2-5 a day. So unlimited data and a small text messaging plan would work best for me. So as you can probably tell I am in search of a Smart Phone or a PDA Phone or as my uncle says “Those drug dealer phones”

Looking at the option of Sprint I am pretty much limited to the Palm Treo 700wx or the Palm Treo 700p which is basically either Windows Mobile 5.0 or the Palm OS. Everyone tells me that the Palm OS is dying but I kinda enjoy it. But the idea of Skype on my mobile phone and saving minutes and just making phone calls over Skype is an awesome idea.

But according to what I have been reading on the Skype Forums it works on the 700wx but it broadcasts all the calls over the speakerphone. Which is not exactly ideal since speakerphones are rather annoying.

Also ringtones are really annoying they seem to be a novelty that most people enjoy to show them selves off a bit. Like I really care if you have Nelly or 50 cent or whatever popular song is coming across the crowded airwaves of America these days. My favorite cell phone ringtone is Vibrate. It just does it’s thing and life is all gravy. Plus you seem very ninja like that you have sonic ears that you could “hear” your phone go off. But I would say my phone is 75% silent, 25% vibrate.

So any thoughts out there in the smart phone world? The RAZR’s and all that stuff I just can’t get into.

On another tangent you ever call someone and you don’t get the Ring Sound you have heard for years you get someones jukebox playing while they decide to answer your call or not? I have yet to figure out the appeal for that. They charge monthly fee and then they charge you when place a song on that service. The cell phone companies tend to rip you off a bit. Like 10 cents a text message. That seems crazy to me. They are ripping you a new one. It does not cost 10 cents to send a text message as far as data goes.

So lets think this out a text message without anything frilly of pictures is approx 140 bytes or 1120 bits for those that can’t multiply by 8 ;-). Do you really think it costs a cell phone provider 10 cents to deliver your message from point A to B. The most recent data I could find was from 2004 with 500 billion text messages sent resulting in $50 Billion dollars of revenue for the cell phone guys.

The average person in the US sends approx 13 text messages a month. I find myself that is about average during a month. Most of my text messages are to GOOGL to find out a sports score so I have something to chat with Person N wherever we may be. Also nice for finding out movie times on the fly. I would die without Google.

Every e-mail I get goes through google. The @tristanpipo.com domain e-mail is all handled by google with Google Apps for your Domain =) plus my gMail account. I find that young women are the biggest texters.

Wanting to pour their heart out over text. “What do you think of the election this year” ummm yeah T9 word is great and all but don’t want to discuss politics in short bursts. Give me a phone call or lets meet up over coffee. Hey e-mail would work better over text. But I have yet to speak with a young woman that would like to discuss politics. I am a registered libertarian. I have my libertarian card in my wallet. Lets give an example of Person N. She is a former coworker that we used to be close friends and have since parted ways over an issue.

She is engaged or married to what I would call a Loser. A bigger loser then Stalker Dave Grady. He already has a kid from a failed marriage. $20-$40k of debt and has served some time for drugs and cannot hold a job. So she decides to get pregnant from this winner.

She works at a grocery store making slightly over min wage but has full health benefits for $21 a month. Well that was what I paid. Her partner (lack of a better word) doesn’t have a job except on occasion he gets some painting gig. I sent out my text on friday asking if she wanted to go have a beer and celebrate the weekend. To which I get a response.

“I’m pregnant. I can’t. You are the 2nd to know”

Now getting hit with this news I was driving south on I-5 in lovely Seattle traffic. She is just a hair over 21 at the time and I am not really sure how to take this issue.

But this isn’t exactly an issue that I would want to discuss over text message. Or the girls saying “I just want to be friends” over e-mail. That at least warrants a phone call in my book. With my JuJu I as I turn on my cell phone probably going to have just that type of text message. =)

So what do you recommend in the cell phone world? Windows Mobile? Palm? That new Nokia OS? What is your phone? Who is your carrier? What are your thoughts?

P.S. Egg Rolls Plus Sweet and Sour Sauce. Awesome

That is Monday for Ya.