Tag Archives: Cell Phone

I’m still on the quest to replace my v1.0 iPhone with something that is not from AT&T. Finding a new mobile phone is really a pain.

So far, I’ve test driven several phones for Verizon:

• Blackberry Tour: Thumbs up. It’s a great phone, but missing wi-fi. Full review coming within the week.
• HTC Ozone: Thumbs up, but I had some minor issues. Full review coming early next week.
• LG EnV Touch: Thumbs down. This phone was unable to sync with the contacts and calendar on my Mac or even with my Google Contacts / Calendar. While it does offer a sync for PC / Outlook users, for me the phone was rendered useless.
• HTC Touch Diamond: Thumbs down. As a Windows Mobile device, it wouldn’t sync with my Mac, but it would sync with Google. However, I found this phone incredibly non-intuitive. I let my techie husband play with it for a few days. When even he found it non-intuitive, I gave up.
• Samsung Omnia: Thumbs down. Another Windows Mobile device, it synced easily with my Google information. Once I turned off what I found to be an annoying home screen overlay and returned to just a basic Windows Today screen, this was a fairly easy to use phone. However, the battery life was exceedingly poor, dying within 5 hours of light to normal use (including occasional email checking and 2 short phone calls).

As for T-Mobile, I’m unable to get their PR rep to respond to me. It does irritate me when I receive press releases about a product – in this case the MyTouch – yet am unable to get my hands on the device. Note to PR folks everywhere: if I can’t get my hands on the application or gadget you’re promoting to me, I can’t review it for the blog.

Like T-Mobile, Sprint hasn’t acknowledged my attempts at contact. That’s a shame, because the Pre is still my number 1 choice for a phone  – if I had to buy one right this minute. I visited a local Sprint store on Sunday and spoke with a sales rep who obviously loved his Pre. He had no problem, once he realized I had a clue, talking to me about various hacks and homebrew applications, as well as what features I could add/turn on/turn off on the phone. He didn’t once try to outright sell me – he just showed me how he used his Pre – and that was effective in itself.

However, I’m very aware that the Motorola Sholes / Android 2.0 phone will be coming to Verizon at the end of October (according to the Internets). It may be the phone that keeps me away from the Pre. In the meantime, I also hope to get my hands on test devices of the Samsung Rogue and Intensity (Verizon), to let you know how those phones stack up to other smartphones and enhanced multimedia devices on the market.

After all, why should I buy a phone right now when the holiday-release phones are just around the corner?

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Cheers!

Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

What’s more frustrating than going over your minutes on your cell phone plan? Not much, right? The act of receiving a simple reminder could help you stay on track, so that’s what PageOnce, the web-based personal assistant service, has added to its suite of features.

The new PageOnce Cell Minute Tracker not only keeps track of your minutes but it keeps track of how you use your minutes as well. The application reminds you of what day your billing cycle ends, how your minutes are being used, and what you’ve payed for past bills. Got a family plan? The PageOnce Cell Minute Tracker will break that down too.

There’s also an option to pay your bill directly from the PageOnce Cell Minute Tracker. This of course ties in directly with the PageOnce personal assistant tool, which aggregates several services into one in order to help you stay organized and up to date on things like bills, travel itineraries, and more.

The PageOnce Cell Minute Tracker will cost you just under $1.00 per year, which is extremely cheap, even in light of other services like SkyDeck that offer similar services for free. Even your phone service itself will most likey offer similar tracking and payment tools, but the PageOnce Cell Minute Tracker comes with all the other personal assistant tools the service has to offer.

More importantly, PageOnce would be able to use much of its data for recommendation purposes later on down the line. Taking the data from its users and turning it into personalized recommendations based on things like payment history is something that can eventually be done in a way that also maintains the privacy of its users.