After 2 years of using my Treo 650 as a work phone, I decided that it was time to get something different. There really wasn’t *that* much wrong with the Treo, though I was getting tired of the crashing during mail reading and other routine cell phone functions (like phone calls). Also, with me having an iPhone which really has a much better mail reading interface, having another phone to use to read mail with didn’t really make as much sense. Having a small phone to use as a *phone* really seemed to be the requirement. So I set off to research the latest phones. Again, the requirement was a smaller phone, good battery life, and something that would still sync nicely to my Mac using iSync. Having a 2100MHz WCDMA phone also was a “wish” - it would be nice if the phone worked in Japan in case I have to go there.

I discounted SonyEricsson phones immediately. Because after 3 years, I’m still mad at them over the Z520 buggy firmware which caused my phone to crash every day or so. I don’t like the Motorola interfaces, so that kind of left me with Nokia. T-Mobile doesn’t really have a good selection of Nokia business phones, plus, I really didn’t want to buy a carrier-crippled phone, so off to searching Amazon.com for phones.

I was originally looking at a Nokia N82, but the N-series phones are expensive, and I really didn’t need a 5MP camera on the phone. Too bad because I actually really like the Series60 Symbian OS on the Nokia phones. I finally happened upon the E51 - and on sale to boot. Small, relatively light weight, and Series60 OS with iSync capabilities direct from Nokia. I ordered one up in the black metal color.



Compared to my iPhone (left), it’s about the same thickness, but about 2/3 the width. It has an unconventional key layout even for a Series60 phone. No Edit button, but shortcuts for Home, Calendar, Contacts, and Email instead. Smallish keypad, but I have small fingers so it’s not a big deal. Absolutely brilliant display. Nice sturdy feel.

After having this phone for about 2 weeks, here is some feedback on the phone.

Pros: The battery life and size of this phone are great. Sound quality is excellent, and the reception seems to be at least as good as my Treo (which had a stubby external antenna which kept jabbing me in the side). Bluetooth works great (paired right up to my Nokia BH-900 headset). Syncing is about as good as you get from anyone that isn’t named Apple, and this has got to be the *fastest* charging phone I have ever had. Nice familiar (to me) Series60 interface and the “Active Standby” has been greatly improved so it now shows me a summary of my day’s events from the calendar, waiting voicemails or text messages, and customizable short cuts to favorite things on the phone. Nokia even thoughtfully put speed keys for Bluetooth on/off and Silent/Normal mode on the * and # keys. When using my Bluetooth headset, the mute button is the button on the right in between the volume keys. Handy! This phone also does 2100MHz WCDMA/UMTS so it should also work overseas. Also has 802.11b/g wireless so it links right up to the home wireless networks. Calendar, ringtones, and music player all work nicely. Oh, and my current Nokia chargers are compatible with the new phone.

Cons: This is not a US 3G phone. It has 850MHz WCDMA support, but AT&T only supports that in some markets, and I’m not using this phone on AT&T anyways (I’m using it on T-Mobile). The side buttons are a little hard to push. The camera is really for emergency use only. And the SIM card fits in so tight, I don’t think I’m ever getting it out of this phone.... I also had a very bad time setting up email on this phone. I interrupted it while it was downloading the initial email headers and after that, every trip to the email program caused the phone to slow down and hang. I finally had to do a *#7370# to reset the phone back to factory ROM image before that problem would clear up. How extreme! Even now, the mail program isn’t the world’s fastest. It’s good for an emergency, but not much else. That’s fine though - it fits my usage criteria. No games though - not even the standard Snake game. I guess it’s because it’s a “Business” phone...

Overall, I consider this phone to be a major winner. It’s certainly a lot smaller and lighter than the Treo and the sound quality and stability of the phone are just great. It’s nice being able to have a conversation on the phone and not having to worry about the phone mysteriously crashing in the middle of the call....

Tags: Technology

No doubt, you’ve heard about Apple’s great meltdown today with the release of the new iPhone 3G and the iPhone 2.0 software.

So no, I don’t have a new iPhone 3G. I’m not in a hurry to get one. I waited 6 months to get my iPhone. I don’t feel a need to be first.

Unfortunately, I did feel a need to get the new iPhone 2.0 software. Why? It wasn’t the new Application download capabilities (though it’s nice and I’ve downloaded a couple). It was the fact that they finally added separate calendars to the calendar program and fixed a long standing gripe I’ve had about the mail reader where it couldn’t read forwarded emails. So when they posted the updated image yesterday on some of the typical Mac interest sites and no one complained of any problems, I went ahead and updated.

Bad idea to try to do anything in a way not sanctioned by Steve Jobs.

So the firmware that was distributed yesterday was different from the official release version of today. And the one distributed yesterday wedged my iPhone so solid overnight, I had to put it into recovery mode and reload from scratch. Then, what was already a painfully long recovery process got compounded by the fact that every iPhone user in the world (new and old) was trying to update and reactivate their iPhones too. ARRRGHHHH!

However, I finally got the right firmware file, did the right incantations, and at 4:15pm today, fully 8 hours after I discovered my iPhone was an iBrick, I had my phone properly upgraded.

I’m hoping it doesn’t crash again tonight.

Lesson learned - don’t be the first, don’t be impatient, and don’t do what Mr. Jobs says not to do.

Sigh.

Many folks have wondered when I would cave in and get an iPhone. Oddly, some people *assumed* I got one on day 1. So let's get something straight - I'm not *that* crazy.

That said, the appeal of a handheld device that I could use to browse the web and check email over WiFi at home and when out really got me. Add the fact that I heard that as a *phone*, the iPhone was excellent finally convinced me to shell out more dollars than I should have for the iPhone, protective shield for the screen, and a holster case.

I have not been disappointed with the phone (two exceptions which I'll discuss later).

First, the phone does just look cool. You think it's big, and maybe compared to my Nokia 6126, it is. But not offensively so. The screen is the most readable thing I've used in a long time. Intuitive interface. And the thing has, to me, the best sound quality for phone calls over any phone I've owned in the last 4 years at least. It also holds calls my 6126 used to have problems with, and I thought the 6126 did a great job. I live in a notoriously bad signal area (because all cellular towers tend to point away from my house). This phone makes cell usage usable in the house.

It paired up easily with my Nokia BH-900 headset. Works great. No complaints there. I was somewhat relieved about that - I like my BH-900 very much and I really didn't have the money for a new Jawbone headset (even though I hear those are great too).

As an iPod, I like it very much. I never thought I'd find a use for the YouTube program, but it has come in handy. And of course, because it's an Apple product, it syncs perfectly with my Mac. Movies are also a bit nicer to watch on this device than on my previous iPod. You just have to remember, though, that this is also your phone so if you kill the battery watching a movie, your cell phone is off too.

Battery life is pretty good - 3 days easily without charging unless I'm heavily into email or movie watching....

There are two irritants. The first is ringtones and Apple's somewhat heavy-handed tactics to drum up business from the iTunes Music Store. I have a series of old MIDI ringtones (converted to MP3) that I am just used to. And want to continue using. And find it just very difficult to do so. If Apple offered these goofy ringtones that I like on iTMS, well, I'd probably buy them. But they don't and they go out of their way to keep me from using them. Fortunately, there's iToner which has allowed me to install a bunch of my old MIDI ringtones.

The second is a little more esoteric. iPhone mail refuses to display email messages which were forwarded as an attachment. If someone takes a client like Thunderbird, selects a message and forwards that message as an attachment, the message shows up on the iPhone as an icon named "mime-attachment". The issue is that iPhone mail appears to not understand message/rfc822 message types. This is exceedingly frustrating for me and I have filed a bug with Apple.

I am hopeful that Apple will open up the iPhone to developers. This may sound silly, but it would be nice to get a game of solitaire on this thing....

People have also complained about being limited to using EDGE only instead of WCDMA or "3G". For me, this isn't so much an issue - when I'm surfing or reading email, it's usually from on a WiFi network. If I'm truly out and about, I'm usually only checking mail or trying to do a few specific things (like check flight arrivals) which really aren't bandwidth intensive. I also do wish Apple would get a Flash viewer on the iPhone as well - if only so some websites don't come up completely blank (that said, that's poor coding to me anyways, but...)

8 out of 10. This is the only first generation Apple product that I can say that so far I've been this happy with.

Tags: Technology

So this blog entry probably isn't news to some. In fact, to most outside the US most likely.

I recently went down to Costco to buy a new cordless phone set for the house. I settled on a nice unit by Panasonic KX-TG1034 -- one base with cordless handsets and 3 additional handsets. I was intrigued because of the advertised battery life (approaching 17 hours of talk time).

This phone came with something called DECT 6.0 which claimed to be the latest in privacy and interference prevention technology. Hmmm. That's a challenge in our house with two wireless networks, baby monitors, and a bazillion other electronic devices to contend with.

I got the box home, set it up, and have been really impressed with the performance of these phones. But reading the technical specs was the kicker.

This thing is nothing more than a short range cell phone.

DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) 6.0 runs in the 1920-1930MHz spectrum (close to US cell phones) and utilizes TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) which is the same technology used by GSM cell phone to multiplex calls. This is great! Technology that we know works pretty well in cell phones, and operating on a frequency that nothing else is (supposed to be) using. My 2.4GHz wireless networks are safe and so are the 900MHz baby monitors.

And even with a full day of con-calls, I've yet to even get the battery to drop one status bar. So far so good.

Highly recommend the phone.

Apple some weeks back released 10.4.9 of OS X and with it, iSync version 2.4.

At the time, I failed to notice that the Nokia 6131, which is the Euro/Asia version of the Nokia 6126 that I have, gained support in the new iSync.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060915154526806 pointed this out to me today, and I removed my old hacks and implemented this one. What an improvement. Mainly, my addresses are now synced into the address field as they should, and not into the notes field! Woo Hoo! Tiny little things that really make your day.

My friend Tom and I both got our Treo 650s around the same time a few months back. We've had a lot of fun sharing our experiences in getting different software, etc., installed on them.

I was wondering this morning if our Treos weren't somehow linked together though. Last night, I dropped my Treo on the floor at church. It fell far enough that it bounced twice and knocked the SD memory card out of it. It stayed running though and didn't seem to have suffered any ill effects.

At about the same time, Tom's Treo mysteriously died while doing nothing. No power. No lights. No response to the charger. Nothing. Dead.

It has to make you wonder - did it die on behalf of my Treo? Hmmm?

So the background to this project is that I'm being placed back on the Corporate Paid Cellular Plan at work. Instead of submitting my monthly cell phone bills to work, I'm now going to get it paid for automatically.

One caveat to this, however, is that the corporate policy appears not to allow Blackberry devices, which is what I've been using for work, and, which is the account I just signed a new 2-year agreement with.

So, I had to get rid of the Blackberry. Too bad since I really liked my 7290 (see the review back in August). I decided to go Treo, and with a Treo 650 to be exact as these appear to be well-liked within the company (and the company actually issues them to the service engineers in the field). One problem....T-Mobile, my carrier, doesn't officially sell these devices. And a new unlocked one costs $549 (and the company won't pay for the new equipment). What to do?

So...I decided to turn this into a small project. I started with a used Cingular Treo 650. I purchased this unit from my friend at church for $150. Good deal for both of us - eBay average seems higher than that - no shipping, and I'm helping a buddy clean out his closet (I think he switched to Verizon because where he lives, the Cingular reception is very poor). My friend included the sync cable and charger. Phone is in pretty good shape - has a few nicks and scratches on the case. Clean. Used, but not abused -- the previous owner is a fellow Mac person who knows how to treat electronics right.

First thing I discovered - you can't charge the Treo off the USB port. I don't know why. I suspect because it draws more power than a USB port might safely supply. A little annoying....time to go out and get yet another iGo tip for my iGo Juice unit....

Went down to Walmart and paid $29 for a 512MB SD memory card + card reader (this was actually important - see later step).

Paid $24.95 for a MissingSync upgrade from my old version (old version was way old, but still got $15 discount for an upgrade). I last used it about 2 years ago when I still used my Sony CLIE unit.

All pieces together, the first thing I did was install MissingSync and sync over the unlock650.prc file from http://650unlock.com . This little utility extracts the necessary information from your Treo into a memo pad item to feed the phone unlocker and verifies your phone can be unlocked. Paid 650unlock.com $15 for an unlock credit.

Took the unlock code, went to 650unlock.com, fed it the information, my unlock code token, and got a code back. Inserted my T-Mobile SIM Chip, verified it didn't like the non-Cingular chip, followed the instructions on website, voila, phone now likes chip. Carrier restriction removed. At this point, I had a Cingular Treo 650 on the T-Mobile network with a T-Mobile SIM card. Half way there.

Next the unbranding so I could use T-Mobile's internet access properly. It seemed (to me, YMMV) that it would be easier just to whack all Cingularisms rather than try to figure out how to undo each Cingular inflicted branding issue as it came up. And, unbranding freed up 7MB in the ROM. More room for applications I really want....

Branded Treos don't want to accept unbranded firmware though. There's ROM settings that prevent that. Fortunately, folks out on the internet have figured a way around that. One person, in particular, apparently had a whole company's worth of Cingular Treo 650s to unbrand, so, he wrote a Palm equivalent of a script to do the ROM edits and flash the new firmware on to the phone. Downloaded the zip file referenced here, unzip'ed it, and then copied the files (per the instructions) directly on to the SD Card via the flash card reader.

Inserted flash card with this magic package into the Treo and reset the phone. Phone rebooted and spent 15 minutes loading, erasing, rebooting, loading, rebooting, etc. At the end of 15 minutes, voila, latest unbranded Treo 650 firmware and not a trace of anything Cingular anywhere except on the face of the phone. Unlocking and unbranding complete! Woo Hoo!

New internet settings appeared to get read off the SIM card (thank you T-Mobile for providing this). Did a little modifying of the default Blazer Web Browser settings to utilize the T-Mobile proxy cache and get me to T-Zones home (I actually like that launch page). Program up VersaMail with the configs for Work Email and Home email. Sync up contacts, calendars, to-do from the Mac. And away we go. I configured to sync via USB or Bluetooth.

Downloaded a few favorite apps I had been using on the Blackberry. Google Maps looks good. Google Mail required me to download a JVM from the Palm site to get it to work, but it seems to just fine. Downloaded the Adobe Acrobat Reader for Palm.

I then set about to get my Bluetooth headset to work. That new Nokia BH-900 I talked about in the last few days. This was a little harder than I thought it would be, but finally after about 20 minutes of fiddling got it to pair up properly. The Nokia headset I have has the capability of being able to remember 6 different pairings. So I already had it paired with the Nokia 6126 and the Blackberry 7290, and figured I would just add the Treo 650 as another pairing. Wrong. This Treo seems to have an ego (it rhymes). It wants to be the *first* paired device. So I had to erase all the pairings, pair the Treo first, and then the 6126. Seems fine now.

I've since loaded the DataViz doc translators, a good Klondike game I used to have, a few MIDI ringtones, and a few miscellaneous other little programs I used to use on my CLIE. I also, with some help from the nice customer service folks at T-Mobile, managed to adjust my plan to get off the Blackberry plan and get on to a regular phone plan with unlimited internet and HotSpot usage....

Issues I'm still working on:

Charging. Will probably go out and get yet another iGo tip for my Treo. That'll be another $10....I'm not crazy on getting one of these USB sync/charge cables because I think they will draw too much current from the USB. I might also go find myself another plain Treo charger...

Case. Need a case. Probably another $15 eBay purchase.

But the point is, it works. It can be done. It works well, and I've got a nice replacement unit at about half the cost.

And now that I've freed up my 7290, my wife can retire her 6230 and get a more modern Blackberry.

With the purchase of my new Nokia 6126 (see review here), I gave my old Sony Ericsson Z520a to my wife (who by the way seems to be having much better luck about not getting pictures of pocket lint from that phone....). Giving her that phone also meant my Sony Ericsson HBH-608 Bluetooth headset went with it, since we believe in using hands free devices while talking on the phone, and I never bought a corded headset for that phone.

So I set out to find a replacement headset since after just a couple of days, I was going nuts with the old-fashioned corded ear pieces....

After much research, I purchased a Nokia BH-900 headset from amazon.com. They had it for 41% off retail - just about as cheap as getting it off eBay but with a better return policy. And cheaper shipping (I found selecting ground is just as efficient as selecting 2-day since it ships UPS Ground both ways...). The key selling points were price (on Amazon), noise canceling features (remember, I drive a convertible Mini Cooper S), battery life, ability to mute via the headset (you wonder why this isn't standard), and good reviews about sound quality and reception.

I've had this device for almost a week now, and I have to say, I'm very happy with it so far. The sound quality is great. The volume is even better (I have a hearing loss - I can turn the phone all the way up and then further amplify it with the headset). It pairs to both the Nokia 6126 and Blackberry 7290 I have (though not simultaneously - at least it remembers both phones and I can switch back and forth without having to pair the phone every time I switch). Seems to have good battery life. It also uses the same charger as my Nokia 6126 phone.

I do dislike the funky clip thing over the ear. I haven't quite mastered how to put the headset on. It's very comfortable once I get it on, but getting it on my ear seems to take an inordinate amount of fumbling. My workaround has been to make sure I put it on before I go anywhere. I also do dislike the smaller-than-miniature power button on the phone. I don't know how anyone with normal sized fingers manages to get their headset to turn on....

Despite the drawbacks, I think this headset's a keeper.

So about 2 weeks ago, I ordered a Nokia 6126 from Amazon.com. Not particularly cheap since I bought it without a service contract. But it also came without any carrier restrictions which would cause it to be only usable on one carrier's network, and without any carrier modifications -- something that I really wanted.

It's a very nice phone. Not perfect, but it's great for what I want it to do - remind me of meetings, keep my contacts available to me, and to make phone calls. I've used a Sony Ericsson Z520a and a Nokia 6682 in the past year. The Z520a was just junk - coupled with very poor Sony Ericsson customer service. The 6682 was nice, but overkill. I really didn't need the phone to read PDF files for me.... The 6126 is the same size as the Z520a even though it looks bigger than that.

The user interface on the phone (Nokia Series40 3rd edition) is typically Nokia. Very nice and intuitive. Nokia and Sony Ericsson have the two best UI designs I think. Motorola is way at the bottom. The 6126 feels solid. There's a button on the side that will cause the flip to open on its own like a Star Trek Communicator.

The phone syncs with my Mac via iSync. There's a hack you need to make it work, and then, it suffers from the same iSync bug that plagues all other Series 40 3rd edition phones in that syncs street address information into a note instead of the AddressBook field. I guess they'll fix that someday. Works well enough for me right now. Bluetooth transfer rates are great. And the Bluetooth headset I have (Sony Ericsson HBH-608) works just fine with the phone. Sound quality is good. It holds calls very well, even in my house which has notoriously poor reception. Data transfer is good as far as I've tried. Since I don't have a data plan, this feature isn't going to get tested. I'm not interested in the bill....

The camera is average. It likes a lot of light. If it's too dark, things look grainy. But it doesn't take infinite numbers of pictures of pocket lint like the Z520a was prone to do (due to the poor camera button design on the side).

The battery is a little disappointing. It's on par with my previous Nokia 6682, but it's behind the Sony Ericsson Z520a. I was hoping for a little better.

The phone's display is gorgeous. Large with good resolution, contrast, and color. But I'm also probably paying the price as a result with the shortened battery life.

I'm a little irritated that they changed the power plug type to a new style. I had a lot of old Nokia chargers lying around. However, unlike Sony Ericsson, you can buy an adapter from Nokia to enable the use of all your old chargers. I need to get me one of those.

I love the fact that the phone is unlocked and "as shipped" from Nokia. There's no annoying "customizations" like T-Mobile has put on their version of the 6126 (which is called the 6133) which, for example, cause MP3 files not to be usable as ring tones. There's also no attempt to divert you to your carrier's website to buy stuff like games, surf the net, or do other things that add up to more $$$ for them.

I'm so far very happy with the Nokia 6126, even with the extra cost of buying it unlocked.

Stay tuned for a review on the Nokia 6126. I just purchased one from Amazon.com and it's on its way to my house as we speak.

Hopefully this one doesn't take pictures at random or have any other firmware glitches.

I've finally just about had it with my Sony Ericsson Z520a.

When I got this phone a year ago, I had 2 straight months of absolute heck with this phone. It had a firmware defect that essentially caused the phone to freeze or otherwise do strange things within 24 hours. Sony Ericsson had the worst customer service response - in that they refused to acknowledge the defect and considered it "normal" to have to remove the battery every 24 hours to reset the phone (because often the phone was too screwed up to allow it to power off via the power switch). Because of that experience, I've said my next phone will *not* be a Sony Ericsson device.

Finally, Cingular, who sold me the phone, was able to get Sony Ericsson to produce a firmware update which resolved this problem. And the problem turned out to be caused by a condition which pathologically existed at my house.

In addition to that particular annoyance (which made for a very unreliable phone) the phone has a design flaw. It has a very low resistance spring in the button on the side which activates the camera. And the button is strategically placed so your finger always bumps into it while carrying on a call. So you're constantly activating the camera and snapping unintended pictures.

Lately, this problem has been getting worse and it seems like the camera is activating at random. It sometimes makes for an interesting game - figure out where you were when you unintentionally took a picture. A few times, I have lucked out because the camera went off in places it really shouldn't have.

If the camera were halfway decent, it might be one thing. This camera is far from it. And now, having to go and clear out a dozen pictures every few days has meant I've had enough. It's time for a new phone.

The front runner is the Nokia 6126. I'll probably pay more and buy it directly from Nokia or somewhere not Cingular in order to get one that is not carrier locked and not customized by Cingular. Cingular seems to have this horrible reputation for screwing up perfectly good phones with their customizations. Time to try one without them. The last phone I purchased this way was a Sony Ericsson Z600. An awesome phone. I would still be using it today if it supported the 850MHz band and had slightly better reception.

I think I will ask my wife for permission to acquire a 6126 and see what happens.

For my personal phone, I recently decided to upgrade my Blackberry 7230 (which had survived a dunking in the toilet) with a new Blackberry 7290. I decided on the 7290 because it was 1) Cheaper than an 8700 model, 2) Same form factor as the 7230, 3) Had a brighter screen, 4) Bluetooth, and 5) Quad-Band GSM support. My carrier for the phone is T-Mobile. Cost me $49 from T-Mobile (plus tax of course and after mail-in rebate with new contract....).

I love this thing.

First, it resolved a number of issues that made me dislike my 7230. It stays synced with the network time. It has a much brighter backlight so those with early on-set far-sightedness (me) can read the display better.

Second, all my old accessories work with the phone, and still syncs with PocketMac to my Mac.

But the unexpected fun came with the upgraded Blackberry OS loaded on it. This unit has decent theme support, and I was able to get the MacBerry theme which makes my Blackberry look like a Mac. Whoo hoo!

Another fun app I've discovered is Google Maps Mobile. If you've not tried this little application, it's great. It's just like Google Maps except smaller (obviously). It can give you step-by-step directions between two points, pan and zoom, and even use the same satellite imagery that Google Maps uses. An added feature is real-time traffic displays for 30 metropolitan areas. Very, very nice. Reportedly supported on any Java J2ME enabled handset. Highly recommended (but only if you have an unlimited data plan on your device - it does download a lot of stuff).

This is hilarious (and pathetically sad at the same time).

http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick

Note that this person is attracting a lot of attention, and he's having problems keeping his website online. However, if you can, read this. It's sadly hilarious.

If you don't know what a Sidekick is, it's like a Blackberry. Look here for more information.