A Brief History of My Addiction

When I left for college (in 1995) my father bought me a Palm Vx (which was the new hotness at the time), but I never really used it for school, and primarily played games on it in class. After that first semester, I gave it back to my dad, and he continued to use it until 2004 when he replaced it with a Garmin iQue 3200, but this is about my PDA history not his.

After the aborted attempt with the Palm Vx I went without a PDA of any kind until 2002 when I bought a super cheap Sony Clie SJ22 on a Best Buy Black Friday Special. I used that for about a year and a half when I first gave Blackberry a try. It was the 7100g, the first Blackberry with the Suretype keyboard. I really loved the ease of input, but found the lack of features a real limit to the usefulness of the device. I got the Blackberry in May, and by November I was already looking for something that had the business capabilities of the Blackberry, but also some of the media capabilities of the newest feature phones.

It was around this time that I first became aware of the Audiovox SMT 5600, the first truly useful Windows Mobile smartphone, and to this day one of the nicest bits of hardware that I have ever used (though the early WinMO Smartphone years were rough). This device only whetted my appetite for the ultimate converged device. That was the first chapter in my whirlwind search for the perfect device.

Next up came the Imate SP-5, which was a great step up from the SMT5600, with WinMo 5, but it had a bothersome 5 way joystick, and the standard keypad has never been Ideal for text entry (for me, I know some people love T9). Next up came the Nokia N70, which had an amazing camera and really nice mulitmedia capabilities, it was the first phone I ever watched a movie on, but it lacked the business sense of Windows Mobile. I traded that phone with a guy in Ohio for an unlocked T-moblie MDA. At last, I felt like I was in love. I was so happy with that device that I could easily overlooked its girth, because it felt like the minicomputers I dreamed of when I was a boy, I felt as though I was walking around with the future in my pocket.

But a man with a wondering eye can never stay happy at home and I needed a new toy, so I decided to try the T-Mobile Dash, which was a beautiful device, thin and sexy, it looked so much better in person than it did in pictures. I found I missed the touch screen and the slide out keyboard too much, so as soon as 3G was available in my neighborhood, I upgraded to the AT&T 8525. This was the best phone I have ever had. The Keyboard was near perfect, and all the hardware buttons meant that I never had to use the stylus. I found myself going back to the 8525 time and time again.

It was around this time that I decided to try some other PDA's maybe some more exotic devices. I had still had my Dash, and I traded it for a Sony Ericsson M600i, that was neat phone, with some innovative features, but it was missing a camera, and more importantly it didn't have a 5 way button on the front, plus because I was enjoying the 8525 so much I didn't have time to learn the UIQ operating system. So I traded that phone for a Samsung Blackjack. That was a beautiful phone, but Windows Mobile without a touchscreen would no longer cut it for me, besides I found the Keyboard too stiff, and uncomfortable to type on.

Over all I was still happy with the 8525, when I began to feel the familiar tug, the desire that could only be squelched by some new device. I went for the iPhone, even with its lack of a physical input, MMS, or video recording. I really liked the UI, and after it was jailbroken it provided enough hackability to keep me busy for a while. But that was back in the days of iPhone 1.0. I really needed exchange mail, and a I missed the keyboard, so back I went to the 8525.

Then on a cold early March day on a business trip to Boston I left the 8525 in the back of a cab, never to be heard from again. So i began using the iPhone again, and that lasted for about 4 days after my return from Boston, when the iPhone decided it wanted to take a swim in the toilet. This was a serious emotional blow (plus I had to stick my hand in the toilet), happening so soon after the Boston fiasco. I didn't even have time to consider my options, I had to get a new Iphone, so within a few hours I was back to using Cupertino's best mobile phone.

That was the state of affairs for about 9 months, and the iPhone 2.0 update really helped with the added exchange support and the app store, but I really missed the side sliding form factor. Even though the devices were getting more and more advanced, it felt like I was sliding back to present, I needed something futuristic and new. I tried a device called the Eten Glofiish M800. on paper it had everything you could want in a phone Windows Mobile phone, a VGA touchscreen, GPS, lots of hardware buttons, and a pretty nice slide out Keyboard, but after using the iPhone, a device that size wouldn't cut it, it also had a problem with some of the capacitive touch buttons on the front not really working right, but the biggest problem was the recessed screen and it wouldn't make phone calls. I don't know what it is about that design, but after using a flush screen device, you just can't go back to using that bezeled design.

I was closely following the Windows Mobile News, and when I heard about the Touch Pro, I knew I had found my next device. Those 4 months between the announcement, and when the Fuze was released, was among my most trying times (electronically speaking of course).

You might assume that was the end of this story, but of course it is not. I found the web browsing on the Fuze to be seriously lacking, and the resistive touch screen just couldn't cut, so with great sadness and a heavy heart, I returned it. I was back with the iPhone, but I was just too restless after using the iPhone on and off for more than a year and a half, plus I just really need a qwerty input. So here comes the happy ending to this tale. Last week I bought a Nokia E71. It had been more than 2 years since my first furtive steps with S60; it was so long ago that it was still called Symbian Series 60 back then. I am happy to report that I really like this phone, it has a couple of drawbacks, but overall it totally suits my needs and it is super beautiful, this may be the phone of my short term future, until the N97 comes out of course.

That is my journey, I left out a couple sidetracks that never went anywhere, The Blackberry curve I bought but never really used, the Japanese Phone I thought would be cool, but I couldn't figure out, because the menus were in Japanese, and a few others. I can't help myself, and I don't want help.

Panasonic Limx DMC-FS3 Unboxing

Nava got a New Camera and there wasn't much going on in the office (the week of xmas) so we made an unboxing video.

This phone is freaking hot.

I've been looking for my next new phone for nearly a year. In September of 2007 I bought my first Iphone, and I really loved it. There was always one problem, it lacked a nice keyboard; I felt as though I couldn't blog, or do any real writing on it.

In search of the perfect device, I began burning through handsets, but nothing felt right. First I went back to my 8525 which was great and had the nicest keyboard of any phone ever and Windows Mobile 6 still felt fresh and infinitely hackable; unfortunately I left it in the back of a cab in Boston (that place pisses me off). Then just a few days later my Iphone took a swim in then toilet, it was replaced with another Iphone. Next up was a Glofiish M800 that never quite worked correctly, so I traded it in for a Blackberry Curve 8310. The Blackberry was a pretty decent peice of kit, but I balked at the cost of an expensive Blackberry plan; I still have it's but it sits unused on the shelf. After that I decided I would wait for the next hot new WinMo hotness to be released, and on the first morning it was released, I bought an HTC Fuze. After using the Iphone's web browser, and beautiful capacitive touch screen, the Fuze's crappy browser and resistive touch screen overwhelmed the positive attributes that the beautiful Fuze has going for it, so back it went.

That leads me to this weeks acquisition. Over the weekend I heard the siren call to me. I don't know where it came from, but I kept hearing in the back of my mind "Nokia". The only current model that seemed to meet my needs was the E71, so after work on Tuesday I ran by my favorite phone store and picked one up.

This thing is the hotness, it is gorgeous. I am slowly getting back into S60, which I haven't used for a couple of years, when I had an N70 (my last phone without a qwerty keyboard).

I can't wait to get to know this little beauty better, but my first impression is that I'm in love.