for nearly the past year i’ve had a samsung blackjack from at+t. i was a little late to the smartphone scene, a fact that i am somewhat ashamed of; nonetheless, i learned a great deal by limiting myself to google sms and texting. with it, i was able to do rudimentary address lookup, and retrieve sports scores, movie times, word defintions, etc. despite this, and pitiful as the blackjack/windows mobile is – i was fortunate enough not to have to pay for the experience – i still miss it and don’t really want to be without. nonetheless, with 2 weeks until the release i’ve decided to get by with my old nokia dumb phone, predictive type and all. until said jesus phone is in my hands and functional, i’m going to try and capture the experience of being without it. call it research.
predictive type sucks
my first observation is that, quite simply, predictive type sucks. when it does work it’s a time saver, but having retreated from a full keyboard, i’m finding that far too many words are not in its dictionary. today, i found myself choosing words for their uniqueness, knowing that they would be predicted more easily.
even an email hater needs mail on the go
next, dependent on exchange, i really miss mobile email. deleting and accepting meetings with one button – no need to add a response – was something i found very efficient. i’ve been fairly successful at dodging email overload, mostly by avoiding using it as a communication tool and instead relegating it to file transfer. the phone, which i do not use for file storage, supported this behavior by separating processing incoming mail (phone based) from creating outgoing mail (outlook client) for file exchange/pointing.
what web sites are essential?
i did add a data plan to my phone, and found myself setting up mobile twitter and using t-zones to read tweets. that will do for now. i’ll probably use sms for most everything else. i will certainly miss google maps and google render – haven’t tried either, i’m curious, but seriously doubt they will work. twitter, google reader, google maps. those were the most readable and useful sites from a blackjack perspective. i also used brightkite, but i wonder if i’ll go back when i have the iphone. i loved the information brightkite made available – it was particularly fun to watch russellreno check in across la, including roscoe’s – but unless it supports gps in the future, i would imagine i would move to a service, like loopt, that does.
i tried
before making this decision i did make a few inquiries. first i went to at+t. a month-to-month data plan was not available. i asked if they could unlock the phone, and they could, but probably not before the iphone is available. they did try to get me to sign a new contract, assuring me that i would have “no problem” getting a subsidized iphone, completely contradicting everything i had read. i did not take the bait. a store on 45th said for $50 they would unlock it in 3 days. i considered. they were pleasant to deal with, and empathized with the situation. who wouldn’t for $50 a pop? i looked online too, but elected against giving up a credit card number before i got the unlock code – which would be delivered before 8am. the u.s. carriers are abominable, but you already knew that.