Last week I posted about getting a new bluetooth speakerphone, so I thought I’d follow up with some notes about my latest headset. But first – some background! Between work, PASS, oPASS, and all else I spend a good bit of time on the phone. I use ATT mainly due to inertia, and a family plan that has mostly covered the many minutes I use. Over the last few months that has been less the case, so I’ve been trying to decide if I want to send ATT more money each month or consider alternatives. Good to explore options, right?

The phone package for the office includes unlimited long distance. Not exactly “free”, but it’s a sunk cost but I rarely use it because the phone doesn’t support bluetooth and I hate holding the phone, especially on long calls. So one option would be to replace the phone with something that does support bluetooth. Still not many of those, and most of them seem to target Skype. Brian has been using Skype as a work solution and seems happy with it, so I looked at it again (had been a couple years since I last looked) and generally the call quality is good (maybe not quite as good as Vonage, but doesn’t seem like there should be much difference?) and you can call out to “real” phones for $40 a year. I travel a good bit and the calls I need to move are the long ones, so Skype seems like an ok choice.

But…my super Dell E6500 somehow didn’t come with Bluetooth. I had already fixed that with a USB mini-mini card - $20. $40 for Skype. Connected my H500 headset (great value at $20) and Skype picked it right up, but then it didn’t want to connect back to my cell phone without repairing. So…a little research and I find the H710 headset for $35 at Amazon that is multi-point/multi-connect – supports two devices. The pairing sequence is a little strange to get the “primary” phone set, but it works and there is just a slight delay if it switches from cell to Skype or back. Sound quality seems good, battery life maybe just a bit shorter than the H500. I like that you flip the boom to turn it off, easier than the press and hold the button routine. Don’t like that it uses a micro USB charging connector, cost another .89 cents plus about $3 shipping to get an adapter for the regular USB cable I use.

As a solution it works fine, I use Skype mostly for conference calls and long calls, not making any effort to switch to it entirely. $20 for the adapter, $35 for the headset, call it $5 for the cable, and $40 for Skype = $100. Could have just bought a phone for the office! But I think this works out to fit the way I work and that’s worth something. I’ve also got a Google Voice account and starting to experiment with that, not sure how it integrates into my grand plan yet.

I was visiting Compusa recently looking for a couple small things and noticed the Samsung Bluetooth Speakerphone for $24.99 (can be ordered via Amazon). I spend quite a bit of time on the phone and my regular bluetooth headset works well enough, often doing calls while driving to make use of idle time. Most of the time that’s the target market for these, in car use. Works ok there, but the reason I grabbed it was I’ve had a few times where I wanted to include someone with me on a call and had to resort to the speakerphone on my phone which works if not great. This one is light weight, has a button to switch it to handset mode for private listening, and charged via a standard USB cable.

So far it works fine, and a really reasonable solution if you don’t like the headsets.

It was only a year ago that I moved from the Blackjack to the Blackberry Curve and overall I was happy with the Curve. Great battery life, great phone, so-so on tethering so I ended up moving to a USB air card instead. The other feature that wasn't great was the camera; resolution was good enough for my needs, but it was sloooooow saving. I'd still be using it minor faults and all except for the previously posted problem it had with getting dropped in the sink. Phone worked, camera did not, and I actually use it enough that I missed it.

I would have liked the chance to try the Blackberry Storm, but it's Verizon and I use ATT, so it was either the iPhone or the Bold. I gave the iPhone serious consideration, it's shown itself to be better at mobile web browsing than anything else I've seen (I think the size of the display makes the biggest difference) and I find I spend less time replying to email via phone than in years past. Still, old habits die hard, and I was curious to see the new Blackberry in action, so Bold it was. A bold choice?

It's a 3g phone, and works as well as the Curve and other Blackberries have as a phone. Battery life is somewhat reduced, but still good enough to get through a day easily before needing a charge. The web browser is better than before (though not as nice as iPhone), the camera save time is much better, and the display itself is definitely nice. 3G helps on web browsing, is reasonably usable. Worth the $299 I paid for it? I'd say barely, when you can get the Curve for $99 or less and have a phone that works with a nice keyboard too.

It's strange to think that for years many people (consumers mainly, but some IT) wouldn't use a Blackberry because of the form factor, yet the iPhone has a similar clunky size compared to the little phones and yet people instantly take to it. I think that fun outweighs all, and the Blackberry is useful...but not fun!

I'll try not to drop this one in the sink, and try to keep it for 2 years, though I'm often tempted by the latest and greatest.

Obviously, right?

I managed to knock my Blackberry Curve off the bar and into a bowl of water in the sink. Sinking feeling. After a day of drying it would power back on, but only show a JVM-102 error. Found some instructions via Google on how to fix; download a utility to wipe the OS, download the OS and reapply using the Desktop Manager, request new service books for email, and finally, sync my Outlook address book to the phone so I have my contacts again. Much to my surprise it worked without issue, everything back and working in about 20 minutes. For another couple days the background had a mottled look in the background, but that seems to have cleared up. Phone and email are fine, but the camera doesn't seem to have recovered. Camera not a critical feature, but I do use it and so I'll have to replace it sooner or later.

Not for the first time makes me glad I rely on Outlook and sync'ing vs storing contact info in the SIM chip.

I don't buy the extended replacement plans, this is the first phone that I've managed to trash to any degree in years, and I think I only managed to lose one since I've had a cell phone, and luckily it was a work phone covered by warranty there. Warranties...like insurance....always look good when you don't have them! At about $5 a month for the replacement plan, so the odds are only so so that you come out ahead not getting it - 5 years = $300, and a replacement phone can easily be that much if it's a smart phone.

Supposedly the Blackberry Bold will ship this month, seems to be endlessly delayed. Once I look at it I can compare to the iPhone and decide what will be next.

I've been using a Blackberry Curve for a while and I'm been entirely happy with it. Great phone, great battery life, and no problems - save one. When I purchased it I also added a tethering plan as I often work remote or head to a coffee shop for a working break, and hate to rely on whereever I am to have secure wireless. The phone only works at EDGE speeds, but its good enough to check email and browse a few pages. Barely good enough! Also, the whole tethering thing seemed to be shaky, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Very frustrating to need a connection and not be able to get one.

After one aggravation too many I switched to an ATT USB Air Card (Sierra Wireless). It's 3G and it's much more usable. Sometimes it's a little flaky about being detected by the machine, but once detected has been very good. It's $60/month, plus I still have to pay $30 or so to get email on my phone, but overall worth it. Always exceptions though, today I'm at a decent sized airport and needed to work, could not get it to connect - had to pay $7.99 on wireless. Frustrating, but clearly a coverage or interference issue rather than it failing to work. Makes me wish for national WiMax!

I will say that as I've watched others with their IPhone I get jealous, the browser is nicer and bigger, and often I turn to one of those friends when we're to have them look up directions or get info we need. I can do it on my phone, but not nearly as elegantly. New phones from RIM do out soon, but I'll be surprised if they achieve the same elegance. Will I upgrade or switch to the iPhone? That's a clear case of I don't know yet.

Recently I needed to make a call and the only number I had was a mnemonic one. I get why they are useful, you want something easier to remember than numbers and perhaps just memorable in general, but my phone doesn't happen to have the letters on the keys (BlackBerry curve). Then I'm looking around for a phone with real keys.

Turns out that there is a reasonably simple solution on the Blackberry, just hold down the ALT key and enter the letters, when you hit dial it converts them to numbers. Yes, it's apparently in the manual, but seriously, is that something I'd be reading? It's a phone!

So business people, what I'd wish for is that in addition to the memorable number put the actual number in parentheses after it.

But a good blog entry bakes the whole phone number. Want to see if there is a mnemonic for your phone number? Or learn what makes a number easy to dial?

Ran across the Impactica Showmate, a $249 item (gadget?) that allows you to present Powerpoint presentations wirelessly via Bluetooth directly from a Blackberry - no wires, no laptop. Most of my presentations have a demo part that requires a laptop and I always have a copy on USB key just in case, but still, this seems interesting. One more way to get some additional mileage out of the phone. Cost seems way high from a consumer perspective, at $49 I'd buy it, probably not at $249!

For the page 10 months or so I've been using a Samsung Blackjack, before that I used various Blackberries for perhaps 5 years. I changed phones because the BB I had didn't offer the ability to tether and working mostly solo it's pretty handy to be be able to connect anytime. The tethering on the Blackjack worked fine, but the battery life wasn't great. In fact, it was so bad ATT gave owners a free extended life battery this past July.

My business partner Brian upgraded to an IPhone from a Win based smart phone, and my friend Chris also dropped his vanilla cell phone to move to an Iphone and both seemed happy. I decided to try a little harder to buy something I'd be happy with, so over the course of 45 days I tried to note how I used the phone, what I wished it could do, and what frustrated me about the current phone. I also started reading all the cell phone blogs to see what was coming up for release (as an aside, cell phones are an amazing market, there is always something new coming).

Top of the list it had to be a good phone with great battery life, had to have Bluetooth, and should make it very easy to manage three way calls when needed. It had to have the ability to sync contacts with Outlook, a feature I truly depend on. It has to offer a tethering option preferably at 3G rather than EDGE. Email is right below phone capabilities, it's definitely nice not to be tied to my laptop and still be responsive to the customer requests I get during the day. Web browsing on a phone is something I've always found barely usable and the 'real' browser in the IPhone had me interested, I could see where I would probably get a lot of adhoc reading down if I had a real browser. I also considered a smart phone with a touch display so that I could run SQL tools (Idera Mobile, or similar) but in practice I just don't need that functionality as much now that Im primarily a trainer. Having a camera was also something I preferred, using it to document white board discussions comes in handy.

I was sorely tempted to try the IPhone, based on the cool factor and the real browser, but the lack of a physical keyboard was a deal breaker for me after trying it - the virtual keyboard just didn't seem like a good fit for the way I work (and type!). That left me looking at the BB Curve and the upcoming Moto Q (I use ATT). The Curve only supports EDGE, the release date on the Moto Q was uncertain but would support 3G. Ultimately in a decision that was probably based as much on past experience as it was logic I with with the latest Curve, the 8310. Very very pleased with it so far, the only feature I miss from the Blackjack is the way it handled callerid. The Blackjack could be set to send your phone number if the number you were calling was in your address book, otherwise it suppressed it - nice for staying off calling lists. I wish the BB had a better browser and 3G, and that they'd unlock the GPS rather than charging another $10/month to use the TeleNav service!

I surprised by the number of IT pros that don't have a phone that does true email. My friend Steve finally saw the light and bought a Dash. Having email on your phone doesn't mean you have to answer every email right then, but it often is a way to keep things moving faster than they would otherwise. Finally, I'll say that as much as phones have gotten better and the IPhone is driving some innovation, they still have a ways to go.