Recently in Mobile Phones Category

I have had a long-time beef with Verizon (for reasons I won't go into here) and here is yet one more story that gives me reason not to ever even consider the thought of using them.  For those of you who have ever been to some kind of Photoshop conference (especially the NAPP ones), you most certainly probably know who Ben Willmore is.  Over the past year, Ben had decided to sell his home and live aboard a motor-home full-time.  Ben has been blogging his travels and experiences throughout the entire process and it's been fun to watch where he is going and what he's doing.  I can't help but feel green with envy at him being able to do something so cool! :-)

In any case, in these days we all need to be connected and Ben is no exception.  Ben decided to get his broadband fix by using Verizon's EVDO broadband service.  So apparently "unlimited" access is not really "unlimited" in today's corporate contracts or advertising.  This is actually not unusual, but it doesn't make it right.  Corporate America is fast and furious to take your money and hold you to ridiculous contracts when it is in their favor, but lord help you if you try to actually use the service you are paying for in any kind of "unlimited" capacity.

"I've been using a Verizon EVDO card since I started living on the bus. It seems that they don't like people who actually need to use the net for their daily business life. I just received notice that they will cut off service for my card starting on 9/6/2006 because I used 10 Gigabytes of bandwidth over the last 30 days. I guess they have no idea that some people actually have to upload/download high resolution photography and do business on the net. I guess getting the satellite dish has become a major priority right now."

This is just WRONG.  It's time that the public began to hold these corporations to their advertising.  If you don't really mean UNLIMITED, then dammit, DO NOT say it is and then cry wolf when someone attempts to actually use it for business.  If you are going to cut someone off, at least have the common courtesy to give them a warning before just canceling their contract.  So the funny thing is that I am sure there are many of you out there that signed up for that EVDO service with "unlimited" data, yet for some reason need to or want to cancel, but are afraid to get hit with the penalties for doing so.  Why not give Verizon a taste of their own medicine and start jamming that pipe?  ;-)  Now I am not advocating violating the terms of your service agreement, but surely they can't prevent you from say...uploading content via FTP to your server, or some other creative use of mega-sized files that need to be sent somewhere right?  Let Verizon cancel you and you just got out of your contract.  They like games?  Just play them right back people.

You can check out the rest of the story on Ben's site and while you are at it, go ahead and subscribe to his feed!  Let him know bisonium.com sent ya and you support him in the fight for what's right.

Technorati Tags: Clueless, EVDO, Mobility, Peripherals, Stupidity, Verizon, Wireless

Recently I traded some gear I wasn't using for a TomTom Go 700 GPS with Remote Control, in practically new condition.  I have to tell you folks, this was the best trade I have done in years.  The Go 700 was TomTom's flagship GPS until their latest edition this year, the Go 910.  There are some nice upgrades on the 910 like a bigger screen, hard drive and additional Plus Services, but overall, for the price I paid, the Go 700 is one heck of a GPS unit and quite a nice add-on to my car.  You can read some great reviews on TomTom's GPS systems, as well as many others over on GPSreview.net.  If you are in the market for a GPS or just like keeping up on the latest navigation gadgetry, you should definitely check the site out.

TomTom has some great extra "Plus services" that come along with the purchase of their units.  Many of the services require pairing the GPS unit with your phone via Bluetooth.  Unfortunately the list of compatible phones is less than stellar.  If you have been following my blog for a while, you know that my current phone is a Treo 650.  It's been a solid phone, minus a few problems in the beginning, and I am generally overall satisfied with the unit.  It also happens to be one of the most popular phones around, and you would think that most companies would try to make their equipment compatible with it.  As many of you know, that isn't exactly the case.  TomTom is no exception.  The Treo 650 is not "officially" supported on their site.  That's actually not entirely true.  I was recently able to hack the Go 700 and got it to pair up successfully with my Treo 650.  The trick to this was enabling the Bluethooth mode on the Treo 650 and turning "Dial-up Networking" [ ON ].  The phone WILL successfully pair up with the Go 700 (you might have to try a few times) and if you have a service plan like Cingular's MediaNet (I have the unlimited), then you will be able to connect to TomTom's Plus services and download updates, get traffic and many more services.  You will NOT however be able to connect to the Go 700 and use it as an external speaker/mic for the Treo 650.  Basically you won't be able to use *any* normal bluetooth features, like pairing it with your headset, while in DUN mode.  That's not such a big deal to me, it might be to others.  I thought it might be interesting info for any of you Go 700 users out there that might have a Treo.  This hack might even work on the newer Go 910 and with the Treo 700 series phones.

If you don't have a portable GPS unit, you don't know what you are missing!  I wasn't really sold on the idea before.  I figured since I didn't drive out of my normal areas too often, it was a waste.  Well, how wrong I was.  If you have any kind of a lengthy commute, combining the GPS with the traffic services alone is worth the money.  The Points of Interest (POI's) is another great feature to have.  If you are somewhere and need to find say...the closest pharmacy, the Go 700 will take you to the closest pharmacy you specify.  The unit comes with an internal database of millions of POI's and you can add additional POI's by downloading them via the net, or through TomTom's website, as well as directly via the Plus services via that bluetooth connection on your phone.  Pretty darn slick.  And if you get tired of the voices that ship with the unit, you can add additional voices, available via a variety of websites out there.  My favorite co-pilot these days is "Yoda".  Yeah, you read right - YODA.  ;-)  "Right you must turn in - 400 yards!"  If you haven't had Yoda as your co-pilot, you haven't lived yet. ;-)

Technorati Tags: Cool Gear, GPS, Hacking, TomTom, Treo 650

[ via my entry on GearLive.com ]

Motorola today announced the new Moto SLVR L7 iTunes Phone.  The 2nd generation iTunes phone is sleeker and slimmer with an all new ad campaign from Cingular to boot.  The new bluetooth, quad band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz) phone features international support and is currently only available from Cingular.  Motorola is claiming the phone measures 4.5 inches tall by 1.9 inches wide by .45 inches thick and weighs just 3.5 ounces. It features talk time of “up to 6 hours” and standby time of “up to 17 days.” Pretty nifty if I do say so myself.

Other features and extras include iTunes software (same 100 song capacity - ugh), integrated hands-free speakerphone, illuminated etched keypad, VGA camera with 4x digital zoom, 262,000 “vivid color” TFT display, built-in stereo speakers, and video capture and playback. Nice.  Very nice.  Moto is also throwing in some additional ring tones and the typical Java software with AIM/Yahoo/ICQ messaging.  SMS/MMS capabilities are included as always.

Expect to pay about $199 and commit to a 2 year contract for the pleasure of owning this sexy beast.

Palm has officially released another Treo 650 Updater.  Be advised - this updater is for UNLOCKED PHONES!  There have been other updates in the past, but this specific update that was just released is v1.20 for UNLOCKED GSM phones.  Other sites are reporting this as an update across the board, this is NOT the case.  Updates for the unlocked phones are:

Performance enhancements:

• Improved memory handling for opening larger web pages
• Optimized Bluetooth performance and added support for additional headset or carkits*
• Improved voice quality
• Improved device performance for heavy data usage such as email or web downloads.
• Includes Versamail 3.1E, the latest version for the Treo 650 smartphone including an updated Mail Service (ISP) list which includes Gmail support
• Added support for Gmail attachment downloads via web browser
• Improved performance and increased stability with third-party email solutions that are offered directly from carrier partners
• Added support for wired carkits
• Updated carrier settings for data connections and MMS or when roaming internationally
• Masked password entry in browser to increase privacy
• Improved customizable voice or sound recordings for specific callers

* Only in areas where wired carkits are available

This updater also incorporates past updates and updates bundled 3rd party software (Windows only).

Well this explains an awful lot about my experiences with Cingular.  Pretty safe to say that when my contract is over, I'm sure I will want a new phone and I will be shopping elsewhere.  Sprint / Nextel maybe?  I dunno...they are all equally as bad.  Anyone out there actually LIKE their cell provider?

[ via the Consumerist ]

Former Cingular CSR Speaks: "Having worked there I would never do business with them.":

Steve W. is a reformed call center representative for Cingular who wrote in just to share his experiences during the storied Cingular/AT&T merger. If you ever had any reason to wonder why your account might have been screwed up during the transfer, his account sheds quite a bit of light.

I just wanted to drop you guys a line about Cingular. I was until recently an employee, I was a Call Center Rep. for the Northeast Region, thats pretty much everything north of Virginia not including NYC and New Jersey. Also I'm not particularly disgruntled, I left of my own accord for a better position but I thought I would shed some light on the practices that lead to the problems that some of your readers experience.

The whole ATT merger was to say the least a fiasco, Cingular simply did not think ahead on this. The same happened with their buyout of Triton in VA & WV. Basically they just dumped all the ATT customers on their Cingular call centers without training their Cingular reps on any of the ATT plans or features, or for that matter, on what would be needed to transfer from one service to the other. This left the majority of reps with no idea what to do with ATT customers, most of the time the only thing any of us could figure to do for their problems was to transfer them to an ATT call center.

Steve's whole story after the jump.

[ via PalmInsider ]

Palm presents Treo 700w on the site:

The D day is here. Palm has officially introduced Treo 700w on the Palm's site.

Unify, Simplify are the messages shown on the site and which summarizes the spirit of this new Treo

For those of you who have been under a rock lately, the Treo will be undergoing yet another major upgrade to the Treo 700p.  Along with this upgrade will come some nice additions for us existing Treo 650 owners.  Rumor has it a new firmware will be released later this month that will bring some MAJOR changes to the Treo 650.  What those changes are is anyones guess, but we know that an upgrade is imminent.  Can't wait to see this one.

For those of you with the Cingular Treo 650, if you haven't read, there is a new update available at Palm.  If you happen to be on a Mac, you may want to keep an eye out for a potential problem.  My particular Treo 650 was the "G" (Treo650-X.XX-CNG) firmware.  When you download the updater and expand it, there should be 45 files in the folder.  Somehow Palm managed to get 46 in there, the extra file being a dupe of the actual .zip archive!  If you blindly go in there and attempt to update your Treo using all 46 files, they won't all be able to fit into internal memory, therefore causing your update to fail.  Simply remove that extra .zip archive file and re-install the updates and you should be fine.  Follow the Palm instructions to a T or you could potentially lose data.  As always, make sure you backup before starting the process.  Rock on...

Well, at least this makes me feel better that I have one!  :-)

[via Palminfocenter ]

Treo 650 Named Best Converged Device:

Strategy Analytics, a global research and consulting company, today released, "Blackberry Learning Curve Too Steep for Consumers as Palm Treo Sets New Usability Standard," its latest converged device benchmark report, which concludes that thePalm Treo 650is the highest rated converged device in the USA, narrowly edging the Samsung i730 into second place and also beating the UTStarcom PPC6600 and Blackberry 7100. These results come from hands-on consumer testing by the Strategy Analytics Advanced Wireless User Panel.

[via The Register ]

Palm gets a grip on BlackBerry:

RIM's wireless email hits Treo
By Team Register
Published Monday 17th October 2005 11:57 GMT

Palm has shaken hands with Research in Motion to allow the Treo 650 and future devices to link to BlackBerry Connect. The deal will mean that the 650 and other upcoming Treos will be able to access RIM’s BlackBerry Server technology, delivering amongst other things, push-based email, wireless calendar synchronization, and IT policy enforcement and commands to the Palm devices. The Treo/BlackBerry integration will be offered from early next year and pricing and distribution will be unveiled nearer the launch.®

Engadget ran a little update story today which I had forgotten to post about when this fix became known, so here it is.  For those of you that continue to have your Treo 650 reboot for no apparent reason, it could be a simple little SIM tray causing you a lot of headaches.  Apparently this has become such an issue that Cingular and Palm are offering a replacement tray for those with the older style trays.  I just recently had my Treo 650 replaced due to numerous glitches and it included the upgraded tray.  Most of my problems have all but gone away with the new firmware and tray.  Check yours out to see if you qualify for the replacement.  More information is available at Cingular or Palm.

I have had my Treo now since February.  The first few weeks was Treo fever, but I haven't been playing around with the Treo too much lately other than getting a few cool apps like PSSH (an SSH client for the Palm).  Somehow you just take for granted that phone you lug around all day and don't realize the power you have in your hand.  I just came across a great review on Treonauts on some GPS units for the Treo.  I have actually been thinking about getting a GPS and was totally blown away with the solutions that are out there on the Treo 650.  A similar stand-alone GPS unit could easily run $1000 or more, but with a Treo 650, you could get the exact same thing for well under $299.  Check out the review for the full story...

[via PalmInfoCenter ]

Palm and Audi Launch Bluetooth Treo Handsfree System:

Palm and Audi of America, today announced their collaboration in a new generation of communications solutions designed to improve safety and convenience for drivers: easy and totally integrated hands-free calling inside the car. Using built-in Bluetooth wireless technology and the Palm Treo 650 smartphone, drivers of 2006 Audi A6 and A8 vehicles can make and receive calls totally hands-free using the car's MMI (Multi Media Interface) console, voice-recognition interface or steering-wheel controls.

Here's a new WiFi solution for you Treo 650 owners. Not my cup of tea, but if ya gotta be on WiFi, there aren't many other solutions at this moment...

Enfora's Wi-Fi Sled for the Treo 650:

It’ll swipe all semblance of pocketability from your phone, but Enfora is making good on its promise to do what palmOne has so far refused to do and is coming out with a version of its Wi-Fi Sled that’s compatible with the Treo 650 (they announced one for the Treo 600 back in January). Ships with its own battery, so you won’t drain your 650 while you’re rocking the WiFi, but the resulting add-on is so huge that you have to really, really need to have WiFi to justify carrying it around. We’ll either wait for palmOne to cave and release some drivers for their SD WiFi card or for Shadowmite to perfect his hackery.

[Via Palm247]

Well folks, if you haven't grabbed your Treo 650 by now, you may just have to wait a wee bit longer. Seems like Cingular has pulled the Treo 650 from it's website. I can only speculate that it is a direct result of the boat load of problems people are having with the firmware and SIM cards that have been shipping with the unit. That is just lovely I tell ya. Hopefully the new and improved version will come back soon...

Here's a big heads up for all you Treonauts. There seems to be a documented bug in the Cingular database concerning some wacky SIM cards. MY phone (as well as another buddy's Treo) seems to have a problem when answering incoming calls. On several occasions, my Treo 650 has frozen when picking up an incoming call. There has been no way to un-freeze the phone other than to do a soft-reset. In some cases, it will reboot the Treo automatically. I haven't had this problem but 2-3 times, but my buddy hasn't been so lucky. His phone was rendered practically unusable as a result of this glitch. The problem seems to lie within a certain batch of SIM cards. The SIM cards in question have a series of numbers on the smart-chip side that end in the letter "G". If you have one of these SIM cards and are experiencing these problems, call Cingular Tech Support or stop by your local Cingular Super Store. They will swap out the SIM for the newer "Super SIM" which appears to cure the problem. Gotta love bleeding edge baby....

Can't post about the apps and not mention the accessories. I have done my homework and looked at a lot of goodies. Here is what I have deemed a kick-ass buy:

Cases:

This was a tough one. There are loads of nice cases. My top 3 are:

1] Sena Cases: Beautiful Cases and very well made. There were others that looked similar, such as the Piel Frama cases, but the Sena Case was more functional. It allows you to use the camera and get to other essential ports on the Treo 650 fairly easily. I personally chose this case with the magnetic flip cover (pictured above). So far the only annoying thing is the flap opening up too easily, but considering the protection it gives the screen and device, it is a minor inconvenience. The other advantage to the magnetic flipper is that it allows you to carry 2 additional SD cards for the Treo. With the amount of stuff you can do on the Treo, you WILL be buying additional SD cards and now you have a place to stuff them.

2] Vaja iVolution: These cases look pretty insane. I haven't been able to see one in person, but if the price tag is any indication, they will be certain to please. I love the customizable nature of the cases. I would have probably picked this for myself, but at these prices, it is out of the range of most people with any common sense or a budget. For those of you that are fortunate enough to afford it, this looks to be a winner.

Headsets:

This was a tough one. Lots of headsets out there, but the one that seemed to get the most positive feedback was the Motorola HS810. So far the best bang for the buck. The headset has been solid, great clarity and excellent battery life. My Treo battery gives out WAY before the headset does. Best price on this beast has been through Amazon. Click the link and it will take you straight to the page.

Cradle:

So far the only decent cradle kit I have seen is the one from Palm One. The problem is that they haven't released it! Kudos on Palm one integrating a 2nd slot for the battery so that you can charge the phone AND a 2nd battery at the same time. With this phone, you are gonna need it! Click the link above for instant access to Amazon's page. Availability should be sometime in March.

One of the things to watch out for when using the latest Treo 650 is the apps you install on the device. Not all apps will yield positive results. I can't stress enough how installing the wrong app will have catastrophic effects on your device. I am to the point of not installing ANYTHING unless I read somewhere that it has been fully tested and works on the Treo 650. Of course, there ARE apps that will work and aren't going to blow your Treo up, but be careful. As I mentioned earlier, BACK UP. Another best practice to keep in mind is to install apps ONE AT A TIME. If you encounter some goofy stuff as a result of a new app, at least you know where you went wrong and it will make troubleshooting a whole lot easier. I have compiled a list of what I consider some essential apps that will make the most out of your Treo. All of these will definitely work on your Treo with no adverse effects. And the nominees are....

1] mVoice: Very cool little app that adds voice capture capabilities to your Treo. Great for Podcasts!
2] mRing: Great app if you dig MP3 ringtones and want to use them on your Treo.
3] mSafe: Essential if you are concerned about your data getting into the wrong hands.
4] mLights: The Treo 650 is a battery HOG. This will help ease the pain.
5] mNews: If you are into blogs or news, you will want this app!

6] MMPlayer: Killer video app for watching those DiVX movies on your Treo.
7] SplashPhoto: Awesome photo management.
8] Pocket Tunes: Great media player and required to run mRing.
9] Chatopus: Nifty Jabber client that allows you to connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo for free.
10] VeriChat: Another IM client that so far seems to be the leader of the pack, yearly fee is a bummer though.
11] Softick Card Export: This one makes getting to that data on the SD card a snap.
12] Salling Clicker: If you are on a Mac, don't be caught dead without this app.
13] Palm VNC: Network geeks, you know who you are. Gotta have this to remote control that server!
14] VeriSafe: You know how important backing up is. This app makes it easy and gives you way more options.

That pretty much wraps it up for the time being. As I find more essential apps, I will update the list. For now, these pretty much rock. If you know of any other apps that I missed, leave a comment! Peace out...

If you have been following my postings, by now you probably are familiar with my struggles in switching over to Cingular and getting the Treo 650. I have had my Treo 650 for a little over a week, and I have some pretty positive things to report.

The switch has definitely been worth it. The service and coverage on the Cingular side have been pretty solid. I have had very few (if any) dropped calls since my switch. The Edge data services are blazing fast for a phone. Still not exactly DSL speeds, but more than adequate for the type of stuff you would pull up over a small browser interface like on a smartphone.

The ride has been good so far, but not entirely without a few glitches. Let me start by making a very strong recommendation: BACK UP YOUR DATA. BACK UP YOUR DATA. BACK UP YOUR DATA. BACK UP YOUR DATA. BACK UP YOUR DATA. BACK UP YOUR DATA. BACK UP YOUR DATA.

Did I get my point across? Yeah, there are definitely a few bugs still looming around in the firmware. Here is a valuable tip for you Palm / Treo Newbies. When you Hotsync, a backup of your configuration is created automatically. This is good, but it is also very bad. The Treo is a Palm device, but not exactly compatible with all Palm apps. If you happen to install a rogue app that throws your phone into the reboot loop from hell, you are toast. My advice is to get your phone loaded up into a virgin state and synced up with your data and most essential (and Treo 650 Certified) apps. Make sure to set up all your preferences and settings just the way you like them. Once you have completed this step, go ahead and sync up. Now go into your Palm folder and create an archive (zip file) of that user folder. Once you have completed this step, if you ever come across a problem, you can restore your phone to a state you know is stable (by overwriting the user folder with your archived copy), and won't have to reconfigure the phone from scratch. Upon doing a hard reset and wiping out the Treo, on your next sync, it will restore it based on that archived info.

More useful tips and tricks to come...

FINALLY! My Cingular Treo 650 has arrived, and with the proper SIM card and Phone!!! Man, what a mission to get a phone and xfer service. I unpacked the phone this afternoon and set it to charge for the next few hours. After work I finally had a little time to start playing with it. I started by getting the phone activated. Everything went pretty smooth, minus the computer problems the girl on the other side was having. Total time activating and going through the checklists was about 30 minutes.

I totally made out like a bandit. All things considered, the amount of time spent was worth it. To make a long story short without going into too many details, I was able to get the phone for UNDER $300 INCLUDING TAX. Mind you, that this does NOT include a $60 credit, a waived setup fee, and another $50 rebate coming my way. So if you add it all up, I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 for everything! And here is another bonus. Looks like Cingular just changed their pricing and plans today. I had chosen to go on a Nationwide 850 plan, and as of today, that plan is now 900 minutes. But they did make one MAJOR change. I had opted for the MediaWorks plan which included unlimited data over WAP. Guess what? As of today, that MediaWorks plan only covers 3MB of data! Total BS. If you want the unlimited data, now u gotta throw in another $5. I was able to convince the girl to grandfather me into the prior plan with the unlimited MediaWorks.

So all-in-all I am pleased so far in the first few hours with the phone. I am still trying to set up all the services and get my Mac synced up and data transfered, but I am sure I will get to that later tonight. For now, I am a pretty happy camper. I will continue to make updates on the transition as interesting tid bits arise. Stay tuned....