[thechat] Cell Phone Recommendations

[Lauri Vain]

Hi Ben,

> OK, it's cell phone upgrade time for me.

I only know a thing or two about the phones of Ericsson (one of my
employers), so I can only share my knowledge about that. I hope somebody
else will be able to enlight other options from other companies.

Hmmmm... GSM rocks here but doesn't do that very much overseas (in the
States), does it? No GSM means no GPRS and other fun stuff, right?

How widespread is GSM over there anyway nowadays (personal curiosity)?

Anyway, in case you *DO* have GSM & GPRS (which basically means 'always
on' status and 'pay for traffic'), I really recommend Ericsson R520m,
T68 and T65.

R520m is from the classical 'business phone' series and has a great
calendar, GPRS, bluetooth (I think) and various other things. (I,
personally, have R320s -- something older from the same "R" series. I
miss GPRS and I'm thinking about upgrading as well. Still, I might wait
out until G3 myself... they're just around the corner here.) Dad had
this before his current one.

T68 has a color display, joystick, nice calendar, many other functions
etc, etc. It of course also has GPRS and all the other needed features
(my dad has one of them and is very satisfied). It may be somewhat
pricey, though.

And then there's T65... it seems to have all the needed things as do the
previous ones (GPRS, mobile e-mail, WAP, etc, etc).

The two last ones don't have a antenna. The first one (R520m) does have
an antenna, but you hardly notice it. It is designed with business users
in mind, which means that it has a nice large display, large keys etc.
At the same time it remains very slim and very light. (The same with my
R320s -- I hardly feel it in my pocket).

If you have a possibility to access GPRS, WAP and similar things, then
you'll soon find out that you can't live without them. The top notch
calendar is also a big plus (can be synchronized with Outlook etc).

Now, I can't tell you what you might like in case you don't GSM and
GPRS. All I can do is point you towards http://www.sonyericsson.com to
check out some phones yourself.

A friend recently bought himself a Nokia 9210 and seems satisfied with
it. www.nokiausa.com has listed other possibilities.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Yours,
Lauri
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Tharapita Creations
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lauri.vain at tharapita.com
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