What Was She Thinking?!

I just seem to be collecting gadgets like my black wool skirt collects cat hair these days. I recently upgraded my cellphone to a Motorola Slvr L7c, one of the few "candybar" style phones Verizon offers anymore. (Why in God's name does everyone want a flip phone?) I'd always lusted after the Palm Treo series, hoping that it would replace the Sony Clie TJ37 PDA that I'd been carrying around for years to surf the net, read e-books and play MP3s. But I could never justify the steep price of the Treos (even with my Verizon $100 discount).

So I had settled, this past October, for the Motorola Slvr. (I had always pronounced this "silver" because my Moto was silver in color; but I found from viewing a cNet video review of this phone that it is indeed prounounced "sliver.") I never liked that damn thing from jump street. First of all, you can't use any old headset without a special adapter. And the adapter is the same portal for the charger. So I got a bluetooth headset. But .. gotcha .. you can't use the phone while it's charging. So there would be no fighting over the same hole in the phone. Gah. It got worse from there. It was just hard to use, it didn't fit my hand well, I caught it sneaking onto the internet a few times. Nightmarish.

The Slvr does have one, and only one, drop dead wonderful feature that I have not seen on any phone I've ever had, but which IMHO should be mandatory on every cell phone. That is that the phone talks when you are dialing a number, so you have verbal confirmation that you pressed the intended keys.

I bit the bullet and got a very nice used Treo 700P, Verizon-ready, off e-Bay for way less than $200. Within half an hour after ripping the box open, I had it activated and up and running. I just got back from the Verizon store where I had them convert all my contact info from the Slvr to the Treo. I've already synced it with my Palm Desktop and installed some of my favorite Palm apps (Bejeweled, Mummy Maze, ICQ [watch out, Ivan], Moblog, Adobe Reader, Aero Player and List Maker) and some e-Books!

I've tried texting a few friends but I haven't heard back from them to see if my message actually made it through or not. One thing I already don't like about this Treo (yeah, I'm a picky little shit, aren't I?) is that with the Clie (also running Palm OS 5), you could actually tap an icon for every application and bring up a menu for that application and you could also close that application the same way. If you can do this with the Treo, I haven't figured out how, so I end up turning it off and back on again. Also, unlike my Clie, there is no handwriting application or onscreen keyboard (the Nokia has this as well, and it pops up intuitively whenever data entry is required), just the chiclet keys on the front of the phone. So that will take some getting used to.

Something I like (because my eyesight is so bad) is that you can either use the chiclet keys to dial a telephone number (why?) or you can use the big fat onscreen keypad (yayness). There is no audible confirmation as there was with the Slvr, but the keys are big enough that I haven't had to wonder whether I hit the right key or not.

I mean, I've only had this phone for less than 24 hours, and even though there are some things I think it could do better (and I'm constantly comparing it to my other beloved gadgets such as the Clie and the Nokia), I think I finally found a phone I can live with. At least until it's time to upgrade again, October 2009!

Now, I've got three gizmos in my purse that are capable of going online (the Clie, my Nokia Internet Tablet and now this Treo, although the Nokia has the best, brightest screen). All three play music (the Nokia being the less desirable music player), and all three have IM capabilities (although only the Clie and the Treo use native ICQ; the Nokia can only use IMs other than GoogleTalk and Skype via a web-based service such as KoolIM or Meebo). I think I have enough, don't you?

And by the way, I'm selling my barely two-month old Verizon-ready Motorola Slvr for $30 plus $5 shipping and that includes the 1GB mini-SD card, a custom Verizon carry case with belt clip, a car charger and adapter. PM me if you are interested and live in the Continental U.S.

You remember the Nokia 770 that was my birthday present this year? Well a few weeks ago, while I was rushing to work, I put a bottle of Vitamin Water in my tote bag. I thought I had closed the lid tightly. Eh.. suffice it to say that electronic equipment and moisture .. even life-affirming water, loaded with vitamins and nutrients .. don't mix well. I tried drying it completely out and not touching it to turn it on until it was completely dry, as he suggested. To no avail; it's dead as a doornail. I was able to salvage just a few of its parts, including the 64MB mini-SD card which came with a converter (god love it) so that I was able to use it in my new Nokia 800 internet tablet, the next generation up from the N770. The 810 is out now, but I don't care; I love this new gadget. For one thing, it's not crippled by an older version of Opera and Flash which prevent some web sites from loading at all and prohibits viewing of YouTube and similar videos. Video playback can be a bit choppy, depending on the solidity of your network connection, but I usually use it at work or at home so those networks are pretty strong and consistent. It has Skype, which you can use as an IM or use it to make phone calls right from the N800. I haven't tried that yet. The other IM client it uses is GoogleTalk. So now there's no end to the ways I can bug my friends!

Here's the newest toy, which I promise to keep safely in my purse, not my tote bag:

And here is the Nokia marketing video (9MB AVI file) which came with my N800. Enjoy.