Serial Phone Switching

Seven smartphones, 3 years. In search of the smartphone holy grail, what was once the perfect phone becomes the ugly duckling. What drives this search? I am not sure. It’s not just one feature (push email, web browsing, GPS, or bluetooth modem tethering) that creates the impulse to switch, but instead a combination of factors that makes the old phone seem terribly useless. Below is the story to date (early December 2006).

 

The Good & The Bad 

Siemens SX1

Nokia 9300


Palm Treo 650
 

Sony Ericsson p910

BlackBerry 7290


Sprint PPC 6700

Motorola Q

 

 

March 2004

January 2005

April 2005

July 2005

September 2005

October 2005

August 2006

Good

+

Series 60 640 pixels wide
EDGE
SnapperMail
TomTom
QWERTY PGP Support Package for BlackBerry EVDO EVDO
Fits in pocket

Bad

-

Slow data
Funky keypad
Creaked
OS X unfriendly
Two or more resets a day No PGP email encryption Web browser? Black screen of death
No PGP email encryption
6hr battery life
No PGP email encryption

Comment (1)

  1. Kevin wrote::

    As of 7 December 2006, I’ve happily switched to a BlackBerry Pearl and don’t miss a thing. Comparison photos of Q vs. Pearl at http://flickr.com/photos/kevinbocek/318466314/

    Monday, December 18, 2006 at 17:04 #