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Aug. 17th, 2007
I'm soliciting opinions on what sort of phone I ought to go for next. Frankly, I'm getting to the point where I'm fed up of paying through the nose for Orange's sluggish and unreliable GPRS service. My Treo 650 is lovely, but it's not particularly roomy, even utilising software to allow me to shunt most of my stuff onto the SD card, and it's getting a bit cantankerous in its old age. I want 3G, I want a keyboard (I'm used to the Treo and I don't think I could cope without a proper keyboard now), I want PalmOS or Linux, I definitely DON'T want windows, I want a reasonably sized screen with decent resolution (320x240 minimum). To me, that's a fairly reasonable list, but I'm damned if I can find it anywhere this side of the globe. There are some funky looking far eastern offerings that are tempting, if I could find a way to get hold of one, but basically the UK mobile phone industry is currently geared towards kids in hoodies who just want something to play their mp3s and take videos of their friends committing crimes, and businessmen who just want something that'll send email and not look too confusing. I want something I can actually use as a mini-computer (like the Treo). I want to be able to run an SSH session on it, VPN into the work LAN, write documents (albeit mainly just plain text, I'm not that fussy), read email and browse the web without having to put up with a crippled, godawful dog of a browser bundled with a crappy "smartphone" from Samsung, Motorola or LG.
Basically, what I think I want is for Sharp to produce a Zaurus with a GSM radio in it, or for Palm to release this Linux Treo they keep teasing me with, or even just a 680 with a decent internet connection and WiFi. It can't be impossible to find a phone that does all that. In fact, I know it isn't, it's just that all the ones I've found are either vapourware or only available from those cheeky chappies in China.
The Orange salesdroids have been ringing me fairly constantly recently, and with every call I try to get them to open their tiny minds enough to admit of the possibility that there might be smartphones out there that don't run Windows Mobile. Invariably they suggest one of Orange's branded smartphones, which are probably great, hardware-wise, but run Windows, and worse generally the more crippled of the variants available on current phones (the XP Home of mobile OSes). I DON'T WANT Windows. I refuse to run it on my home PCs what on earth makes these people think I want to run it on my phone?
I've toyed with the idea of just getting a crappy phone and buying myself a decent PDA or UMPC, but I don't really want to carry two devices around with me. The technology is there, so as far as I'm concerned I shouldn't have to.
So, do any of you, I'm particularly addressing those who are already smartphone abusers here, have any suggestions for me? I'd settle for a good place to buy dubious far-eastern kit from for now, really. Some of those are very cool. Or anything bleeding edge and Linuxy that I might be able to get a developer dealy type thing on. I'm sure I can write something useful if it'll get me a phone I can actually be happy with, and I need to get my teeth into something new to rekindle my hobby-coding habits anyway.