My Phone Rocks.
I got my new phone today, and it is just so cool.
After 1 year at Microsoft, surrounded by people who have Smart Phones and PocketPC phones and being told by countless people, "Dude... you have got to get a real phone", I finally got one. I chose this form factor because, frankly, I just can't see the use in the Smart Phone form factor. I like to be able to read my emails, but more importantly, I need an intelligent means to respond to them.
I liked the Samsung i700 for Verizon, but the keyboard on this one was the real draw for me. I have never really been a fan of inputting data on a PDA (my handwriting is generally a bit too sloppy for the transcriber), so the slide-out keyboard on this is really nice and is suprisingly easy to use.
I am pretty cheap, and have gotten by with my simple little phone for awhile now, but after one day I cannot imagine going back to that device. The benefit of synching my calendar, looking up a contact, tapping the contact, and it dialing them is, to me, immeasurable. No more trying to look up numbers on my TabletPC while driving to customer sites, then dialing them on a separate phone... you can imagine the number of "Holy Moses!" moments I have had. Worse is when the TabletPC runs out of juice and I am trying to fumble with my laptop while driving... the sun always flushes the screen out, so I have to pay that much more attention to the machine instead of my driving to locate the contact at 1400 x 1500 resolution. No more turning on my laptop after I get out of traffic to see I am dangerously close to being late for a meeting.
The only thing I will miss is the integrated camera I had on my old phone, I did use that occasionally while traveling to send snapshots home to my wife via email.