My Phone Rocks.

Verizon Audiovox xv6600I 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.