| ETC |
hey guys,
need to get my wife a new phone for work, going with verizon because they have the best coverage by us.
basically she just needs phone, messaging and email, doesn't really need web browsing. don't have a problem with a pda if they make one that's easier/better than the "smartphones" ... easier is the key word in this whole thing.
given that ... what is the simplest, easiest to use smartphone or pda out there right now. wife isn't technophobic but gets annoyed very easy when things don't work.
any advice is appreciated, i know some of it is a matter of preference but i'm guessing there are a few that just suck and i'd like to know that before i drag her down to look at them.
thanks, e |
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| johnson |
I manage all the wireless devices for my company, approximately 500 cell phones, from 3 different providers (Sprint, VZW & AT&T). So I might know a little about this topic...hehehe
From Verizon, Palm Centro is your best bet. It is definitely not the flashiest smartphone out there (that would be the HTC Touch Pro). But it is very simple to use and has a great user interface (Palm OS). It has all the basic smartphone features - email, texting, web browser, etc.
Most of the newer smartphones available use the Windows Mobile OS. Windows Mobile phones are very, very frustrating to use. They crash & freeze often, and any function you perform has a 1-2 second delay. In other words, you click something on the screen, then it takes like 1-2 seconds for the phone to react. That delay drives a lot of people crazy. From Verizon, the Samsung Saga, Omnia, HTC Touch Pro all use the Windows Mobile OS - avoid those models. |
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| ETC |
thanks johnson
i started reading all the phone reviews at the verizon wireless site and ... they pretty much are all 70-30 "it sucks" to "i love it".
i know there's always more bad than good because people rarely seek out a soapbox to cry from when everything works ok.
most of the phones with the windows os had that lag complaint as well as short battery life and random freezing and rebooting but, so did the palm centro. i'm guessing by your experience overall the palm has less issues. some said it was not the most solid phone there is, not sure it that's a good thing for miss butterfingers [the motorola cells have survived her]
i can go with a different carrier if someone offers something more reliable but still simple
i've had most of them over the years [sprint, att, t-mobile] and verizon definately has the best coverage. i'm not crazy about the overall customer service but, i didn't really like any of the others either.
thanks, i guess i'll just have to get what she likes and get the service plan for when i takes a dive. |
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| ETC |
i was looking around some more on the verizon site, the lg envi phone says it's email capable but through "the media center" ... i'm not sure how that's different than accessing a regular email account.
would that be an option or is it some verizon bs that i don't want to deal with ? |
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| smeric |
Another vote for the Palm Centro. I've had one with Verizon for about 6 months now and it works great.
Verizon like to play games with their pricing plans/packages, so shop carefully. I ended up getting a basic voice plan with the "pay as you go" option for data services. It's been great for occasional e-mail/Web use (a few times a week) and I have yet to receive a bill for more than the cost of the cheapest voice/data bundle plan.
I think the Centro still lacks a true GPS function, although it does come with Google Maps and can estimate your position within a few blocks based on proximity to local cell towers.
And just to give this thread a car-related theme, there's a company called Auterra that makes a PDA-based code scanner for Palm OS. It comes with a special cable so you can plug your PDA/Smartphone into the OBD port on the car, read and clear trouble codes, and view detailed information about how your car is running. |
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| ETC |
that's interesting but, i have a scanner and i'd be very scared to connect anything verizon related in to my car. by the time you got it unplugged, verizon would have all the features locked down and you'd only be able to go 55 mph ;]
i'll check out the palm and see if she can use it ok. i'll get her whatever unlimited plan they have that includes email access. at her last job she averaged 2000+ minutes a month and she gets reimbursed so, not a big deal.
thanks for the input |
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| tigerclaws |
| Get an iPhone if Blackberry is not her style. |
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| ETC |
If i'm correct you can only use an iphone on att right ? if that's correct, unfortunately they have the worst service in our area.
The other consideration would be durability, i'm a little leery of the large touch screen phones on the outside. My kid has an envi that he says is pretty solid [survives falls], his friends have had the voyager with the full touchscreen face and several have dropped them with bad results.
I know, just don't drop the damn thing right ? i've worked with construction workers for years and they aren't as hard on their phones as some of these business woman are. I can say be careful with it but, once it's out of my site, it's out of my control ;] |
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| johnson |
I just looked at the LG EnV - it looks pretty good. I personally don't have any experience with it because it's not a model that is authorized with our company's email system. I would definitely visit a store & play with it first hand before buying. In fact, one good advice is to play with any phone prior to buying, especially the keyboard. Some of the on-screen keyboards like the Samsung Omnia can be very frustrating to use.
One thing I'd like to add about AT&T, even though you probably won't go that route due to the poor signal in your area. They have very bad customer service, maybe once they got the monopoly on the Apple iPhone, they feel they are now untouchable and can get away with it. Sprint and Verizon are comparably much much better. That said, the Apple iPhone is an absolutely superior product, it's just sad the customer service behind it sucks. |
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| tigerclaws |
quote: Originally posted by ETC
If i'm correct you can only use an iphone on att right ? if that's correct, unfortunately they have the worst service in our area.
The other consideration would be durability, i'm a little leery of the large touch screen phones on the outside. My kid has an envi that he says is pretty solid [survives falls], his friends have had the voyager with the full touchscreen face and several have dropped them with bad results.
I know, just don't drop the damn thing right ? i've worked with construction workers for years and they aren't as hard on their phones as some of these business woman are. I can say be careful with it but, once it's out of my site, it's out of my control ;] | |
You can get an unlocked version of the iphone. There are cases available that make the iphone more durable in case they are dropped. The apple s/w is fantastic and the only s/w that might be better would be Symbian that the Nokia's are famous for. Don't go for Microsoft software else your phone will keep crashing like my buddy's HTC. |
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| ETC |
Hey guys, thanks for the input
I ended up getting her a blackberry curve for now. Her new companies tech guy was on vacation of course so i needed to get her something and her new manager said that's what he has so i know it will work [there was some question on whether the envi could deal with a corporate email server].
So far so good on her dealing with the blackberry but, we'll see once she's in full work mode. I've got 30 days to take it back and trade it for something else so i'm having her ask what else will work when she has their guy do whatever he needs to do to the laptop and phone.
They actually had a two for one deal on the curve and though the toy geek in me was tempted, i have little or no practical use for one.
The trakball takes some getting use to but, it's ok. The key board on the LG envi is waay better than any blackberry i tested, the storm [iphone competitor] kinda sucked. The keyboard on the palm was just as bad as the blackberry. So far the software seems good, no lagging and even the voice command dialing seems to work well but, we'll see how that goes when there's 100 people in there and five on them have a similar name. |
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| skipjack |
Hello ETC. I am sure that your wife would love the Blackberry, as soon she familiarizes herself with what it is capable of doing. I use the BB 8830 World Edition from Verizon and love it.
Everyone in our company who got the BB Storm eventually switched back to the "traditional" trackball model. Why? They said that you can't check email and messages while dragging your carry-on baggage behind you in the airport, because you need 2 hands to work the Storm.
Check out www.crackberrry.com and www.blackberrycool.com for some free ringtones, wallpapers, etc. for the BB. |
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| EisBear |
+1 for the curve. I got one when they became cheap. I wish it had 802.11 wireless for hotspots like the bold does, but the bold is so much heavier.
the updated browser is way better now that you can control a pointer with the trackball (it used to scroll through highlighting words and links -- ouch).
The voice dialing gets annoying, especially because you have to look at the screen to double check that the name is right because the voice mis-pronounces the names so badly. This sort of takes away part of the advantage, especially if you are using a headset. On the numbers that you dial frequently, this is not such a problem, because you recognize what the voice is trying to say.
However, if there are similar names, it will double check with you -- "did you mean Judy Jetson?" If you say no, it moves to the next closest name, but the ones that it thinks match closely appear on the screen so you can double check. Strangely, when I use the German language option, this problem is very noticeably less severe; you just have interpolate how the names would sound in German but it is far more accurate.
One of the coolest things about the BB is how easy it is (ESPECIALLY compared to the fascist Ipaidphone) to interface with other hard/software. Getting contacts from outlook, adding email accounts (though, your probably using the enterprise server, which is a bit more complex), moving media around, it is all really easy.
I would also suggest that you pop in a storage card so that you can transfer music and other media on to it using the USB cord; the comp will allow you to use the storage card as "removable storage" and you can bypass the BB media manager. The media manager isnt bad though, it really has a lot of features also.
I also love calling numbers that I find using the browser, you click on the number and the option to call it comes up directly in the "click menu." Way useful for calling hotels when on the road to make a reservation.
Make sure to set the SMS ring to sound different from the e-mail ring; she'll see why soon enough if she uses texts.
enjoy. |
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| ETC |
Still learning how to do stuff on this thing ... there's a lot of stuff.
At first i was disappointed at the themes since i was trying to make it as simple as possible for my wife [ i get to figure it out then show her how to do it ;].
I settled on dimension today for the simplicity but like i said was annoyed that i couldn't change what was on that page [wanted direct link to address book not call log] but, i figured out if you hold the phone button down it goes straight to the add book so, that works. I'm finding out that there's a way to do pretty much whatever you want to do with hotkeys so it's all good.
i'll have to look up how to assign a different tone to messaging, i know how to assign them to contacts which is simple.
cool little machine, if they made it like the envi [flip open, large keyboard] it would be very cool and easy to type on. maybe next year they'll have one. |
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