my mobile wish list
I’ve had the same phone now since July of 2003. ‘How’ you ask? How can I - someone who is pretty demanding of their devices - possibly have had the same phone for two and a half years??
Well, first of all, it was *exactly* the device I wanted. Something that I didn’t have to sign a contract for (thank you, eBay), something that had Bluetooth (which was rare back then), a camera (and it took video: ooooo), mp3 player, email stuff… scads of features. The best part? It’s a candybar.
I like candybars. The chocolate kind with peanuts and caramel, and the digital kind that you put up to your ear and say “hello.”
It does all kinds of stuff, and it fits in my pocket.
Fastforward to the present. All kinds of high-speed data networks are growing like mold on rocks, new devices come out every couple weeks that routinely beat the competition. Heck, it’s probably possible to sit with your kr-ak-jakz-eo thingamabob on the top of a mountain in the andes and send your cousin in Sheboygan an e-mail about seeing him your sister’s bar mitzvah the next day.
With all this wonderment, why can’t I find one that I like? Reason: they all suck. It’s a multiple choice quiz:
Which one of these faults would you like in device ‘x’?
a) suck-ass battery life
b) little-to-no camera
c) qwerty keypad requires surgeon and micron etched needle
d) requires restart at random and totally inconvenient intervals
e) 2-year commitment to service of unknown quality
Here’s what I would like:
* Pocketable form factor
* usefuly sized keypad, preferably querty
* display of reasonable size
* camera that takes recognizable pictures
* reliable high-speed network
* crashes less than once a week
* bluetooth with a2dp
* at least somewhat attractive. gets a date to the prom, but doesn’t need to be crowned queen.
Here’s what I can live without:
* wifi (if I’m in range of a wifi network, chances are I’m near a computer that would be waaay better at doing anything requiring a wifi connection)
* streaming music videos with ultra bing-blingy polymorphic ring-picture-vid messages
* anything remotely related to windows
So, please, Mr. R&D, make me that damned phone. Or at least ask me for some opinion on what to make. Trust me, if you follow my suggestions, you will have that better mouse trap that most of the population is yearning for.
For the time being, I’m torn between the Treo 680 with Cingular and the BB 8703e over at Verizon. I’m sure everyone has an opinion on both, which doesn’t help me much. Maybe I’ll just flip a coin…