Two phones that I looked at pretty seriously while searching for a new phone were the Samsung i500 and the Handspring Treo 600. Both are Palm OS phones, and both are excellent combinations of phone and palm. The Samsung has no SD card support, is only running palm 4.1, has no built in camera and uses the older Dragonball processor instead of the ARM in the Treo 600. It is however a bit smaller and a flip phone for those so inclined. The Samsung currently only works with Sprint, while the Treo works with pretty much everybody.
So, Why didn’t I go with the Treo 600 for my new phone? One word. Bluetooth. Neither of these new phones, which I might add, cost in the range of $500, include bluetooth functionality. While the Treo 600 has the possibility of using a SD card bluetooth module at some time in the future (the current palm one does not work), the Samsung will never have that capability. That means I can’t use a bluetooth headset, can’t sync my phone wirelessly (short of using IR… ick), and can never use a bluetooth car handsfree kit. Why in a modern cell phone, with all of these features, they would not include bluetooth is beyond me.
While I am starting to need more organizer functionality than my current phone allows, I refuse to buy a phone that does not leverage some of the best technology to hit cell phones in years, and has had common market acceptance for almost 2 years. There is talk that the Treo already has a spot on it’s logic board for a bluetooth chip, and that there will probably be a revision in the not to distant future to add this funtionality. When that happens, I will probably upgrade to this phone, but in the meantime, I’m happy to use the SonyEricsson.
On a side note, why don’t cell phones display the current weather conditions of the area the phone is in, pushed from the cell towers? I would love to have the idle screen of my phone tell me the time and weather conditions. While yes, you can just look outside, there are many times where I have been out walking and think to myself “damn it’s hot out here” and want to know just how hot it is. Having the weather automatically pushed to the phone along with a 5 day forecast would be mighty useful and something I would use all the time.
Listening to: “Homework” by Daft Punk