Jeff Boulter's Weblog

Phone Phrustration

I've had my newest cell phone for 6 months now, and I already want a new one. Maybe I should have just gotten what I really wanted, which was a Treo. But $500 for a cell phone? Come on! It's not really any cheaper now. I can get it for $150 off on Amazon, but you have to sign up for a new plan and phone number. I'm tired of carrying around my cell phone and my jornada, which is pissing me off because it doesn't connect most of the time when I put it in the cradle. At least it isn't doing that thing anymore where it would reboot my computer when I put it in the cradle. I've looked around at the newest phones and none of them are quite what I want. Why is this so difficult?

I think I'll just list off features I want in my next phone. As soon as this phone come out, I'm getting it, no matter how much it costs!

1. Dual-band phone. It would really suck to have a single-band phone if you're stranded in the boonies. Treo is single band.
   
2. Large color display. A lot of the current phones have large displays, but they could be larger.
   
3. Transflective display. Very annoying that I can't see my jornada when outside.
   
4. Syncs continuously and flawlessly with Outlook. I shouldn't have to hit some stupid Sync button. Only ActiveSync does this from what I can tell.
   
5. Syncs web pages. I use this to keep updated information handy.
   
6. Has good signal reception. I dumped my last phone because the reception was crap. If i can't use my phone in my house, forget it.
   
7. Has an expansion port, like compact flash. I currently have a 256 MB compact flash card in my jornada. I wrote a script to pick 256MB of random music from my MP3 collection which I put on the card and use as sort of a poor man's ipod when I walk to work. Then I guess it also needs to be able to play MP3s too.
   
8. Has a keyboard. Can't beat this interface.
   
9. Syncs with Macs. I want my data at home too.
   
10. Probably has to be a Sprint phone. Locked in that contract for another 6 months at least. People are still calling my old phone number, so I don't want to have to change it again.
    
11. Is relatively small. I need to be able to fit this in my pocket.
    
12. Has a dock. Connecting a cable to charge all the time is a pain.

I think the closest phone to match all these criteria is the Toshiba 2032. It's $700 and still doesn't have features 1, 8, 9 or 11. The Treo is missing 1, 4 and 7. #12 is $50 extra! The Palm Tungsten W looks promising except for #10 and the fact you always need to use the headset. Dumb. The Kyocera 7135 is also homing in, but not quite there. The Samsung SPH-i330 is also close, but lacks other critical features.

I guess if I ever really want Mac syncing, I'm going to have to go with PalmOS, but I don't really like it. It's braindead. The contact fields are so limited. And why would you have a button that pulls down a menu bar?

I'd like to be cryogenically frozen, please, until my cell phone is ready for me.