I need to purchase a new cellular phone that will work with Microsoft Exchange. The IT folks recommend the Samsung BlackJack for those of us that need a PDA and push email. The phone is pretty cheap through my carrier Cingular, ooops I meant AT&T, and I was all set to go get one next week.
But then my Dad called last night.
My parents are pretty much life-long Sprint users. And by life-long I mean as long as there have been cellular phones. They are also Mac clones. No they aren’t in publishing, but they are in the only other place where Macintosh’s flourish – higher education. Being scientists they don’t have to worry about preparing students for the real business world (as I do), so they use everything Apple-made and have as long as Apple has been around.
My Dad called and said, “We’re with AT&T now! We’re in the iPhone queue! Life is good!”
This became relevant because after looking at the BlackJack, I decided I wanted a more computer-like (as opposed to Blackberry) interface and was leaning toward AT&T’s 8525 PDA. There’s much less of a price difference between an iPhone and 8525 than an iPhone and a BlackJack.
Then I read the data plan pricing. For 20$ above my current plan’s price, I get unlimited data. Hmmmmmm.
At first I thought, seems like a nice phone but there’s no way they will include Microsoft Exchange compatibility. A quick google search proved that assumption wrong – Apple plans to include this with the phone.
I’ll wait and see how my parents like the phone and the reviews start rolling in, but I am leaning heavily toward picking one of these up in the near future. Hope they are more available then the Wii!
One of the reviews said it’s more of a handheld computer — bigger screen than most phones, full browser, HTML mail, iPod — which is lacking such traditional phone functions like voice-dialing and MMS (of course you could use email, which doesn’t cost extra like MMS often does).
Yeah the plans aren’t that bad. Engadget had a chart showing various plans on Cingular, as well as costs of their other smart phones and then total 2-year cost.
The iPhone was still higher but not by as much as people would have expected.
I went ahead and bought an unlocked Nokia E61i acouple of weeks ago because I didn’t want to be locked into a 2-year contract. Plus I plan to use it overseas.
Of course, there’s a lot of room for better specs. and lower prices in coming years.