Thursday, July 24, 2008

Tech Wants/Needs

I'm experiencing a bit of a delimma, balancing what my needs are for a cell phone versus what I want. I've currently got the Palm 700wx on Sprint, and it's been a great little phone. I can surf the web, text, and do everything I need to. I had a Pocket PC 6300 and hated it . . . not to mention it would crash, bomb, and was as stable as a leaf in a whirlwind. (Can you tell I hated it? LOL) It did have one redeeming feature, a macro mode for taking pics with the built in camera. I'm a bit of a photography buff, so being able to take a picture anytime/anywhere is nice. But I know better than trusting that duty to my phone . . . still it would be nice to have a camera at a whim. I used to carry a voice recorder for taking notes of phone numbers or things while driving, but I don't carry that anymore. I haven't used that feature on my phone either.

I can open up PDF documents with my phone, and do Excel/Word, but again . . . I haven't done either of those. My phone was meant to be a laptop replacement at times, allowing me to check mail and do other tasks, but in some ways it's not necessary so much now for those tasks. Of course, all this changes rapidly when my work projects (and church project) come online and require monitoring/intervention. With my phone I have done a remote desktop connection into our work systems to fix a problem in the past -- talk about fun while in a park having lunch!

I'm on the fence with what I want to do versus what I really need a phone to do. If I look at what I really want (an iPhone, because it would integrate with my Mac stuff) then my monthly costs would be significantly more. I suspect they would be at least $50/month more. That's $600 a year, and $1200 for the life of a contract (2 years). That's just ADDITIONAL. Hmm.

Connectivity is a huge bonus in my life to keep track of what is going on . . . but then interacting and doing things online is a key component to that. I wish I had a crystal ball to peer into the future two years to see what technology will be available and worth the changes now. Oh the decisions in life . . . LOL.

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