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The other day I was fooling around on my Palm Treo, trying to make a Bluetooth dial-up networking connection from my laptop running Ubuntu GNU/Linux. After much effort, I was finally forced to admit that the Treo 700p did not natively support Bluetooth DUN. I found a phone-as-modem hack, which I installed. I failed to backup my Palm, as encouraged to do so on that page, thinking that this couldn't possibly screw up my phone.

Boy was I wrong. My phone reset, and has been acting a little flakey ever since. In the process of resetting, it wiped all of my contacts (though interestingly all of my speed-dial presets were preserved). Additionally, much of my third-party software configurations were lost (Chatter Email, KB Lights Out, etc). I'm going to perform a factory reset.

So, if you know me, please do me the favor of sending me your contact information so that I can re-enter it. I promise I'll back up my phone more regularly, so you (hopefully) won't need to do this more than once.

As an incentive, if you mention it when you send me your contact information, I'll provide to you my Grand Central phone number, so that you can have a single number to call to reach me.

Update: I had forgotten that I had executed several over-the-air synchronizations with the Zimbra server at work, so I was able to retrieve the vast majority of contacts I thought I had lost. At least one person who's contacted me so far provided me with a different number than I previously had, though, so feel free to send me your contact information just to make sure I have the correct data!

I want a new phone. My aging Palm Treo 700p is acceptable, but I'm growing tired of some of its limitations.

I want a smartphone, there's no doubt about that. I want to be able to access my email from my phone, and general internet connectivity is also something I'll use. I don't want to carry a phone and a separate internet appliance if I can avoid it. I don't particularly need a camera, but I'm sure I'll use it if it's provided.

The biggest wishlist item I have for a phone is WiFi capability. Being able to check my email over my phone's cellular connection is acceptable, but as WiFi gets more and more ubiquitous, I'd prefer to use it if possible. I'd love a phone that supports unlicensed mobile access, such that I could use a WiFi connection to place and receive calls when available without consuming cellular minutes, as well as to roam between WiFi and cellular.

I am, however, more than a little picky, and the restrictions I place on selecting a new phone severely limit my options. First, I refuse to purchase any device running Windows Mobile. I would prefer a Palm-powered device, but there are no WiFi-capable Palm-powered cell phones, only PDAs. I'm open to all other non-Windows mobile operating systems. Second, I would prefer to stay on my current provider (Sprint), so that my family can continue to benefit from the plan to which we're all subscribed. (This alone is what most limits the selection of devices available to me: Sprint doesn't offer a phone that gives me what I want.) Yes, I know Sprint stinks. Frankly, I am of the opinion that all cellular providers stink.

My boss has a Blackberry Curve, which has WiFi and UMA. It looks like it offers almost everything I would want, except that I would be required to switch to either AT&T or T-Mobile. And, although it provides WiFi internet access, I'm not sure how well of a general-purpose web device it is: I admit, the iPhone has me wanting YouTube on my phone.

Speaking of which, I previously detailed my complaints against the iPhone. The iPhone is very close to what I would like from a smartphone, save that it doesn't support UMA. I could live with that limitation, I think. The largest impediment to me pursuing an iPhone is the iTunes Music Store lock-in. I do not want to be required to use ITMS to manage my phone. I don't want to be locked in to anything, if I can help it.

I'm keeping an eye on the openmoko products, though they're (still) too immature for a user like me. I'm also hopeful that Google's Android project liberates phones in more meaningful ways.

As I mentioned above, I would prefer not to have a cellphone and an internet device. I've been growing frustrated with the limitations in the Nokia 770 I acquired, and have been casually exploring the Nokia 800 and 810 models. I don't really want to carry around two devices, and unfortunately WiFi isn't quite as ubiquitous as I would like, so I do want to be able to fall back to cellular data access when needed.

I suspect I'll end up with a Palm Treo 755p, one step up from where I am now. Carina has one, and she likes it well enough. It's the familiar old Palm, and even though it doesn't do WiFi the transition to using it will be almost negligible.

A coworker purchased a Nokia 770 Internet tablet some moons ago, and I thought it was a pretty clever little device when he let me play with it. For him, it was a good option for reasonably mobile email access, since a Blackberry or Palm Treo was too small and too complicated and too expensive to use. He could take the 770 with him to and from work, and access email, the web, and internet radio from anywhere he could get a WiFi signal.

Time passed, and he slowly stopped using the device. I hadn't thought about it at all since I first played with it, but for some reason I asked him if he still had it. He confirmed this, and asked whether I was interested in it -- he was willing to sell it for cheap since it wasn't doing him any real good.

I picked up the unit from him today and spent some time on and off through the day playing with it. I still think it's a clever little gadget, but my interest has cooled a bit after using it. First of all, too much screen space is consumed by the built-in interface. Web pages are too small to read comfortably on the space left over for applications. The system is slow, but I wasn't expecting any kind of blazing performance. The default software load is pretty modest, but there are plenty of Internet tablet applications available for installation.

The really attractive thing about the Nokia 770 is its support for Google Chat and Google Talk, allowing for IM and VoIP communications. To my surprise, there's also a Gizmo client available! I got my dad and sister using Gizmo over Skype, so I'm happy to see that supported on the Nokia. Using the Nokia 770, I can (theoretically) engage in VoIP conversations with anyone using Google Talk or Gizmo.

While it's not terribly useful as a general purpose internet device, the idea of using it as a portable communications device does have a lot of appeal. I'm strongly considering taking this with me on my trip abroad next month, so that I can keep in touch with $work without having to dig out and boot up my laptop. All I'll need is an open WiFi connection somewhere, which ought not be too hard to find (famous last words...)

This certainly won't replace my Palm Treo smartphone, which affords me the ability to check my email in the absence of a WiFi signal. I deeply wish that my Treo could use a WiFi connection were it available. My boss recently got a T-Mobile Blackberry 8320, which supports both cellular and VoIP calling, and I'm insanely envious. When in range of a WiFi connection, his phone will use that to initiate a VoIP call, which uses none of his plan's minutes. When no WiFi signal is available, it'll use the cellular network. I keep hoping that Sprint (my cellular provider) will come out with a cell/WiFi phone soon, but realistically I don't expect to see any such device in the near future. The combination of Treo + Nokia 770 rudely approximates the features, but falls far short in terms of size and convenience.

My boss at work has suggested that he might purchase Apple iPhones for us. He needs a new phone, and wants to afford us the opportunity to play with the fancy new gadget, too. We'd be responsible for paying the monthly plan charges -- he'd only be able to get the phones themselves for us.

The battery in my Treo is beginning to lose charge, so I was at first a little excited at the idea of getting an iPhone. I admit to being extremely impressed by both the functionality and the sheer elegance of the unit. But upon careful reflection, I think I'm probably going to pass, for a number of reasons:

• The iPhone uses AT&T for the carrier, notorious for their eagerness to help spy on American citizens
• I don't use Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X, so I'd have trouble activating and syncing the iPhone through the iTunes Music Store
• the iPhone does not support Bluetooth Dial-Up Networking, which allows me to connect to the Internet from my laptop via my phone. Although I don't use this feature a lot, it's darned handy when I do use it.
• I don't listen to a lot of music while out and about, so the iPod functionality of the iPhone is not very appealing to me

Another compelling reason to avoid the iPhone is lack of third-party applications. Although I use it only rarely, one of the reasons I really like my Treo is the ability to ssh into Linux servers from anywhere. There is an ssh solution for iPhones, but it's (to me) an inelegant hack. I don't know that the Safari scripts permitted on the iPhone will provide the kind of features I would like to have.

The biggest reason not to get the iPhone, though, is cost -- both dollars and minutes. We use Sprint for our carrier, currently. Our Family Plan includes me, Carina, and my dad. We have a pool of minutes we all share, and we can call each other's cell phones without using any minutes. Were I to get an iPhone, I'd be paying an extra monetary fee every month, and Carina and my dad would have to consume minutes when communicating with me (though I likely wouldn't consume any minutes, due to the iPhone's free mobile-to-mobile calls).