BuhBoo.com

Over the past few months I’ve gone through several phones and several different carriers.
It started back a May when I killed my iPhone 3G and ended December with an iPhone 3GS on T-Mobile.. I’ll make another post with more details on that.

Part of my quest inclueded looking at Android phones, other than the Hero, since I had the Hero for a few weeks and had issues.
Verizon is too expensive, plus I don’t like the Droid, so that left me at T-Mobile.

I found out about the plans at T-Mobile that you can bring your own phone and pay a cheaper month to month plan, sweet!
On AT&T I had 450 minutes, 1500 Text and unlimited web and AFTER a corporate discount, it was costing me $80 a month.
Over at T-Mobile, my plan is 500 minutes, unlimited text and unlimited web for $60 a month and NO CONTRACT.

I started doing some research and thought I’d give it a try using my 3Gs on T-Mobile. I’m happy to say that at this point the only thing I don’t have, that I had on AT&T is 3G since the 3G on AT&T and T-Mobile are not compatible.

I really don’t care about 3G – Youtube works fine over T-Mobile Edge, Slacker Radio works fine, basically I haven’t run any apps that didn’t work fine over the Edge network.

Oh, I even have a solution for Visual Voicemail.
Youmail is a free service that you redirect your voicemail to and you can do it from any phone, they also have an iPhone app with push notification and when you go in the app it’s very similar to the native visual voicemail.. so that problem was solved.

I’m VERY happy with this setup and, if requested, I’d be happy to post a tutorial on how I did it.. although there are a TON of them out there.

If anyone is thinking of trying this combination – DO IT and save yourself some $$.

My latest obsession is the Palm Pre and I have been scouring the Internet reading everything I can and watching all the videos I can.

There have been a lot of interesting posts about the device, but one thing I’m getting annoyed with is the complaints about release date.

Palm has said that it will be out the first half of ‘09, period.
I actually am OK with the fact that there’s no more concrete date than that, if they need more time to ensure a stable device then I don’t care if it’s released the last day of June.

That view is not shared by most of the posts I’ve read.
I’ve seen numerous posts about people complaining there is no release date yet, how they’re going to go buy some other phone because they’re sick of waiting, etc…

The end of June isn’t even here yet, it’s not even MAY yet, how can people be so annoyed that it’s not here yet when we’re still about two months away from the deadline.

Stop making up dates, stop trusting in the rumor mill and just wait it out.

I’m more excited for this phone that I can put in words, but I’m not expecting it to be out before the end of the year (like Palm said), any earlier is a bonus.

As you may, or may not, know the Palm Pre is rumored to be coming out on May 16th.

A lot of people were super excited about this phone when it was first announced, before the iPhone 3.0 announcement, and are still super excited even after the 3.0 announcement.

I own an iPhone 3G now.. well sort of.. I won’t go in to that whole thing again.
Ok, so I own an iPhone 3G now and LOVE it but I am still, most likely, going to switch to Sprint and the Palm Pre when it’s released. For me there are a few key factors that set it apart from the iPhone:

1. Multitasking – Being able to run applications in the background, get notifications of chat requests etc..
2. Synergy – Combining all my different data from all my different sources in one central location, that’s HUGE.
3. Access to hundreds of thousands of PalmOS apps
   • The new OS, WebOS, will not be able to run any PalmOS apps, however, an application called ‘Classic‘ is being developed by Motion Apps that will allow you to run all those PalmOS apps / games on the Pre.. very cool stuff.
4. Unobtrusive notifications – If you’re doing something, say looking at your calendar,  and a reminder, chat request, new call, etc… comes in, you can act on that notification without leaving the app you are currently working in.

For me these advantages out way the disadvantages, such as 3D games.

I got a few 3D games for my iPhone and, while it’s cool to be able to show it off, the phone is not the ideal platform for these types of games.
The touchscreen only just doesn’t lend itself to a very good control experience.

I’ve never played any of those 3D games more than once or twice, I have a computer, Wii or Xbox360 for that.

The kinds of games I play on my iPhone are things like Blackjack, Sudoku and some 2D games. Those ‘casual’ types of games will be available on the Pre.

To be honest, for what I use my phone for, I can’t think of anything else that the iPhone has over the Pre other than the hardware accelerated 3D games..

I’m just as excited about the Palm Pre now as I was pre-iPhone 3.0 announcement!

Yes I know, it’s a very odd title and you’re thinking ‘Why the H*ll would anyone want to go from an iPhone to a Treo 650??

Background:
Let me give a little background.
A little bit ago my iPhone died a horrible death and I’ve been waiting for the Palm Pre to come out anyway, so didn’t want to pay to fix my phone or renew my contract to get a new phone.

I asked around work and a friend of mine had his old 650 laying around, because he upgraded to an iPhone, and is letting me borrow it.
So there you have it, I didn’t actually choose to switch from an iPhone to a 650,  but it just kind of happen and I’m making the best of it.

I have to say that I REALLY like this phone, I wouldn’t choose it over the iPhone but it’s a FANTASTIC stand in.
There were certain apps that I used ALL the time on my iPhone; Google maps, Youtube, Facebook, Email (Exchange and iMap), Interet Radio, web and a few games.

For me the iPhone is not the ideal platform for 3D games, they look great but the controls suffer so I didn’t have any 3D games on my phone.

The (temporary) transition:
The great thing about AT&T is the SIMs.
I took my SIM out of my iPhone, put it in the Treo and that’s it – I was back in business!

So “out of the box” I could send SMS and MMS (can’t send MMS on iPhone), make and receive phone calls and browse the “web”. It’s the WAP web, so it’s not the full fledged pages like on the iPhone, but it’s good for getting information.

After some configuration and installing of application, I had almost all the same types of functionality I had on the iPhone.
By same types of functionality, I mean I’m able to do most of the things I used to do on the iPhone, but not nearly as efficiently.

Palm equilivant of iPhone apps:
Above, I listed some of the apps I used on the iPhone and now I’m going to re-list some of those apps and what I’m using to get similar functionality on the Treo 650.
The chart below is based on my usage and assumes an iPhone that is not jailbroken.

Conclusion:
This entire post is all based on my usage, but as you can see I can do pretty much everything I did on the iPhone with this phone, although not as easily or with as much style.

If the Palm Pre lives up to expectations I’ll be buying that next month (and switching to Sprint), otherwise I’ll renew my contract and get a new iPhone.

Either way, this Treo is going to be a GREAT stand in to get me to that point.

I think I’m done with the iPhone.

I’ve been waiting for the Palm Pre to come out ever since it was announced, it is reported to have a lot of the features that I wish the iPhone did have… so this may just be timing.

I was just reading my ebook while watching my son take his bath.
He wanted to ‘play guns’ so I put the iPhone on the counter, but it was on the edge and it fell a long way down and bounced on the tile a few times.

Well, it powers on and boots up, but the screen is a very nice, solid white with some black lines going through it.

I know I could get it fixed, but I think I’m done with the iPhone.
As mentioned above, I’ve been waiting for the Pre to come out since it was announced, so I was probably going to go that route anyway.

In addition, I’m sick of spending money on iPhone stuff.

Up until recently I’ve had an iPhone 2g because my contract is up in June and, again because of the pre, I didn’t want to sign up for another two year contract.

I recently found out that you can put the SIM card from your 1st gen iPhone, into the iPhone 3g and bada boom, bada bing, you’re in business.. so I tried it.

I found a used 3g on Craigslist, bought it, put my SIM in and there I was, full 3g, GPS, all the 3G good stuff!

It wasn’t too long before I noticed a scratch on the screen that I hadn’t seen when I first got it and it drove me NUTS. It was too deep to buff out and not one of the ones that could be hidden by a screen protector.

Apple wanted to charge around $200 to replace it, but I found a place locally that did it for $60 and it looks BEAUTIFUL!

Then just today, coincidentally, I noticed some dust under the glass. I compared it to my friend’s iPhone and noticed that the glass on mine was slightly looser than a stock one; I guess it’s just loose enought for some dust to get in.

Then tonight it does a header of the counter and you know the rest.

I dug through my closet and found the ‘HiPhone’ iPhone clone, that I bought intending to do a review on this site, so at least I’ll have SOMETHING to use until I can afford a replacement.
At least this way I’ll finally do my review of the phone.

I don’t think I’m gonna’ get another iPhone though. I LOVE the phone to death, I’ve had one since they day they were released in the U.S. and it’s the best device I’ve every owned, but I think I’m just going to use the replacement until the new object of my desire comes out… rumored to be Mid-May.

Sigh… now I’m stuck with the crappy HiPhone for the next month and a half… better than nothing I guess.