Following Edge

I love my new Nokia 6620 cell phone. Normally, I am on the "following edge" of technology, carefully shopping for the the equipment that has only the most important features and represents reliable, proven technology. For 12 of the 18 months I've owned my current cell phone, Anne Marie has become accustomed to watching me research cell phones every few weeks. "Buying a cell phone again?", she says. "Just looking", I say.

I had been holding out for a Linux-based cell phone, but I've decided that the "telephone" software for Linux handhelds may never become proven and stable. I need a cell phone that can browse the Internet, provide a complete email interface, and manage remote UNIX computers. The remaining options aside from Linux are Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian. I have already tried Palm and found it uninspired and I would never run Windows, so my choices eventually came down to cell phones running Symbian software.

With my previous phone, an Ericsson R520M, I had already been using Bluetooth to connect my computer to the Internet using GPRS data connection technology. I knew that I wanted to keep Bluetooth, but I also knew that GPRS was too slow at about 15Kbits/sec (on T-Mobile's data network). Cingular has upgraded their data network to support EDGE data connections all over the country. It offers 50Kbits/sec to 100Kbits/sec (faster than a regular computer modem) and is available in a $24.95/mo unlimited usage package. Compared to the slow service I was getting through T-Mobile for $19.99, this seemed like the way to go.

The options for cell phones with Symbian, Bluetooth and EDGE came down to the Nokia 9500 and the Nokia 6620. If I was a "leading edge" guy, I would have gotten the 9500, which has a bigger screen and a keyboard, but I decided to save a couple hundred dollars and use a separate keyboard instead.

I got my phone on Friday (from a1wireless.com -- the cheapest deal and with great customer service) and I have to say I am impressed. The phone is very responsive both as a phone and as an Internet device. The data service from Cingular is really quick and using the email client and the Opera web browser are a breeze. You can keep the email program open while you're running other programs or talking on the phone and it will update as new mail arrives. I have already downloaded a few add-on software packages from the Internet and tried out connections to my UNIX computers. Cool!

I have ordered a headset and a foldable keyboard to make this a complete tool. Next, I'll decide whether to get a Bluetooth GPS receiver to do mapping on my phone as I've been doing on my laptop. I'll have to see how good the cell phone GPS software is. It may be hard to beat the functionality I get on the laptop, but it'd be a lot more portable. And that's the really nice thing about doing all this on a cell phone. Now, I don't have to drag along my laptop "just in case".

In short... I love my new cell phone.