{"id":1485,"date":"2009-07-18T11:20:25","date_gmt":"2009-07-18T15:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/?p=1485"},"modified":"2009-07-18T11:20:25","modified_gmt":"2009-07-18T15:20:25","slug":"cell-phone-iii-e71x-first-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/1485","title":{"rendered":"Cell phone III – E71x first impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another cell phone jump<\/a> – this time, only a little ahead of schedule. An interesting side note – did you know that cell\u00a0 phones and cell phone batteries have cunning little patches that indicate if the device has been immersed in – just to pick a random liquid – water? They do! I once again resisted the siren call of the iPhone – two things are holding me back. First is the whole Apple=control freak thing.\u00a0 I don’t want my first interaction w\/ the phone to be jail-breaking it – I have absolutely nothing against cracking the darn thing open, but if that’s the first thing you need to do, something’s wrong. The second barrier is more important – cost. The monthly bill for those little candy bars is significantly higher that for any other smart phone and that’s before AT&T reveal the additional<\/em> $$s you’ll need to pay for tethering (you can tether now, I’m told – see point 1: jail-breaking). And there’s the additional $$s for text messages and I’m sure there are other charges that I’m not paying attention to. I’d also looked at the G1\/Dream<\/a> but purchase price (how quickly we get used to carrier-subsidized prices) and concerns about functionality on a ‘foreign’ network put me off.<\/p>\n

I ended up with a phone I’ve been eyeing for a couple months – the Nokia E71x. It runs the Symbian S60 OS – an oldy but goody with a lot of software written for it. Hardware-wise, it’s got a 3G cell radio, 802.11 b\/g (WiFi), a GPS, a hardware keyboard (something I’ve found I prefer) and a decent screen. The front panel size is on par with most landscape-screen-above-chiclet-keyboard devices I’ve seen, but it is a lot thinner. A couple pictures with my work Blackberry for comparison:<\/p>\n

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Speaking of hardware keyboards – notice the PC Keyboard in the top photo? It’s an IBM Model M<\/a> – at least 11 years old and still clacking away in bomb-proof style.<\/p>\n

First impressions of the new phone are very favorable. Battery life isn’t great, but it never is on a smartphone. I think if I could stop asking the phone to jump through hoops all day long (ooh! shiny! as applied to software) it might last a little longer between charges, too. It comes preloaded with a ton of AT&T bloatware, but as soon as my new micro-SD card arrives, I plan on using the instructions here<\/a> to get rid of most of it. Things the phone will do for me (some out of the box, some with additional software):<\/p>\n