Does Anyone Actually Use a "Smartphone"?

jm2morri asks: "I am currently in the market for a new cell phone and while I'm at it I'd really like to combine my PalmOS based PDA into my new cell phone. I'd really like to keep PalmOS based so that I can sync with my wife who has a PalmOS based PDA as well. However I don't want a camera since there are new security laws being written, as I type this, to restrict the use of camera-phones. Has anyone used one of the smartphones on the market? What is the voice quality like? How often does it crash? Do you have any other observations?"

Motorola A920

[obeythefist]

I use a 3G Motorola A920. Great phone. Sucky company (Hutchinson/3)

I've hacked mine a bit (replaced some of the UIQ components with third party ones) to allow me to install software (3 lock thier phones down to ensure that you can't install fun software on your phone, bollocks to that I say).

There are some stability issues (opening a 2MB e-book in html on the opera browser will cause it to lose connection with 3's network sometimes). A quick reboot fixes those of course. What price we must pay for our toys.

Also, battery life becomes more of an issue because you're dealing with a 266MHz CPU in your pocket, not just a flimsy phone-call appliance.

What's the good?

- Internet access on my phone
- Games games games
- MP3 playback
- Camera and video recording/playback
- Reading e-books wherever I go
- Phone takes 128MB SDcards for storing more MP3's
- Using MP3's as a ringtone
- Awesome address book/calendaring
- Email from your phone
- All the other neat PDA stuff

I love PDA functionality. I would own a PDA, but I would never take it with me anywhere, always leave it at home because I don't need it (like any other gadget). I have to carry my phone for work purposes, and it's useful to have with me. It also happens to do all these other amazing things. And all I need when I go out is my phone, my wallet, and my keys, and I'm set with all those capabilities listed above. It's much better than carrying phone, keys, wallet, pda, mp3 player, camera, video camera... forget that. You'd buy the camera and leave it at home and never get to take that nice picture when you get the chance. Likewise you never know when you'll get bored and just pop open one of your ebooks and have a read, or browse over to bash.org and see what people are being quoted for saying.

Re:Sony Ericsson P800

[kunudo]

And some time in the future, this will be solved by porting linux or making a new phone OS from scratch, when enough people invest in flashers and download whitepapers and service manuals for the phones. I'd love to install my own OS on the phone just for the hack value, and I'd love to have full control over the phone.