09.28.07
Cellular Update…
I’ve had a cellphone since I first started engineering the cellphone network’s interface into the landline network back in ’84. That first cellphone was a black 3 watt Motorola portable the size, shape and weight of a car battery.
Since that time I’ve had many other, different, cellphones, including the new ones I just got earlier this week.
My current service is with Sprint PCS (has been for the past decade) and I’m pleased with the service technically, but like most Sprint customers I dread contacting Customer Service for many reasons.
Anyway, about these new phones…
The prior phones on my account were a ruggedized Sanyo 4930 for myself and a metallic pink (!) Sanyo 200 for my mother. Both were fairly basic phones with excellent battery life, outstanding speakerphones, and excellent fringe area ability. Both could also browse the internet and swap SMS and e-mail messages, although I didn’t use those “non-phone” features – mostly because of excessive cost and lack of need.
Recently I learned of a ‘special offer’ for ‘new activations only’ that for the same price I was paying for minimal voice-only service with Sprint would provide me with twice the monthly minutes, evening and weekend unlimited time starting two hours earlier, full unlimited internet, full unlimited text messaging, free roaming, free long-distance, and a few other goodies.
Of course existing customer’s lines were not eligible for this offer.
So, since I purposely haven’t been ‘under contract’ to Sprint PCS for nearly a year, I decided to order two new lines with two new (free) phones under the special offer and terminate my old service with Sprint (no termination charges) after they arrived and activated.
I also added “Sprint Navigation” (TeleNav.com) to one of the new lines/phones, since it has a full autonomous GPS built in.
The new phones are a red Samsung M300 for my mother and a Sanyo SCP-7050 (mil-spec, ruggedized) for myself.
This week I’ve been playing with the GPS features on my new phone at every opportunity (right now I’m at N 47 12’10” by W 122 32’7″ and going 0 MPH).
The combination of the GPS knowing where it is and communicating with the navigation server to present maps, turn-by-turn instructions, traffic alerts and re-routes, all on a real-time basis, is fascinating. I went to at least two places I’d never been before with no problem, and was re-routed around a mess on I-5 once so far.
Having this little black thing clipped to my car’s dashboard, showing my route and announcing over it’s speaker each action I need to take is actually as useful as it is interesting.
Oh! It also has a “pedestrian mode” that I haven’t even sampled yet. Be interesting to see how it handles getting someone from place to place walking.
While in the car, the phone is of course running from the car’s electrical power and charging it’s battery, but while hand-held, even though it has very good battery life, I have the “extended battery” on it’s way, whuch should boost it’s “talk time” from 4.5 hours to 7.5 hours.
I suspect I will be writing more about this newfangled gadget as I play with it more.
‘Nuff for now,
Tom 