Well, a while ago I
sang the praises of the Blackberry. I still use it on a daily basis, but it's primarily for my day job.
Now that I'm starting to do a little more work on the side I decided to look at a personal cellphone. I felt better doing my personal business on a personally-owned device so that there is no appearance of impropriety.
After doing some research, I settled on the Sprint Touch for several reasons. We already have an account with Sprint, and their service hasn't sucked too badly, at least for us. The Touch was chosen because of its size and the fact it was a Windows Mobile device.
I had thought about a Samsung Instinct, but I liked the idea of a Windows Mobile device because of the availability of software and because I was already comfortable with the OS, having used a Dell Axim for several years.
This has to be the smallest PDA/smartphone I've ever seen, measuring
2.4 in x 0.6 in x 4 in. It easily fits in my front jeans pocket, although it comes with a nice leather belt case. The screen is a generously-sized 2.8 in TFT touch sensitive display. The screen, like many Windows Mobile devices, is easily used with the included stylus. What makes it unique is its TouchFLO interface which can fairly easily be navigated with a finger. Shortcuts and a speed-dial screen is accessable with the swipe of a finger across the screen.
The phone includes a 2 megapixel camera that does stills and videos that can be stored internally or on a MicroSD card. The camera does decently in bright light, but does not have a flash, so inside pictures in low light can be a problem.
A data plan is almost a must, because if you do any web browsing at all, or want to do e-mail, it's cheaper to take the $15 Vision package rather than paying through the nose by-the-byte.
It has its faults - texting on the virtual screen takes some getting used to, especially with meathooks like mine, but once you do it actually works pretty well. Also, like many smartphones, it will occasionally lag or lock up, requiring a battery pull to get it going again. Frankly, evey PDA I've ever owned has done this, so it doesn't bother me so much.
Overall, I'm really happy with this phone. I'll continue to use my Blackberry for work, but after hours I spend more of my time using the Touch instead.
Well, after a long wait, I can finally announce when the episodes I appear in are due to be released! I've had a lot of fun participating in these projects and look forward to working with Pendant for as long as they'll have me. My thanks to everyone at Pendant - they have been incredibly supportive of me and my new-found interest in voice acting.
