This wasn’t going to be that big of a deal. Kristin and I just made a pact to step into the current decade and get data plans on our phones – and get phones worthy of data plans. Blackberry’s circa 2007 just didn’t do enough with the data plan to make it worthwhile.
It bears noting that we were able to move to unlimited data (2GB highspeed, 50MB capped roaming) and 1000 anytime minutes (up from 750) for $10 a month. You have to love T-Mobile for their pricing if not their coverage, which is definitely a disadvantage.
In any case, Kristin gave me a new phone (permission to purchase one) for my b-day. Requirements? T-Mobile. Qwerty. 3G (for reasons mentioned later, beyond the data rate). Not an iPhone because they have no 3G on T-Mo and they are flippin’ expensive, plus we are not already in the Apple ecosystem and have no desire to join it. Android but only an ICS (Android 4.x) or soon to be ICS because the mess that is Android 2.x + carrier customization makes me want to gag and I don’t want to have to root my phone to make it usable. Windows Mobile, very dependable interface/performance, not a lot of handset options though. Blackberry, best QWERTY in the business but fading from relevance and the newer handsets (needed for T-Mo 3G) are also pretty darn expensive.
Well, the Android options were too expensive and I deemed the H.M.S. Blacktanic an unwise investment. That left me with WinMo (some would say I was going that way all along… maybe, I do miss my Zune but I think it was a justified move) and there happened to be one phone that met my requirements, the Dell Venue Pro. I’d love to link that to the Dell site which was live last week, but it has since disappeared which probably has something to do with the phone being cancelled on March 8th. Sigh. I still bought one from Amazon though.
Thoughts on the phone to follow soon!
–Nat