New Arrival

No, Mrs El Gee is not pregnant, nor is the Golden having pups...my new work phone (actually a "smartphone") arrived at work yesterday. If I failed to mention it before, work decided not to reimburse us for our personal mobile phones (that we used for work) any longer and decided it was better to issue us company phones (I never see the bill) instead. We were given the option to port our personal phones over to the Work account but I had a couple of problems with that.

First, we just signed a new two year contract with AT&T on our home service (and Work would not eat the contract) and second, we had a family plan and unlike most people with family plans, it works for us. I only use the phone with any regularity when I am on call and having a plan with minimal minutes (that still gives me unlimited weekends) for just me was wasteful. Also, all my family and friends have my mobile number and since it is for "Work", I did not want to have them calling me and Work having a hissy fit over the minutes used, so I jsut decided to keep the phones and plan we have and let Work issue me a new phone.

Work preferred us to use Sprint unless we traveled outside the US (which I don't) so that is what I did...I ordered Sprint service.

The only question was, which phone do I chose? I had a few to chose from:

Motorola Q9C
Samsung i325 Ace
Palm Treo 800w
Samsung m320
Samsung m540 Rant
Samsung m620 Upstage
Sanyo 2500 s1
Sanyo 3800 tx

Had I traveled (thus using AT&T service, which we have at home) I would have had my choice of:

LG CU405
Motorola Razr v3
Nokia 6650
Samsung Blackjack II
Samsung a737
Sony-Ericsson w580i

Now I already have a "smartphone" for personal use (that Work was reimbursing me for), a Palm Centro, which runs the ever stable Palm OS 5.xx) so I really did not need a smartphone for work, BUT since the option was there and it did not cost anymore to get, I thought, what the heck. I decided on the Palm Treo 800w, which runs the Windows Mobile 6.1 OS. I have had the thing for about 24 hours and I can honestly say that I like the older, but more stable (and far easier to navigate) Palm OS.

To be fair to my new Work phone, let me start with the positives:

* The hardware is nicer than my Centro (it is bigger, has a better feel to it and the buttons are easier to use)
* WiFi is nice (I do not have that on my Centro)
* The OS is "prettier", just like XP and Vista are pretty.

The negatives can be summed up as:

* It is a Microsoft operating system, hence it needs to be rebooted. Frequently.

I have had it 24 hours and have done a soft reset more times on it than I have the past few months I have had my Centro. Syncing has been a nightmare and it will lose the ability to be recognised by my Vista Work laptop (maybe that is the problem) at the drop of a hat.

My wife asked me last night what I thought of my new phone and I told her the same thing I am posting today. Having Work issue me a phone with Windows on it was a great way to solidify me into the Palm OS camp. While I admit that WMOS 6.1 is shiny, it suffers from a lot of the same issues I hate Microsoft for. Reboots. Instability. Bloat.

Mamy people laugh when they see the Palm OS because is a bit antiquated in the looks department. It does not have any fancy animations or a "slick" interface, but gosh darn it, it is STABLE.

Let me put it this way. Would you rather drive a plain, unassuming car to work 50 miles raound trip each day or a flashy, troublesome luxury car that breaks down every other day? I will take dependabilty over flash any day. Maybe that is why I like my Linus box at home. But I digress, this is about phones.

It regards to the software that operates the phone, you get the impression with Windows Mobile that the phone was a complete afterthought. I do not get that impression with the Palm OS, but then again, I am a Palm snob.

One more thing that is most likely a positive that I cannot compare is wireless web access. Browsing the web has been pretty smooth on the Windows device. I have no idea what it would be like on the Centro, but my guess is that it would not be as smooth.

Oh well, I am sure I will get used to it...now when will the Palm Pre be available?