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[cogscientist]

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll have to look into that.

[jackiewetmore]

I looked at the Palm Pre -- looks really good, just pricey.  May go that route.  Thanks!

[pink_]

I like my blackberry.  I use it for the phone & texting, to check email, to manage my calendar, and it has a pretty nice camera too.  One particular photo of my dog is now the current wallpaper on my desktop at work--still looks good even that big!  I use viigo to pass time with news, or twitterberry & facebook.  I am just way more comfortable on a keyboard with buttons (I have a touch, so I'm familiar w/ the touchscreen, and after about 10 minutes it drives me nuts!).

[paprof]

I did purchase another Blackberry- the 8900. The frustrating thing is that the sync software for the Mac has not kept up and I cannot easily upload my calendar to the Blackberry, or vice versa. I am also getting more familiar with Vlingo, which facilitates voice responses to email and text messages.

PaProf

[ursula]

I'm getting a Blackberry Storm, which has the touchscreen.  I think I'm looking forward to its arrival.  I've been happy with my old original Blackberry, at any rate.

[mayjohn]

Try the T-mobile G1 (aka the "Google phone").  If T-mobile has decent network coverage in your area, it is worth it. I am a Linux user and I also want contacts/calendar/email access on-line (web based) and to have a good backup in case my phone dives with me in a pool. I have tried:

- Blackberry (Verizon)-- pain in the neck to sync or must use MS-Outlook for "seamless" integration.  If you don't go Bill Gates al the way and like Thunderbird as your email, prepare for trouble. The whole MS-Exchange business is just not an elegant solution and configuring it requires extensive contact with your institutional IT nerds to get it set up. Workable but not very Mac-friendly.

- iPhone (AT&t)-- better sync but expensive. Sorry, $70/month on the AT&T network reduces the coolness factor dramatically for me. Seamless (of course) with the Macs.

- Palm Treo 355 (Verizon)-- if on Windows, must run the Palm application. The phone is clunky and not very reliable. Using the headset ...may render the phone unusable (must send it in for repair). Clunky e-mail/web access. It has nice features (great speaker phone) and very easy to use if you are used to the Palm Pilot as a PDA ....but that is as far as it goes.

- G1 (T-mobile) -- syncs everything to your Google account. Easy and simple. With $25/month I have unlimited data and I can even use Skype. Very iPhone-ish in terms of the user interface (slightly more "coarse" in terms of the transitions) but unless you have drunk Apple's CoolAId, you will find the difference unimportant/negligible. Check it out: http://www.t-mobileg1.com/

[ursula]

I've had my touch-screen Blackberry (through Telus) for a couple of days, and quite like it.  It will take me a while to learn all of the cool things it does (and learn how to play Word Mole!), but I'm enjoying it.  My work e-mail pushes through with no problems.

[cogscientist]

I've had two weeks now to play with my iphone and I'm quite satisfied with its sync capacities. With Google cal + Remember the Milk + Evernote + Dropbox, everything I do, plan or think is synced and backed up continuously. This contributes a lot to my sanity. It's expensive, but, lucky me, it's paid for by my institute.

[i_do_not_have_a_phd]

And for $70/month I damned well ougt to be able to tether my laptop for internet connectivity--but I can't. Still, I like it quite well.

I know this is an old thread, but fwiw... You can indeed tether the iphone to your laptop for internet connectivity provided you have a data plan

[larryc]

And for $70/month I damned well ougt to be able to tether my laptop for internet connectivity--but I can't. Still, I like it quite well.

I know this is an old thread, but fwiw... You can indeed tether the iphone to your laptop for internet connectivity provided you have a data plan

Not without jail breaking it. Or do you have a hack?

[science_expat]

And for $70/month I damned well ougt to be able to tether my laptop for internet connectivity--but I can't. Still, I like it quite well.

I know this is an old thread, but fwiw... You can indeed tether the iphone to your laptop for internet connectivity provided you have a data plan

Not without jail breaking it. Or do you have a hack?

No hack necessary in the UK but it's not cheap - I just use the unlimited data with my iPhone plan.

[larryc]

And for $70/month I damned well ougt to be able to tether my laptop for internet connectivity--but I can't. Still, I like it quite well.

I know this is an old thread, but fwiw... You can indeed tether the iphone to your laptop for internet connectivity provided you have a data plan

Not without jail breaking it. Or do you have a hack?

No hack necessary in the UK but it's not cheap - I just use the unlimited data with my iPhone plan.

In the States they have not implemented tethering yet, and the rumor is that it will cost another $40 a month when they roll it out. It keeps getting delayed because the ATT network can hardly handle the andwidth right now.

There was an obscure hack for the 3.0 software that allowed tethering and I enjoyed this for about a month until I foolishly updated the software and discovered that it broke the hack.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

There are now MVNOs in the US (these are phone service providers that piggyback on other providers) that offer unlimited or nearly-unlimited service for a pittance.  For example, at Page Plus you can get over 1000 Minutes, 1000 text messages, and 50MB of data (plenty for synchronizing a calendar)/month for $30/month.  No doubt there will soon be a big shakeout of US providers, followed by universal highly discounted rates.  Meanwhile, it makes sense for cost-conscious consumers to adopt the most generic phone technology possible (ie, not the iPhone) so as to have the flexibility of switching providers as it becomes beneficial. - DvF

[jackit]

If verizon eventually offers a tethering solution on the Google phone (Android) that works well with the mac, I will go for it. I currently have a blackberry I like, but can't do reliable syncing with the Exchange server at work to get my calendar on my phone.  Also, tethering is on again/off again.

[ucprof]

I use the G1 with tmobile.  It syncs seamlessly with gmail calendar (over the cellular network) which is nice, if you are able to use
that instead of some windows nonsense.  It works for me.  If you are a linux user you will really like the G1 because it is built on linux and has apps like a seamless ssh client that you can download from the android market. 
It's not set up to merge perfectly with windows software.  I use the mac but this is irrelevant because I sync
everything to gmail over the cellular network rather than through some complicated cable attached to the computer. 

Make sure your area has good tmobile coverage since they are not quite as robust as verizon for coverage.
But they definitely have the cheapest data/voice plan especially if you do not talk that much on the phone.