Time for a New Phone!

Can you sense the excitement? It's time to look at a new phone.

My Blackberry has suffered many abuses. I've dropped it OVER and OVER again from varying heights. I've spilled yogurt on it, and it fell into my peanut butter toast and it's been subjected to hand sanitizer to stop the spread of my (and other people's) cold viruses.

It has served me well and I love it, the problem is, the keys stick when I type messages, and I swear it is having a mental health day today because it has reset itself FOUR – yes F-O-U-R times.

The reset process is a long and frustrating one, because all you see on the screen is a rotating hourglass. Oh Joy! There it goes again – and no my problems are not related to any RIM outages! It is hardware related.

And of course, I want to lower my bills from the horrific $90.00 a month to something a little more manageable – since I am no longer using the device for it's original intended purpose (work) I think I should look at reducing my data plan while I'm at it (currently unlimited no longer offered by my carrier).

So I have the happy task of researching and testing phones.

My friend Connie has a new phone. She's had it for almost a week now and I'm not really sure if she loves it or not, but it certainly is a lovely little Windows Mobile 6 device (complete with pocket office!!!!). Her phone is the HTC Touch. It is a touch screen and has all the cool features a phone should have without being classed as a SmartPhone.

Did you know that as soon as a device is classed as a SmartPhone, telecom companies can charge an increased fee for data services (mostly because of the push email feature)?

I recently found out that my friend Barnaby Jeans also has one and he likes it.

My problem is I am so used to the QWERTY keypad setup on my blackberry, I'm not sure I want to go back to the touch pad, use a steno to draw my letters like I did when I owned my palm pilot (which by the way people stopped using only a couple months after I bought mine!).

So I'm also looking at the HTC Touch 6800. It has a slide out keypad in the QWERTY style – but because it does, it is classed as a SmartPhone and therefore is automatically going to cost me a minimum of $25 a month for data plus my phone pack.

I'll keep you posted on my new phone adventures.