New Toy
Upon my return from the city that never sleeps, I came to the realization that I had two major problems I needed to solve quickly. First, my trusty Motorola RAZR had serious battery issues, which resulted in less than five minutes of talk time and an hour of standby. I should note that I have absolutely nothing against the phone. It's the best I've ever owned. I believe it was simply in need of a new battery. Second, I had an access problem. Whilst in New York, I was without network access for 8 or more hours per day. Unfortunately, this is not an option in today's business environment. This also isn't an isolated issue. All of my clients are Fortune 500 companies. They all take security seriously. This means no wired or wireless access when visiting them. Being the "kill two birds with one stone" kind of a guy that I am, I set out to find a solution to my quasi-related problems.
I knew such a device existed that could give me "anywhere access" and more than 5 minutes of talk time. I also knew that I would almost assuredly stick with my current provider, T-Mobile. I surveyed the current offerings from T-Mobile and found I had a couple options. I could go with one of the ever popular Blackberry devices or, take a chance on a device I had previously not heard of; the T-Mobile MDA.
Two things instantly drew me to the MDA. First, the device can slide open to reveal the keyboard. I've never liked the Treo or Blackberry because of the keyboards. Yes, I do realize that there is a Blackberry that only has a numbered keypad but, then, how do you type messages with it? Sort of defeats the purpose in my mind. Second, the MDA runs Windows Mobile 5. Our salesforce uses Treos and I've seen their struggles with Outlook integration and synchronization. I know there are far fewer issues with Windows Mobile devices. So off to my local T-Mobile store I went. A few hours later, I was the proud owner of a T-Mobile MDA.
Having owned the phone for about a week now, I can say that it's quickly in its way to supplanting my beloved RAZR as the "best phone I've ever owned". It syncs up with Outlook just beautifully, has Bluetooth, IR and WiFi connectivity options, has great call quality and decent battery life. Combined with T-Mobile's Total Internet service, I have high-speed network access via their EDGE network almost anywhere I go. I can even share the connectivity with my laptop via Bluetooth. Using the qwerty keyboard, I can send emails quickly from anywhere. I have, indeed, killed both birds with one stone.
The phone is certainly not without its flaws, however. My biggest gripe is the lack of a numeric keypad. Of course, I can't really gripe about this. I knew this would be the case going in. It's a small price to pay for all of the features and benefits I've gained by moving to this device. All in all, I'm very pleased with my decision. I reccomend mobile business users who aren't sold on a Blackberry or Treo, for the same reasons I was, to give a Windows Mobile device like the MDA a try.
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