Moblogging phones

Part of the reason for doing this blog was to try out moblogging. I already had an interest in digital photography, blogs, and travel, so moblogging seems natural. Plus all the cool kids are doing it.

I've also become fascinated/obsessed with mobile phones lately. For many years I resisted the whole concept, but a few years ago I gave in and signed up with Sprint and bought a Motorola StarTac. I never particularly liked the phone, but it basically worked - at least until recently. The buttons and the LCD backlight both started to flake out so I told myself that I had to get a new phone. Of course I could've picked the cheapest new phone, or bought a used one off of eBay, but I went for the fanciest picture phone that Sprint had at the time, the Sanyo SCP-5300.

It turned out to be a mistake. While it did take decent pictures for a camera-phone, the phone itself was almost unusable. The headset volume was so low and the speaker port so directional, that it was next to impossible to hear it on a busy street. With the Motorola, it was usually possible to turn up the volume too loud, but the Sanyo almost never got loud enough unless I was in a quiet room. Sprint's "PCS Vision" service was painful as well. Whether it is endemic to their system, or I just happened to sign up at the wrong moment, I don't know, but it was taking 5 minutes or more to upload a 50k picture. The WAP browser was glacially slow even though it was only downloading the smallest excuse for a web page. I gave up in disgust and returned the phone and cancelled the PCS Vision service.

Usually when I buy a new toy like this I do a lot more research, so the second time around I did some homework. I found some sites that appeared to be relatively unbiased that claimed that Verizon's version of CDMA worked the best. Supposedly because they use a different frequency which penetrates buildings better and they've been around (as other carriers) for a long time, they have very good coverage. So far it seems to be true. Apparently they are ranked the highest on customer satisfaction surveys.

I went with the LG VX6000 phone. It takes mediocre pictures most of the time, but it is a pretty good phone. It's much smaller than the 5300, and the UI is much better. It doesn't have Java, but it does run BREW apps. There is no data cable available yet and I don't know if there will ever be a way to sync the contacts up with my Mac. The most brain-dead thing about it is that you only get 20 pictures - total. The Sanyo phone would only take 16 or so full size pictures, but it would at least let you save lots of lower res versions for picture caller IDs. The LG phone has room allocated to store picture messages, BREW apps, graphics, and ringtones galore, but its picture caller ID is marginally useful. Verizon does however do one basic thing right that Sprint does wrong - when you send a picture message to an email address it includes the JPG in the body of the message instead of a link. This makes the whole moblogging thing much easier to do.

If I liked bar-type phones, the Sony-Ericsson T610 is a thing of beauty. A friend of mine has one and I also got to take one apart recently. It is exquisitely designed and constructed. Unfortunately, I just can't get used to the idea of the microphone pointing at my cheek. I like folder phones better.

Given that mobile phones are advancing at insane rates - already there are one megapixel camera-phones in Japan - I'm sure this phone won't last me very long. Right now it's a fun toy. Six months from now I'm sure there will be something much much better. Already Sprint has added a few more camera-phones...

Comments

[Chris Carlin]

In case you didn't know there are now sync cables for the vx6000 available everywhere.

I use mine to sync with my Windows laptop, but I believe they're theoretically compatible with both Linux and Macs.

[Nick Doe]

I am having trouble replacing a faceplate for an LG VX6000. I have taken the 4 peremeter skrews out but something is still attatching the exterior faceplate to the back of the interior LCD screen. HELP!!! If you know ho I can take the exterior plate off please let me know.
-nick