Jonzee.com

In the 13th episode of the Jonzee.com podcast I talked about a few cell phones I was looking at to replace my Treo 650. If you’ve heard me talk about it before, Ive had the Treo for about 8 months and its been through a lot. First I was using it as a MP3 player to listen to music and podcast in the car. to do that I had to use a adapter that will allow me to plug the cassette adapter into the headphone jack of the Treo, doing so eventually broke the headphone jack of the Treo which causes me to use Bluetooth headsets only. then one day I was walking out to my car with the Treo and a few other things in my hand and dropped the Treo…it bounced several times underneath the car to the point where I had to get on my hands and knees to retrieve it. Needless to say the Treo looks in really bad shape. So Ive been entertaining the idea of getting a new phone to replace it. These are a few that Ive been looking at.

Of coarse I’m a Treo owner and I loved the Treo so my first inclination is to get the Treo 680 now that it is being offered by Cingular (the provider I’m currently with) The Treo 680 looks like it is just a step up from the Treo 650 that I own, with what I would consider to be minor upgrades. First of all, the form factor of the 680 had been altered just a little with a more curvy streamline body. The corners are now a little more rounded and they have gotten rid of the "stubby" antenna that annoyed a lot of people. The overall size of the 680 is still about the same, so even though it isn’t too big of a phone, it is still a bit on the chunky side, compared to a lot of the slim phones that have been released in the last couple of years.

It also sports a newer version of the Palm OS (5.4.9) that includes a variation of a tabbed Interface. Another addition that most will like is the EDGE capability, which the 650 lacked but Still no WiFi. The rest looks to be about the same. 64mb memory with a SD card slot, Bluetooth 1.2, 2.6" 320×320 screen, with about 4 hours talk time/300 hours standby, and it cost around $199.99 with a 2 year contract

For more Info on the Treo 680, check out the palm link

Before I had the Treo 650, I was a big Sidekick user, I owned the original Sidekick, then the Sidekick 2, which ended up being a short lived ownership for reasons I explained here. But I talked before about my recent remembrance of the Sidekick 2 which made me think, maybe I should get the Sidekick 3, Go back to the old days of carrying a cell phone and a Sidekick (the phone voice quality was always horrible in the Sidekick’s I owned so I never used them as cell phones). So I went looking to see what T-mobile had to offer with the Sidekick 3.

Well from the looks of things, it looks as though it is very similar to the Sidekick 2 as far as the overall shape of the phone. it does look more sleek and smoother than the old one but it still is pretty much the same design, just a different color. It still have the signature swivel screen that attracted many to the Sidekick from day one. One thing Ive always liked about the Sidekick series of phones is that the keyboard feels so good when using it to type whatever you like to type on your phone. Its just the right size that you don’t get cramped clicking the buttons, and although the screen is about the same size as a lot of other smart phones, 2.6" (240×160), it still feels like more information is shown on the screen. I think its because the screen has almost an landscape shape instead of a boxy square shape.

The Sidekick 3 this go around supports T-mobile’s version of Edge data access, plays MP3’s, and has a 1.3 mega pixel camera. The newest feature that wasn’t included in the rest of the Sidekick phones is the addition of a Mini SD slot so that you can save your images and music instead of trying to cram everything into the phones internal memory. While there have always been several productivity software and games available, it doesn’t have anywhere near the functionality of the Treo or other smart phones available. This phone shines when it comes to text messaging, Instant messaging, and sending/receiving email. The browser goes through a proxy so it does seem a little faster loading pages, compared to other non edge/evdo phones, but it lacks a lot of functionality that makes web pages work so there will be pages you will not be able to visit. This phone can be found for about $299.99-$399.99 and is available T-mobile.

For more information about the T-mobile Sidekick 3, click here.

I heard about this phone first on the Engadget Podcast (yes I listen to a lot of podcast) and was intrigued. At one time this was the phone I made up my mind to get. What is it? The HTC 8525 from Cingular. This phone sports the Windows mobile OS version 5 which is something new for me being that Ive only used palm and proprietary OS’s in the phones Ive owned in the past. This phone is probably the most productively capable of the bunch, meaning that I probably could get more work done with this phone than any of the others due to the features. its pretty much a full scale pocket pc. the size of the phone is about that of the Treo series and at first glance it looks like I get the best of both worlds (Treo and Sidekick). When using the phone regularly, the screen shows up portrait style. but turn it on its side and the screen goes landscape and it has a slide out qwerty keyboard that looks to be about the size of the Sidekick’s keyboard. The screen is 2.8" (320×240) and it has a host of features. WiFi, Edge, Bluetooth 2.0, 2 mega pixel camera with a flash, video, Windows media player 10, Push to talk capability, and a Micro SD expansion slot.

The power behind this phone, although not up to your average pocket PC is pretty good, with a Samsung 400mhz Processor. It also has a decent amount of memory with 128mb rom and 64mb ram (which I’m sure with a Windows based OS you’ll probably need it). The price on this phone is about $399.99 with a 2 year contract and can be found at Cingular

For more Info on the HTC 8525 from Cingular click here.

The last phone I am contemplating is one I just heard about in the last 3-4 weeks. And thats the Samsung Blackjack. Many non Verizon-ers have had Motorola envy every since the Motorola Q was released a while ago, and I was one of those Envy-ers. Well the Samsung Blackjack is the perfect cure for your slim smart phone lust. This phone looks to be about as slim as the Motorola Q and looks just as slick.  With a 320×240 screen and a full qwerty keyboard, although a bit on the small crampy side, makes this phone a very attractive phone for people that want to be able to type messages and email then slip the phone into your pocket without the bulkiness that the rest of the phones Ive talked about in this article. It also sports the Windows mobile version 5 OS and instead of a touch screen, it uses a scroll wheel for on screen navigation. It also has a 1.3 mega pixel camera capable of video and plays MP3’s and can stream music and video from Cingular’s service (which offers XM radio streamed to your phone for $9 bucks a month). It also includes Bluetooth 2.0 and support for all types of email protocols. The talk time on this phone is about 3 hours and it cost about $199.99 with a 2 year contract from Cingular

For more info on the Samsung Blackjack  click here

So my decision is a really tough one, but Im sure I will make the right choice. Im still a ways away from making that decision so you never know, next week you may be reading a article here with 4 completely different phones. But for now I think this is about the best of the bunch