Talk to me, Dr. LJ: Phone Edition

[mamagotcha]

So Danger was acquired by Microsoft, and now my Sidekick about as useful as a can on a string.

It's time to think about a new phone.

Things I love about my hiptop: Using AIM to chat with my husband and kids all day, every day. The responsive QWERTY keyboard. Easy Internet access.

Things I don't so much love: really, nothing. Until this horrible data outage, I was pretty happy with it. I did like playing with some g3 phones I've seen, and certainly the iPhone is a schweet piece of technology, but in general the Sidekick has been working really well for me.

When Bill had his iPhone, I messed around with it... and found the keyboard to be clumsy and hard to use. Other than that, the iPhone was pretty fun... but I type ALL THE TIME on my phone, and I need it to be able to handle that.

So... what else out there rivals the Sidekick in ease and access, but isn't supported by a company that will blithely inform me that all my data is gone and there's not a thing I can do about it?

Comments

[cazique.livejournal.com]

ugh, that's horrible. sorry to hear that. my info's in the NPL directory, and if you don't have access to that it's probably worth a footnote on the later post.

On phones - I got the iphone and worried that I'd never get used to the non-button keyboard. I got used to it, and you already know you like other stuff about the iphone. consider it.

If not, it's cliche but I have loved ever Blackberry I've ever had. They're not just for business users. I've heard very good things about the Bold, and there's a new curve either coming soon or already out. If I left the iPhone I'd probably get a bberry.

Whatever you choose, you should go to the brick and mortar store of your carrier of choice and play with the phones they have.

As for your data ... all smartphones, to the best of my knowledge, should include the ability to sync to your computer. There is NO excuse for not doing this, for just this reason, unfortunately. (Note: I'm pretty bad at doing this too, so I'm not intending to be preachy... but it's true.)

[qarin.livejournal.com]

The Sidekick does NOT let you back up to the computer. There is no user-blame to try (unsuccessfully, really- you can't say "NO excuse for not doing this" and then be at all successful in a claim of not being preachy, no matter your own poor habits).

There is a note at http://www.tmobile.com/sidekick which should convey the magnitude of the problem Microsoft/Danger has created.

I don't have many contacts on my Sidekick, but haven't lost them, only because I happened to consider, a couple of weeks ago, switching to it for my voice uses also so I started keeping it charged and on. Of course, with the recent data service problems, I imagine LOTS of people have been resetting and messing with their devices, trying uselessly to fix their connectivity.

[cazique.livejournal.com]

I didn't know any of this, so of course the user-blame profile here is different.

(unsuccessfully, really- you can't say "NO excuse for not doing this" and then be at all successful in a claim of not being preachy, no matter your own poor habits).

well, sure I can. if my computers blow out tonight and I lose everything since my last backup, I know I have nobody but myself to blame. I'm not trying to say that it's anybody's fault, but you can't deny that you open yourself up to potential failures with the lowest-common-denominator of whatever your backup plan is. I back up my hard drives every once in a while, but I sure don't do it automatically every month/week/day and don't keep offsite backups, for example, so a fire ravaging my apartment takes it all out. My iPhone recently got zapped trying to do the OS 3.1 upgrade, and I had a mini-heart attack when I thought i lost ~200 pictures of my kids on there - that stuff is priceless, the rest is just music and email that's already on gmail - that I hadn't backed up, but luckily it was ok.

[qarin.livejournal.com]

well, sure, you can blame *yourself*, but when it happens to someone else you can't blame *them* without being preachy. Not saying that preachy is necessarily inappropriate, but preachy it is.

(my full sentence, lost in my attempt at a parenthetical aside, was supposed to be "There is no user-blame to try (unsuccessfully [...] ) not to place." Perhaps that was obvious, but I hate when I fail to finish my sentences!)

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Wait. They made a phone that could not be backed up to your computer. Then set up a cloud computing system to maintain everyone's data, and they didn't back THAT up? This is epic fail.

[essaying.livejournal.com]

All the cell phone companies will do that. However, some (most?) phones let you back your data up to a computer.

We've been reasonably happy with our LZ NV phones from Verizon, and they have QWERTY keyboards. Verizon consistently scores highest of any of the major companies in customer service, but it still sucks, just a bit less than the others.

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

Of course I love my iPhone, so there ya go. Also there's free text messaging with Ping on the iPhone, and free AIM, and easy tweeting, and about a brazillion other things I don't know how I'd live without.

[mh75.livejournal.com]

send JOsh email.
He will tell you more than you want to know, but, he has experience with a lot of different phones, and service providers, by now, so he can actually give you information comparing a lot of different options. (Remember, his job is to write software for camera phones.)
He is also picky about keyboards, so you should get some good help there.
Or, if you want, send me an email with a phone number, and i'll have him call you.

[lunacow]

I've been really happy with my G1. I have the original model from T-Mobile -- not sure what else is on the market yet. This is my first smartphone, so I had no real expectations going in about what it would do and not, but I don't have any real complaints. The keyboard is easier to use than I thought it would be, and I far prefer this physical keyboard to the screen one on the iPhone (for the short periods of time I've played with iPhones). T-Mobile data coverage is decent, but not everywhere at this point.

If you are looking into the G1, one thing to investigate will be charges for different IM clients. When I got this phone, I heard that IMs on Google Talk are simply data usage (which I have unlimited on my plan), but that IMs on other services would be charged individually like text messages. I don't know if that information is either accurate or current, but it's something to check for.

[jillcook.livejournal.com]

I'm also really happy with my G1. I can't speak to the IM service charges because we also have an unlimited text family plan, so I'm not keeping track of text messages.

[otherwise-nyc.livejournal.com]

Also happy with an old-school G1 (with a physical keyboard) which should be pretty cheap these days, and which will run all the newer software that the newer, shinier ones run (that don't have keyboards). The only thing I don't 100% love is the camera, but it's fine. (It was also my first smartphone, but I played lots with iPhones, and didn't like them much.)

[via-lens.livejournal.com]

I'm on my third Blackberry Curve. I recommend the 8900 if you're sticking with T-Mobile.

Frankly, the whole Danger/Microsoft thing is a debacle, but I was similarly distraught years ago when I ditched my Sidekick, when I learned that as soon as I bought a Blackberry from T-Mobile, Danger deleted everything I'd ever had stored on their servers (including all of the address data for all of my contacts) and shut off my e-mail with no option to forward it and no way for me to recover anything. So it isn't just a problem with Microsoft's acquisition of them, it's something they've been doing to people for a long time. I thankfully had printed out my address book off of their web site.

[rubrick.livejournal.com]

Wow. What utter and complete dipshittery. That an entire customer base's data was stored in such a way that it could all be wiped out by a server blunder boggles the mind.

I've no idea what customers' terms of service might have been, but I'll be astonished if there isn't a class action suit from all this. Which of course means that in several years you'll probably get a $25 gift certificat for Microsoft products. :-P

(I of course recommend the iPhone as a replacement, but I'm biased.)