Shifting pains

My sis has been using a Nokia 6820 for the past 3 years now and while it was a great phone, her needs have changed as she progressed in her career. So, it was time to get her her very own smartphone as she had some very specific needs. We took a look at what's available and settled on a very nice cherry red Treo 680 for Christmas. It suits her needs very well thus far and she's quite happy with it. If nothing else, she gets to play games on her very attractive cherry red phone! Her needs were immediate, so she got her prezzie early.

Being a technophile myself, I couldn't help but take a look at my existing phone, an old but very reliable Nokia E61. I can honestly say that it's the best phone I've had in my life, functionality-wise. Ergonomically...it's quite ugly and very awkward to hold in my small hands. I also bought the unlocked version (as the E61 wasn't sold in Canada but the scaled down E61i was) which resulted in me getting the US version with a Spanish keyboard. By and large, it worked quite well but it's annoying to have to jump through hoops just to get simple symbols like '$' because its usual slot has been replaced by Spanish accented characters.

Despite that, it was a great when I had it. Now, after using it for nearly two years, it's a little banged up from everyday use. I think I dropped it about twice, which is still better than your average cell user. There are glitches where it resets and/or hangs these days which never happened when it was new. But that's not the problem. The problem is that it's simply creaking under the weight of the data I've put on the poor thing. Most of you who know me well have heard of my horrendously long and comprehensive to-do lists. I've got one big giant one sitting on my E61 and it's not liking it much. Even my phonebook is creaking along - it takes forever for it to come up with my contacts list and I really don't have that many on there. The most annoying thing are the random resets that happen - for no good reason, my E61 will just reset to default settings and I have to go back and see what's changed. I put up with all of that because it's a good phone.

Now, with my sister getting her own spiffy smartphone, I reevaluated the idea of replacing the E61. I started off with the usual basic needs: GSM, full keyboard, good call quality, good battery life, WiFi, Bluetooth, voice command, must be able to develop software for, etc. In the end, only one phone popped up: the HTC TyTN II. Unfortunately, it was a whopping $800++. We went through the standard family requisitions process and the application went down in flames - rightly so. I still had a functional (albeit slowly dying) phone and $800 was simply too much - it's over half the price of the MacBook I'm using!

So I reevaluated my needs. Now that I'm not a developer, I don't really need the full keyboard nor the ability to develop software for it. I have to face that fact that unless I return to a development path, I'm permanently out of the coding game as I will become less and less current with the latest technologies. My other requirements are mostly sound. Simply removing those two requirements widened the selection considerably. Capping the price at $500 (I'm not buying one with a contract and besides, I want it unlocked), I eventually settled on the HTC Touch. Reading the reviews, its 200MHz processor and puny 64Mb of RAM resulted in it grinding slowly along when it came to applications. Probing a bit further, I found I could buy the HTC Touch Enhanced with twice the amount of RAM and ROM for just $10 more, so I did. I'm anxiously awaiting its arrival but it looks like it won't make it in by Christmas.

For me, this whole phone business is yet another bittersweet episode. I've been coping with not being a software developer anymore now that I've moved on to product management and realizing that I'm just yet another casual user is...galling. I now use my computers to e-mail, read MS Word documents, track schedules with MS Project and make PowerPoint presentations. I don't write code on my machine anymore. It's not the job or company - I love my job and the people I work with. It's the shift. It feels...odd and disconcerting.

When my phone arrives, I know it's the right one for me. It's stylish and tiny, which means it'll fit in my handbag far better than my E61. It also has Office Mobile and syncs to Outlook seamlessly. I can still drop Pocket Scheme, PythonCE and a .NET on-device development environoment on it but I don't need to anymore. It's both liberating and frightening at the same time, like donning civilian clothing after wearing a uniform for years.