July 5, 2007 – iPhone? New Phone?

All the hype about the iPhone has me looking into new phones. When it comes to mobile devices I’ve been way behind the curve, although my LG VX3100 is always good for a laugh when I pull it out. After almost 4 years it’s still going strong despite my dropping it every few weeks. But as far as the various providers, networks and options I hadn’t even attempted to read up on anything this week. Looking into things though, I found a few options I’d like to get a phone including a full keypad, easy IM/Email access, web browsing on a decent screen, as much GPS and Bluetooth support as possible, maybe some ability to expand it (via java programs or something), flash support, ability for a laptop to tether to it to mooch internet and of course, a fast network. It’s be nice to have a camera/video with good integration so that it can be used easily, and of course nice to have a touchscreen. Now with just about everything in technology it’s usually a matter of finding what you want, putting on a value on the features and seeing how much the phones and plans are and tweaking everything until you find the sweet spot (or just say “iPhone, wow! mine”). Of those features I listed, the iPhone actually only has about 2 of them, but still it’s so slick it’d be tempting if I didn’t have 6 months left on my contract. Finding all these features isn’t an easy task though. Although the Blackberry comes close, I’m just looking for something for fun more than business. It doesn’t help that the plans for it are over $100/mo either. I’m still looking out for interesting phones/plans so let me know if you have any suggestions. At the moment the forerunner is the Helio Ocean. They have just about everything I listed above with the exception of realtime GPS (it’s polled every 30secs or something), no tethering to a laptop, no touchscreen. They have no flash support now, but apparently they’re working on it. As for what they do have, it seems like a sidekick with a lot of other cool things added on. Automatically take pictures and upload them to flickr geotagged for your current location, google gps maps pinpointing your location, multiple IM features for yahoo/aim/msn. It’s the one I’ll be watching, but it’s looking pretty slick right now. Biggest concerns would be the small screen size which may make browsing sites awkward, but i suppose that’s an issue with any mobile. Anyone have any phone suggestions? Or have any Helio experience that might help?