Please tell me it's worth the cost to get a smartphone!

[OakLeaf]

I don't have one yet, but DH has an iPhone, and he uses it all the time for weather, stock quotes and traffic updates.* It's also really, really nice to be able to use a search engine to find a business, etc., when you're in town and wanting to accomplish another errand rather than having to go home or find a WiFi hot spot to look them up. He has a standalone GPS, but for finding something on-the-fly rather than pre-programming it, it's a lot quicker to use the iPhone than find something in the GPS.

Or just simply to be able to look up a phone number when you're not at a WiFi hotspot, to make a phone call, without having to pay $1 for 4-1-1 (or going through the interminable ads on Free411 and then getting the wrong number anyway ).

It's also nice that he doesn't have to have to haul around both a phone and a PDA. Standalone PDAs are nearly impossible to find now. Really, the only one I'm even aware of any more is the iPod Touch, and I don't consider that a workable PDA since it doesn't have a useful alarm. I have to set separate alarms on my basic phone. If the alarm on my ancient Palm hadn't died around the same time as someone gave me my iPod Touch as a gift, I'd probably still be using the Palm.

On a short trip (one or two nights) it's perfectly adequate to leave your laptop at home. That's a huge bonus right there. Again, the iPod Touch or whatever standalone PDA you use now probably has the same browser and email capabilities as long as you have WiFi.

I wouldn't consider any smartphone but the iPhone and the Motorola Droid, just because of screen size. More of an issue for my aging eyes, maybe . But I've felt that way for at least ten years, way before smartphones with big screens ever came out. It's a lot of why I've stayed with a standalone PDA all these years, rather than get a Blackberry or Treo.

The downside, other than the cost, is that you don't have to haul around two devices - and so you do have to haul around one large one in situations when you'd normally leave your PDA at home, like running or cycling. An iPhone is a big stonkin' brick to have to stow in my SpiBelt.

DH's experience confirms all the AT&T network problems you've heard about with the iPhone. Out in the country, connectivity can be weak and 3G service isn't available in a lot of places ... in even a small city like Columbus, Ohio, network traffic can make it just interminably slow.

My contract with Verizon is up next month and I still haven't made a decision. But I'd have had an iPhone the last time my contract with Verizon came up for renewal, had I not dropped my old phone in a portajohn three weeks before the iPhone 3G came out.


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*Before you say anything - when he uses it for traffic updates, it's when I'm in the car and working the phone - or if he's on the moto, when he's at a gas stop. He doesn't surf and drive/ride, I promise!