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

[ny biker]

Thanks Oak!

re: iphone call quality, while the power went out at work the other day, we had a teleconference scheduled with a group of clients and other developers who were located all over the country. Our phones were out, so we went into the conference room and the manager called in from his iphone. Over the course of a 90-minute call, with the phone just sitting on the table, the call was dropped 3 times. I was pretty surprised -- it's not like we were moving in and out of areas with varying cell coverage.

For Verizon, you should definitely look at the HTC Incredible. The screen is big and the reviews really are great. Also I'm hearing that LG is going to introduce a Verizon smartphone soon, like maybe this month, and it will have slide-out keyboard which I know some people prefer. I think the LG phone will be called the Ally, but I'm not 100% on that.

Here are some links on the Incredible:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...001160_pf.html

http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/...fightContent.0

http://phones.verizonwireless.com/htc/incredible/


It's interesting that your husband still uses a separate GPS -- I have a Garmin and I figured I would wind up giving it away after getting the new phone. But I'll wait and see how I like the gps features of phone. It would definitely be handy to have access to google maps, but Garmin's "what's nearby" feature is superior, at least around this area.

Another thing is the texting, which I don't do much of now (I only just unblocked texting on my phone last month). But it's inevitable that I'll need to communicate that way more, since it's the only good way to get in touch with some of my relatives. A big chunk of the higher monthly fee will go toward unlimited texting, including pictures and videos.

I do think having web access on my phone will also make me more comfortable do bike rides alone in more areas than I ride now. I have no family to call if I need help when I'm far away from home or car, so currently I need to look up phone numbers for local cab companies in advance and put them on my cue sheet before I leave home. It would be nice to be able to know I can just look up something like that as needed, no matter where I am. And I keep coming back to that ride last year when I got caught in the unforecasted rain storm and had no idea where I might find a public building where I could take shelter for a few minutes. There were schools and stores not far away, I just didn't know that at the time...

BTW a couple of weeks ago I was out with some folks, and one of them was able to watch a major league baseball game live on his iphone. All I could think was, how cool would it be if I could watch the TdF live on my phone when I'm not at home. It might not (probably is not) available now, but someday...

Oh and I just saw your ps and remembered -- my car is bluetooth enabled, but my current phone is not. I avoid talking on the phone while I'm driving and will continue to do so, but there are times (like when I'm stuck in endless traffic on a long trip) when I need to call ahead and tell someone how late I'm running. So a phone upgrade to take advantage of the bluetooth is long overdue.