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

[OakLeaf]

I wouldn't be able to get along without some kind of handheld calendar, address book and check/debit register. For confidentiality issues, you probably wouldn't want an Android phone (since it's all Google stuff), but a Blackberry is as secure as anything out there (including paper, that's too easily lost and can't be locked), and iPhones aren't far behind in terms of security.

I was fine for years with a separate PDA and regular phone, but it's so much handier and less bulky in my purse having a single device. It's true it's more bulky to run and ride with - situations where normally I'd carry only a phone, not the PDA - but I deal with that.

I'm old enough that the paper thing was my only choice for years. Spent way too much time manually entering everything in two or three different places and never being 100% sure whether something had been "synced up" or "backed up" or not. Never looked back.

I have my Garmin for navigation on the bike - but the phone is great in the car where I can plug it in, and I can't count the number of times that it's saved me from having to pull over and dig for a map that I might or might not even have.

[ny biker]

I have my Garmin for navigation on the bike - but the phone is great in the car where I can plug it in, and I can't count the number of times that it's saved me from having to pull over and dig for a map that I might or might not even have.

I love maps, and I have no problem reading a map. But I once paid a homeless guy in Philadelphia $5 for giving me directions when I was horribly lost in a not-very-good neighborhood, because I didn't have the right map with me. With the smartphone, I always have a local map and built-in gps to help me reach my destination.

It's also handy for running errands, when I know how to get to a certain store from my home but don't know the best way to get there from another location that I visit first. And for the kitchen renovation it was truly useful. I was looking for cool white wall tile, found something I liked in one store that was charging a high price, was able to look up the manufacturer's website, then find other tile stores in my area that carried it, then looked up their hours and used navigation to get to them before they closed. It would have taken much longer if I'd had to go home to look all that information up instead of doing it in my car while parked at the first store.

[Bike Writer]

Hopelessly in love with my blackberry. I come from a paper planner background and have used the Franklin Covey system of planning for years, they have software that integrates with Outlook and just makes Outlook a cooler version of itself and it operates on my blackberry too. I honestly have so many appointments and tasks related to work that I'd be lost without something to keep track of it all and the BB happens to be smaller and handier and do more things besides just be a planner.

I don't really use my smartphone to it's full capacity and rarely surf the net with it unless I need to find something and I'm away from my computer but I have been using it for mapping driving routes as a GPS.

The added plus is that it's also a phone and that reading what some of you use your smartphones for gives me ideas about how to realize a greater potential from it.

I'm not addicted to the point of it taking precedence, when I am face to face with others it takes the backseat and I don't inturrupt face to face interactions with it's intrusion. I love modern technology and appreciate the simple life just as much. Like so many other things it can be carried to excess. I don't enjoy watching people letting technology interfer with social things like dinner time, time out with friends, family or a spouse etc.

Meal time has always been reserved for family time without a TV on where I grew up and still practice that today, even when dining alone.

[Crankin]

I don't even use the address book function in my email... just let the auto feature work there, you know the thing that starts typing in an address when you do. I use a day planner, not the fancy kind, just a paper notebook I bought in the college bookstore. I started using Outlook for a while at work this year, but I stopped, because I hated those fricking sounds going off, the reminders, etc. And the idea of letting someone else see my calendar creeps me out. I could never work in the business world. Truthfully, I find stuff stays in my brain if I write it down, like in write, not type. Yea, I have the radio on in the car, but I could definitely live without music. I never know who is singing what anyway, and so I am not interested in buying the newest stuff, because I don't know what the stuff is!
As far as maps, I have very little occasion to have to drive somewhere that I don't know my way to. If I do, I use Mapquest, print it out, study it, so I have it just about memorized and leave it by me in the car. DH has a built in GPS in his SUV, which although we buy the updates for, sometimes is a little off. He bought a portable one for when we use my car or his Miata, which I think I could figure out, if I had to.
Can you guess that I am not very adventurous? While I do travel and go out to eat, etc. quite a bit, usually someone else is doing the planning. I do have a good sense of direction, though and most of the time, it's me that gets us out of a "lost" situation when the GPS has sent us off in the wrong direction.
Truthfully, I have a lot of trouble remembering how to use anything electronic or mechanical; it's like that part of my brain doesn't work. If it's language mediated I'm fine, but symbols or numbers, forget it. I've always wondered who makes up icons, because if they are supposed to be intuitive, they think really differently than me.
I know I'm in the minority on this list, as it seems like most cyclists are very gadget oriented and mechanical.

[ACG]

I have a work provided blackberry. It has saved me countless times at the office or when I'm home and something comes up from the office.

I have a me provided Droid. Work doesn't have this number. The map/gps has saved me countless times when I'm riding and I find construction, need a shorter way home or can't find a Starbucks.

My BF has a 2 hour commute each way, we text eachother. The best was when I was in Italy and we texted. He does not have a smart phone, doesn't want one.

We do not have phones at dinner.

My adult daughters are out and about and I need to know where there are so there is usually the "alive" text I get from them. Both are in school and I need to know they are in fact alive.

We have a pretty good deal because we are on a family plan.

This like anything else is a personal decision. There is no right or wrong here, it is how much money is it worth to you?