Need help with smartphone selection

[Joe Gray]

This will be my first smartphone. Live in rural area but travel a fair amount. Alltel has best coverage, by far here. No Ev-Do availability here. Alltel supports Blackberry 7250 and Palm 650. No mention of Palm 700 p in literature. Alltel personnel can't provide any help. Frustrated. Just unable to get any straight answers from Alltel. My needs for a smartphone are for use as a phone, checking my email and responding to email, and sync with the some software in my computer that contains files, address and telephone information. Pretty basic needs. Camera in the Palm might be helpful but not a priority. Trying to decide between 650, 700 p (if it will work here, and some literature says it will step down to the older data network) and Blackberry 7240.

Questions:
1. Will 700 p work on an Alltel system, and if so, Verizon or Sprint kind?

2. Do I need to even be considering the 700 p? I may be just fighting not buying the latest thing?

3. They say the Blackberry technology is dated but those I've talk to love theirs. Based upon my needs, which do you recommend and can you say why?

[Adama D. Brown]

Live in rural area but travel a fair amount. Alltel has best coverage, by far here.

Your area does have digital coverage, I assume? And do you require analog service at any point during your travels? Most smartphones, including the Treos, will not work on analog coverage at all.

Trying to decide between 650, 700 p (if it will work here, and some literature says it will step down to the older data network) and Blackberry 7240.

Yes, the 700p is compatible with older data networks

1. Will 700 p work on an Alltel system, and if so, Verizon or Sprint kind?

Probably not. CDMA carriers like Alltel usually won't activate devices not specifically approved for their systems. It's possible that they would do it, but unlikely.

2. Do I need to even be considering the 700 p? I may be just fighting not buying the latest thing?

You don't really need the 700p's options. If you don't have EVDO at home, the 700 doesn't offer a huge advantage over the 650, save for greatly increased memory. Of course, you're talking about very limited usage, so memory probably wouldn't be as much of a factor.

3. They say the Blackberry technology is dated but those I've talk to love theirs. Based upon my needs, which do you recommend and can you say why?

Either the 650 or the Blackberry would probably suit your needs pretty well. The Treo would make a much better and more comfortable phone than the Blackberry would, as well as having more and better software available.

[r0k]

This will be my first smartphone. Live in rural area but travel a fair amount. Alltel has best coverage, by far here. No Ev-Do availability here. Alltel supports Blackberry 7250 and Palm 650. No mention of Palm 700 p in literature. Alltel personnel can't provide any help. Frustrated. Just unable to get any straight answers from Alltel. My needs for a smartphone are for use as a phone, checking my email and responding to email, and sync with the some software in my computer that contains files, address and telephone information. Pretty basic needs. Camera in the Palm might be helpful but not a priority. Trying to decide between 650, 700 p (if it will work here, and some literature says it will step down to the older data network) and Blackberry 7240.

Questions:
1. Will 700 p work on an Alltel system, and if so, Verizon or Sprint kind?

2. Do I need to even be considering the 700 p? I may be just fighting not buying the latest thing?

3. They say the Blackberry technology is dated but those I've talk to love theirs. Based upon my needs, which do you recommend and can you say why?

Welcome to Brighthand, Joe Gray!

I use a Treo 650 on Verizon. From what I hear, Verizon and Alltel use similar cdma devices. You asked several questions and I will answer the ones I am familiar. I don't know if the 700p will work on Alltel, but the 700p is supposed to support faster data than the 650. I find data speed with my 650 on Verizon to be PAINFULLY slow. I am considering upgrading to the 700p for that reason. This doesn't mean it's useless. I pay for the smallest data plan: $24.99 for a mere 10 megabytes. That's enough to check email headers now and then and get the important emails' full text. This is an important issue with Blackberry. It's push. ALL your email comes through similar to SMS. It is delivered without you doing anything on your end at all. But there's a price to pay. I don't mind checking several times a day, but if you can make money by getting emails in real time then the relatively expensive blackberry plans won't seem expensive to you.

Bottom line is this. You have two viable choices. I don't recommend getting a phone your provider knows nothing about, ie the 700p. This introduces a lot of risk.

So your first choice is this: Get a known quantity and go with the 650 and live with the slower data for a while. It will still get your email and web but it is definitely not worth shelling out for an unlimited data plan to use the 650 data capabilities on a CDMA network like Verizon or Alltel. The Treo is a better choice as a PDA as it runs PALMOS applications. Mine has replaced my TX and is my only PDA these days. Avoid paying for the "unlimited" data plan and use the web and email sparingly until you are able to upgrade to the faster data capabilities offered by the 700p at a later date. This is a good reason to pay a little more up front for a one year contract so you can upgrade in a year and let Alltell subsidize the cost of the 700p.

Your second choice is driven by how fast you require your email: If you gotta have your email in real time, get a blackberry because you can get "push" email on the blackberry if you are willing to pay an additional monthly fee.

hope this helps...

Edit: I see Adama's fingers were faster on this... I agree that sometimes a carrier will refuse to activate a phone they aren't familiar with. I found Verizon to be fairly flexible and they activated just about any cdma phone I happened to get from ebay, but that is no guarantee that Alltell will honor your request to activate a 700p. One thing I forgot to mention is that the 650 is more like a z22 and a 700p is more like a TX with regard to internal memory. The 650 has a mere 32 meg which I find TINY for my needs. The 700p has 128 meg which is more like the TX. Yes, you can put some things on SD card, but I find myself putting things on SD card that I would rather load internally but there's no room. I add my vote to Adama's that the 650 will very likely serve you better than a Blackberry.