Tech Review

Samsung i730 PDA Phone (Verizon Wireless)

In technology, like in everything else, silver linings often accompany clouds. For the nerd (from what I hear), broken equipment needn’t be a bad thing. If one looks upon electronic tragedies as excuses to upgrade, disasters can be felicitous events.

It’s even better when you don’t have to pay for the upgrade. The best possible scenario occurred recently. My brother drove over his phone and he needed another one. I acted appropriately sorry for his loss, and then offered him my phone saying that, because he’s my brother, I would be willing to go out and purchase another. My phone at the time was a Razr V3c. If anybody has one of these, and who doesn’t, you know that you’ve missed a lot of calls because the darn buttons that control the ring volume are constantly getting pressed by accident. It drove me crazy. Anyways, I was glad to get rid of it. I can say this because my brother rarely reads my blog.

I immediately thought of what I wanted. I decided to get a “smart” phone so that I didn’t have to carry both a PDA and a phone. I have a Dell X30 which can do a bunch of stuff, but I’ve only used it to write notes and read ebooks. Phone books and calendars are better on PDAs as well. Since I was going away for a while and had an uncertain internet situation, I also wanted to be able to blog from the phone. I pictured myself out in the field or in an airport typing away and composing a post.

Well, I’ve concluded that a paper notebook still beats the handwriting recognition. I didn’t have time to read as much as I liked and even then, I preferred hard copy to computer copies. Let me clarify, when I have to read on something electronic, I’m usually at a restaurant or waiting for something and I want to read easy material like a magazine, which, of course, is what’s hard to find on a smart phone as opposed to War and Peace, which is easy to find. And, forget about PDFs; they're very difficult to read unless you want to enter scrolling hell. Because of its size, it’s harder to read a regular internet page than the specially formatted Get it Now content one can get on regular phones. Blogging is difficult on a small screen. Typing with a stylus or the uncomfortable keyboard is very frustrating. Unless you just want to throw a few sentences up there without pictures or without copying and pasting addresses and with little formatting, I would wait until I get to my laptop to write something. And, with phone sync software, and bigger phone screens, a PDA's advantage in organization software is shrinking. Music is much easier on a phone now. Movies are still easier on a PDA, but I never watch movies on anything smaller than a laptop.

After doing research I decided upon a Samsung i730. I regret the decision.

But first the reasons I chose the phone:

1. The i730 has a larger screen than the Treo.

2. The I730 has a stylus which is my preferred method of data entry.

3. The i730 can be used as a modem for the computer. I found out that almost any phone can perform this feat.

4. The i730 is cheaper than the Treo. But the i730 is not cheaper than a regular phone.

5. Getting mail from POP addresses is easier on a PDA phone. Regular phones only get it from commercial sites like MSN or Yahoo. Of course, you could just forward the mail.

What I didn’t like about the phone:

1. This phone is big. With the extended battery, this phone is too big to carry inside of a pocket and, for those who care about such things, you'll look very uncool.

2. The i730’s slide open configuration isn’t perfect. Opening answers the phone. Closing it doesn’t end the conversation. The keyboard buttons are too small to use, especially the buttons closest to the side which caused my thumbs to continuously hit upon the side “lip.” I guess I could have bought a portable bluetooth keyboard, but then I'd have to carry two things again.

3. The side buttons are also very frustrating. You have to use the slider to turn the screen on and off, but you're never sure if the PDA gets turned off or if just the back light gets turned off. I don't know; it was just confusing.

3. You can use the internet for $44.00, but you can’t use “Get it Now” for a $6.95 which is the easiest way to get quick news while you’re in line waiting for something.

4. WiFi is a waste if you have cellular internet. It's not easy to transfer files or stream music. The only network thing that's easy to do is connect to the internet to get mail of surf.

5. I surprised when I got it that the i730 doesn't have a camera. Some people think this is a good thing. It may be for super-scrict business environments, but for 99% of people, this is a bad thing. The i830 has one.

If you must have PDA functionality, I think a Treo would be better. Otherwise, just get a small phone and carry the PDA when you must. I used it with Verizon, by the way.

Samsung site.