Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Bill Geschwind" <geschwin AT email.unc.edu>]

I have the Samsung I-300 w/ Sprint PCS, which I bought last week at Best
Buy, where they had them on sale for $375. (they may still - it's worth
checking, since the regular price is quite steep at $500). The biggest
advantage of using this over, for example, the Palm i705 or Palm VII or
another Palm with OmniSky, is that you don't have to have a separate
service for wireless Internet/email. The wireless service uses the
Sprint PCS cell phone service and minutes spent online count against
your cell phone plan minutes. All I'm paying is $39.95/month for cell
and wireless service, as opposed to having separate services for cell
phone and wireless. This can save a tremendous amount of money over
time.

In comparison to the Treo, the Samsung has a color screen, a slightly
larger display, and uses the graffiti handwriting recognition system (as
opposed to a microscopic keyboard - a Graffiti Treo I believe will be
available sometime soon), and it costs a lot less. To the best of my
knowledge the Samsung works with CDMA networks (Verizon, Sprint PCS,
others?), whereas the Treo works with GSM networks (Cingular, others?),
and I am under the impression that CDMA offers faster data throughput
than GSM, although I haven't verified this. The Samsung and the Treo
both are a lot smaller than the bulky Kyocera Smartphone or the
Visorphone, and IMHO look a lot better.

The Samsung does have a few shortcomings: The display is very difficult
to read outdoors in direct sunlight, the machine has 8 MB of RAM and no
expansion slots, and the cradle uses a serial connection (no USB cradle
available).

Right out of the box the wireless web/email was pretty much a joke,
however I was able to configure it to dial into my ISP (Intrex) with a
PPP connection and using shareware/freeware was able to turn it into a
rather powerful machine. I have programs on it with which I can receive
POP3 and IMAP email and send email via SMTP (Sprint wireless web does
not offer an SMTP server, so you need a separate ISP for this), I can do
telnet (with SSH!!), ping, tracert, web clippings, and to a limited
extent web with HTML & graphics.

Overall I absolutely love this machine, and it is a far step better than
the Palm V and Nokia 5190 that it replaced.

If anybody is interested I would be glad to demo this gadget at the next
meeting.

- Bill


> -----Original Message-----
> From: pawelka [mailto:pawelka AT intrex.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 11:54 AM
> To: InterNetWorkers
> Subject: [internetworkers] RE: Bluetooth-enabled phones
> 
> 
> This is quite timely for me, as I have been looking at 
> PDA/phone hybrids lately. Bill, which one do you have, and 
> what do you particularly like or dislike about it? A 
> co-worker has a Treo and absolutely loves it. Anyone else?
> 
> Thanks!
> Lynn
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> From: "Bill Geschwind" <geschwin AT email.unc.edu>
> Reply-To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
> Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 11:17:42 -0400
> >
> > And since you mentioned it, I do have one of those 
> all-in-one PDA/cell 
> > phone devices, and I love it and it works very well, however the 
> > limited screen size is a compromise and I can see how it isn't for 
> > everybody.
> >
> > Hope this helps, and good luck in your quest of reaching wireless 
> > Nirvana.
> >
> > - Bill
> >
> 
> 
> --
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> Never ask a man what sort of computer he drives. If
> it's a Mac, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?
>                                          -- Tom Clancy
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> --
> 
> ---
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