Posted by Scott Laird
Sun, 18 Jun 2006 15:07:44 GMT
I’ve mentioned a few times that I was an old AT&T Wireless customer, which means that I was paying Cingular a lot of money every month to be a second-class citizen. With an AT&T account, I couldn’t buy a new Cingular phone (they’re locked to Cingular’s network) or add features (like a wireless data plan) to my account without trading in my old AT&T account for a shiny new Cingular plan. And I didn’t want to do that for a few reasons:
I have a family plan, which means that I’d have to switch both lines at the same time. Which means that I’d have to buy a pair of new phones.
I had a reasonably cheap plan with AT&T, and comperable Cingular plans cost more and provide less.
Finally, switching plans means that I’d be stuck with at least a 1-year contract extension.
So, basically, it meant that it was a pain to change phones. If I wanted to get a new phone and have some sort of unmetered network service, then I was going to have to pay more for basic phone service and I’d have to replace my wife’s phone. Which is a pain. So I’d been putting it off until just the right phone came along.
Well, with the E61 on the way Friday, it was finally time. I needed to turn on a data plan for the E61, but I didn’t want to pay more for basic phone service. In general, normal customer service reps are helpless to do anything about this sort of complaint, so I decided to bite the bullet and threaten to cancel; the retention department at most carriers is able to make deals, but you need to be willing to actually cancel and switch carriers if you can’t make a deal. So I called Cingular’s customer service and asked the to transfer me straight to the retension department. Once I had a rentention rep on the line, I told her that I’d been with Cingular for years and I was going to switch to T-Mobile if I couldn’t get a deal.
Amazingly enough, she didn’t even blink, and offered me an extra 100 minutes per month for the same price I was already paying, and threw in a decent discount on phones. So, all in all, I’m happy. I feel kind of mercenary, but I figure I can live that if it saves me $400 or so over the next couple years.
[FWIW, I actually wrote this on the E61 and then mailed it to my Mac for posting. I need to find a decent web editor for S60. Any suggestions?]
Tags cingular, phones | 20 comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:23:36 GMT
Long-time readers here know that I’m prone to getting all excited about getting a new cell phone, and then never quite pulling the trigger to buy one. My current phone is a Sony-Ericsson T616 from early 2004. I came close to buying the Treo 650 and waited for most of a year for the Nokia N91 to ship in the US. Then, when the Nokia E70 was announced, I stopped waiting for the N91 and started waiting for the E70.
The E70 just started shipping in Europe. It looks like a nice phone. The problem with the European E70 (and the N91 that’s finally shipping in the US) is that it doesn’t support GSM at 850 MHz, so it’s mostly useless on Cingular’s network. And it’s increasing looking like Cingular is the only US GSM provider with a decent data network. So, unless a US-specific 850 MHz version of the E70 starts shipping, it just isn’t going to work for me.
Right now, I’m carrying too many gadgets around–I have my phone, an iPod, a Palm TX, and (unfortunately) a 2-way Pager for work. I’d really like to roll the Palm and the phone into a single device, but I can’t cope with PalmOS 5 anymore. Similarly, I can’t cope with mobile versions of Windows–I tried it for a month with the Motorola MPX200, and it just didn’t work for me.
Finally, I’ve come to the conclusion, again, that I can’t cope with non-keyboard input methods. I don’t like T9, Graffiti, or any of the alternate input methods that I’ve tried on the Palm. If I’m going to enter text into a pocket-sized device, then it’s going to have to have a keyboard. I’ve found that the pain of writing with the Palm keeps me from using it, and that makes it mostly useless. And that leads to me missing appointments and forgetting tasks, and I can’t cope with either.
So, basically, I want a phone with a QWERTY keyboard that doesn’t run Windows or PalmOS, and works with 850 MHz GSM. I believe there are two phones on the market that fit that description–the Nokia 9300 and the Nokia E61. I’ve played with the 9300 before, and it’s just too slow for me–loading web pages crawls while it’s slow little CPU renders pages.
The E61, on the other hand, has almost the same features as the E70 that I wanted, except it’s Blackberry-shaped and doesn’t have a camera. It does have everything else, though, including 802.11 and a native SIP client that supposedly people have been able to get working with Asterisk. Someone at work just bought one off of eBay and is really happy with it.
So, after over 2 years, I finally ordered a new phone. My E61 should be here on Monday. I’m still trying to sort out Cingular’s data plan options, but I should have that dealt with by the end of the day today, and then I’ll be set. I’ll be able to drop the Palm and T616 out of my life, and probably be able to get by with a few songs on the E61 most of the time–it’ll hold a 2 GB flash card, and there’s a sync plugin for iTunes, so it’ll work with almost everything but iTMS songs. I’ll still be stuck with the pager, but that’s a whole other story for an other day.
Tags cingular, nokia, nokiae61, phones | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 03 Feb 2005 00:24:20 GMT
It looks like Cingular’s Treo 650 page went live at 9:00 PST last night. Surprisingly, they’re selling it for only $400 after rebates, with a 2-year contract. I was expecting a price closer to $600. In addition, PalmOne is now selling unlocked GSM Treo 650s direct for $599.
If I read Cingular’s web site correctly, it looks like I could get a 650 for $400 and swap to a new contract without paying any early termination fees, but I’d have to buy a new phone for my wife. On the other hand, going through PalmOne’s site makes it pretty clear that they can sell me an AT&T-locked phone for $549, but then I’d have to fight with Cingular to get them to add EDGE data support to my existing AT&T contract.
Frankly, this looks like enough of a headache that I’m going to put off dealing with it for a month or two. I mean, I’ve been waiting on the 650 since June of last year, I guess another couple months won’t kill me.
Posted in Phones | Tags cingular, palm, phone, treo, treo650 | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Tue, 25 Jan 2005 18:44:10 GMT
Engadget is pretty convinced that Cingular is going to release the Treo 650 this week, either on Wednesday or Thursday. As I mentioned before, I’m probably going to get a Mac mini first, but I’m still interested in the Treo. My big issue is how it’ll work for legacy AT&T customers. There’s some indication that Cingular has done testing on their own network (“orange”) and AT&T’s old network (“blue”), but I can only assume that that’s for business customers with large AT&T accounts. I just can’t see them selling them directly to AT&T’s consumers without forcing the consumer to switch to a Cingular plan.
Since I’m currently halfway through an AT&T family plan contract, I’m concerned about switching to a new Cingular plan–they’ll probably force a contract extension on me, and force me to replace my wife’s AT&T-locked Sony-Ericsson T616. In addition, there’s been a suggestion that the Treo 650 isn’t eligible for family plans because it’s a “data phone.”
I guess I’ll know the answers to these questions in a few days. There’s a Cingular store less then a block from my office; hopefully they’ll be able to answer some questions.
Update: Looks like it may have been pushed back a week
Posted in Phones | Tags cingular, palm, rumors, treo, treo650 | no comments
Posted by Scott Laird
Thu, 06 Jan 2005 20:49:07 GMT
Brighthand says that Cingular is showing off the Treo 650 at CES. Although the Treo 650 was announced over two months ago, so far Sprint is the only carrier selling it. Cingular is supposed to be next, but it’s been taking them longer then expected to stock the thing.
Since I’m an AT&T/Cingular customer right now, and my contract isn’t up yet, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to Cingular’s Treo 650 plans. Unfortunately, I have this feeling that I’m going to get screwed–Cingular is still running AT&T’s old network as a separate network from their own. AT&T users who want to change their old AT&T service plan into a Cingular plan apparently end up needing new SIMs. Since all of AT&T’s phones are locked to AT&T, that means that most people who want to switch from AT&T plans to Cingular plans need new phones. So here’s my problem: I have a family plan with AT&T. If I get a Cingular Treo 650, then I’ll almost certainly need to switch to a Cingular plan for both phones. However, that means that I’d have to replace my wife’s Sony-Ericsson T616 with a new phone, and I’m not very eager buy two phones at the same time. Especially since Cingular will almost certainly be skimpy on the discount, or try to give us a crappy non-Bluetooth phone in exchange for the nice little T616.
I’m waiting until Cingular actually announces the phone before I make any plans, but I suspect that this is going to turn into a major ordeal, and that’s a pity, because the Treo 650 seems like a nice little phone–I had an opportunity to play with one last week, and I was really impressed. The screen is wonderful, the keyboard is good enough, the camera seemed good, and it’s only slightly bigger then the Sony Clie that I carry around now.
Posted in Phones | Tags cingular, phone, treo, treo650 | 1 comment
