I was in Wal-Mart yesterday when my cell phone was stolen. I was in the checkout line when I noticed some sketchy-looking teenagers acting a little strange. One of the guys kept pulling his shirt down, as if to cover something that he had concealed underneath his clothing. Having been in loss prevention (Ironically enough, I used to work for Wal-Mart, in their loss prevention department), I immediately knew something was up. But like an idiot, what I DIDN'T realize was that the thing that the guy was concealing was MY CELL PHONE! By the time I realized what had happened, the guy and my phone were both long gone. So there was nothing else to do but get a new phone.
As luck would have it, I'm scheduled to be issued a Blackberry at work next week. So there was no point in my replacing my stolen Blackberry with another one. In my previous Blackberry review and comments, I mentioned that I still carry around a Franklin Planner. Technology is great but it just isn't as efficient for me as having a 2-page-per-day planner layout. Electronic devices don't have screens big enough to view everything at once, and I find it much easier to take notes on paper than to type or use a stylus. Now, can you imagine me carrying 2 Blackberry phones AND a planner!? That seemed a bit excessive. It will drive me crazy enough just having 2 cell phones and a planner to carry around. Thus, I decided to opt for a more compact phone.
I wound up purchasing the Samsung A900m. I liked the size and the multi-media capabilities that the phone had to offer. Additionally, I could "switch" from Nextel to Sprint without having to pay any early termination fees. My first day-and-a-half with the new phone has gone pretty well. Nextel has always seemed to be about 10 years behind when it comes to technology and features. It's nice to have a phone that can actually send and receive text messages and emails flawlessly. The battery-life of my new phone is considerably shorter than the Nextel phones I've previously had, but I guess that's to be expected with streaming TV and color graphics. Sprint's prices also seem to be significantly lower than Nextel's.
I found a great email application from Google for my new phone. I used to get emails everyday with Excel and Word attachments that I couldn't open on my Blackberry. Google's mail program is able to convert the attachments into html code and display them on the phone.
