What would a week of “Smartphones Now” be without a review of a smartphone? A terrible one, I’m sure. So what are we going to look at today? The Duo from Pantech for AT&T. Not exactly the hottest smartphone on the market, but it does have a few qualities that are quite endearing. I’m also jaded and hate all phones to begin with. Heh. That’s not entirely true. I just hate the iPhone. That one’s for you, dwalk.

The most significant feature of the Duo is its dual slider design, which it borrows from its bigger brother over at Helio, the Ocean. The main difference and unfortunately the biggest pitfall for the Duo is the lack of spring assist for the QWERTY. You see, the Ocean has spring assist in both directions. You may not think it’s necessary but it is. Sliding the Duo to get to the QWERTY is painful and gritty. Of course, if you’ve never touched the Ocean then you wouldn’t know any different. It’s something you can get used to, though.

The keyboard itself has its pros and cons. The overall size of the Duo is rather small so the keyboard is a bit condensed. The numbers are like that of a BB. You have to hit function button, which is tedious but as I said, the Duo is small and if you want a small device then you’ll just have to deal with it. I’m not a fan of the keyboard itself, though. It’s entirely too flush for me. You don’t know what keys you’re hitting unless you’re looking at it and even then it’s a chore. The dividers are entirely way too thick and the buttons are way too small. It may be better suited for a lady with dainty hands then a big burly guy and his meat hooks.

The 1.3-megapixel camera with 4x zoom is ok, but you won’t really be getting any shots worth framing. The video cam is so so, but it does that weird vibration when you move it around too fast. Check the video and picture for yourself.

The music player was fine and it has stereo Bluetooth, but you’re using AT&T’s music services so it kind of blows. As does the video service. It supports Telenav maps and navigator, which is a nice touch in case you’re prone to getting lost.

Being a 3G/HSDPA handset is in and of itself a big seller, but the overall design of the Duo is bit low budget for my taste. It has a cheap-y plastic feel to it. Call quality was superb, though. Download speeds were wicked fast. It runs WinMo 6 so you love it or hate it. Talk time was actually pretty good edging over the rated 3 hours at over 4 hours. If you want a smartphone running WinMo that’s small and on AT&T then the Duo isn’t a bad choice. It’s available now for $200.

If you’re thinking we’ve been on smartphone overload this week, you’re right. We’ve been rounding up all of the best and worst in the smartphone world and giving you the goods and bads in general terms. Your next phone will likely be a smartphone. There are more options than ever before, and they literally now fit into any budget.

They’re not for everybody, sure, but if you do more than call Mom once a week so she knows you’re alive, then it’s time for you to get your QWERTY on and do more with your handset, and this guide is here to help.

We should start buy clarifying exactly what a smartphone is and what a smartphone isn’t. That’s more difficult that it sounds, however, as many regular phones today are featuring smartphone features like email and QWERTY keyboards. In essence, a smartphone is a cross between a cellphone and a PDA, allowing you to access information in multiple formats as instantly as possible.

In my opinion, any phone that doesn’t offer system-wide copy-and-paste, automatic email sync, third party application support, and Office integration isn’t a smartphone. And while you think you won’t use all of that, at some point, you’ll be glad it’s all there.

The real problem, though, is that there are dozens of smartphones to choose from, how do you know which smartphone is for you?

The easiest way to tell is to determine what type of user you are. Are you using it for work or personal use? Or both?

If you’re buying your smartphone for business reasons, it’s wise to see if your company has a smartphone policy, as many do now. Your IT guys should be able to help you narrow down which ones they recommend and which work with their network.

But likely you’re on your own, so what are you going to use the smartphone for? If you’re mostly looking at easier, QWERTY text messaging, you might be able to get by with a regular phone with QWERTY, or a “communicator” as they’re called.

But if you’re looking for advanced IM and email, then it’s a smartphone for sure.

There are really two choices you have to make when considering a smartphone: which operating system you like, and what form factor you’re interested in.

For the OS, in the US, you’re basically limited to Windows Mobile, which is modern, though ugly and clunky; Palm OS, which is easy and elegant, but definitely in need of an upgrade; or the OS of Blackberries, which is simple, and functional, but doesn’t do much more than basic functions.

These all have their strengths and weaknesses, so you should check the guides we’ve written earlier in the week to see which one might work well for you.

Most all smartphones have some sort of QWERTY keyboard, either on the face or some sort of slide-out design. The thing to consider is this: how do you like touchscreens?

We all want a phone with a touchscreen, and they do make the phones more useful, but you’ll pay a premium for it. The cheapest way to get a good smartphone with a touchscreen on the market today is the Centro from Sprint at $100. While some carriers might have offers that bring them down to about $50, they’re usually older models, while the Centro is a pretty fresh product. And with the Palm OS, it’s easy to use, making it a very attractive first-time phone.

If you’re looking at Windows Mobile and you want a touchscreen, you’re in luck: all the major carriers in the US feature at least one such phone. But, as mentioned before, they’re not cheap, expect to pay at least $200 for one, even with discounts and subsidies.

AT&T is pushing the Tilt, a decent choice as there’s nothing this phone is lacking besides a speedy processor and, well, a headphone jack. Really. T-Mobile has the popular Wing, which is quite similar. Verizon’s version is the XV6800, and Sprint has the Mogul. All of these are high-end, touchscreen, sliding-QWERTY, Windows Mobile phones, and are all made by HTC.

AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon also offer Treos running Windows Mobile that combine the same touchscreen-over-QWERTY design as the Centro, as well as a handful of others worth a look.

But if you’re willing to forgo the touchscreen, you can still get a wholly usable smartphone, often for free with a new plan. The Q by Motorola, available from Sprint, Verizon and AT&T is one such device. They’re slim and light, and very phone like. T-Mobile has a competitor called the Dash, which, while due for an upgrade, is an inexpensive but passable phone. AT&T also features the quite popular Blackjack by Samsung, one of the highest rated non-touchscreen smartphones we’ve ever seen.

And then there’s the Blackberry. While the devices status of “smartphone” is often in question, we’ll include them here because they’re iconic enough that it’s what many people think of when they think of a smartphone.

They share the non-touchscreen-over-QWERTY design of the Dash and the Q, but don’t have the gawdawful Windows Mobile operating system, which is a blessing. The curse is they don’t have much of an operating system at all, just enough to do what they do. That is likely the phones’ greatest strength and its greatest weakness; most smartphones excel with the help of popular third-party applications, whereas there are very few for the Blackberry line of smartphones.

But most of this doesn’t matter, because a smartphone is just a fancy phone with a keyboard if you don’t have the service to go along with it. All the major carriers support push email, which some consider the smartphone’s killer app. But you’re going to need a data plan. You’re going to want an unlimited one, too, because when you’ve got emails flying, IMs coming in, and a Web browser in your pocket, you’re going to want to use it often.

And that’s what a lot of people get scared off by. But smartphones are now where cellphones were in about 1998: Early adopters have them, and they’re not sorry they signed up for the extra monthly fee, while others are hesitant, thinking they don’t “need” it yet.

Well, you do. Not long ago, many people said they’d never get a cellphone, and now you’re the odd duck if you don’t have one. The same will be said not long from now about those who don’t get their first smartphone, so it’s time you head down to your carrier’s store and see what they have to offer. Talk about data transfer and the costs associated with it, which models they’ll make you a deal on, and incentives they have to get you on their faster networks. You’ll be glad you did.

Selected Smartphones

Ask the average American about Symbian and they’ll look at you blankly. In the grand pantheon of mobile OSes, it is the dashing, shadowy figure with the charming accent to sneaks into your life through Nokia and some Sony Ericsson phones.

At its core, Symbian is fairly basic. It works as equally well on a basic candybar phone as it does on one of S-E’s high end personal communicators. Interestingly enough, Symbian — not Sybian (do a Google search) — is also showing up on some Samsung models, mostly in Asia, and partners shipped 20.4 million Symbian smartphones in Q3 adding to the 165 million Symbian phones in circulation. Trust me. You’ve seen a Symbian phone.

“Symbian dominates the planet,” said Sascha Segan, mobile phone analyst for PC World magazine. “However, we here in the United States do not live on that planet.”

“Symbian is Nokia’s house band, though on Saturday afternoons they practice in Motorola and Sony Ericsson’s garages. Symbian’s success is largely dependent on Nokia and S-E’s successes, not the other way around. So as long as Nokia dominates the planet and Sony Ericsson is a rising player, Symbian will be quite relevant globally. And as long as Nokia shows their utter incompetence in the US market, Symbian will be pretty much irrelevant here.”

The current Symbian version is Symbian OS 9.5. It has a multi-threaded kernel — it can run multiple apps at once — and supports all major memory types. Programmers can use C++ or Java to write applications and it uses a standard SQL database for data storage and retrieval, meaning programmers don’t have to learn much more than a few query commands.

Symbian is also giving the iPhone — and definitely WinMo 6 — a run for its money in the graphics front. The operating system supports audio and video streaming, recording, and playback. There are also transparency options and OpenGL support as well as digital TV and FM radio support built-in. GPS and media player add-ons are just the gravy in this fully-featured OS.

So what will happen if you move to Symbian? Well, depending on the phone you choose, not much or nothing at all. Nokia and other Symbian licensees usually include desktop software for OS X and Windows to sync contacts with Outlook and maintain your image and music collections.

Symbian also has full third-party support with plenty of apps. Sites like Handango offer a system for searching for games and applications that work with your handset.

I’ve used a few Symbian phones in my day and the most difficult aspect is using the OS on a phone without a QWERTY keyboard. This isn’t quite the problem it once was, but unless you’re a touch-T9er with fingers of fury, it can be hard to send messages and even add email accounts to your phone. Fortunately, Symbian is most popular in places where kids are texting while still in the womb.

“I could say that Symbian is strong because it’s a low-overhead, phone-centric platform that thinks of communication first,” said Mr. Segan. “It comes from a phone perspective rather than a PDA perspective. But let’s be realistic. Symbian is strong because Nokia pushes it.”

That said, the OS is also going strong here where Nokia uses it in almost every phone the sell here — whether through a carrier or on their NSeries website. As I mentioned before, you’ve probably seen it but you probably don’t know where. Unlike a number of other mobile OSes, Symbian just works and works well and, most importantly, stays the heck out of the way.

Five Cool Symbian Apps from S60.com
Gizmo Project
- Enjoy easy instant messaging and inexpensive calls – both Internet call & call out – enriched with presence. Install the Gizmo client on your device to start using instant messaging (IM), presence and Internet calls. After installing the application you are able to create an account or use the existing Gizmo username and password. With a WLAN connection you are able to use all the features, and IM and presence are available even when you are connected over 2G or 3G.

WorldMate – The most comprehensive travel software around, Worldmate provides travelers with information that organizes all their travel needs. With WorldMate you will have access to the most critical information when you need it most – including Weathercaster, Global Weather Forecasts, World Clocks, Currency Converter, Comprehensive Flight Schedules and Real-Time Flight Status, among other things.

Sling – SlingPlayer™ Mobile lets you watch your TV and all of its programming on your Windows Mobile, Palm OS or Symbian cell phones and PDAs. This means you’ll have out-of-this-world mobility – or perhaps we should say all-around-the-world mobility.

Mobipocket Reader – Mobipocket Reader Pro 4.8 transforms Series 60 device into a universal eBook Reader. The application enables Series 60 device users to read more than 17 000 eBooks in all categories from all major US, German, France and Spanish publishers. For optimal reading experience, the application allows end users to custom fonts and to use full screen, full text justification and even auto scroll.

Slifter – Shopping is a local experience, and Slifter helps you make the most of it. Slifter uses the global positioning system (GPS) location capabilities of your S60 3rd Edition device to bring you up-to-date local information on products in your vicinity (or in the vicinity of any ZIP code that you specify). Slifter allows you to search for and find more than 100 million products at nearly 50,000 locations in the U.S. These locations include hundreds of major retailers, such as Best Buy, Circuit City, and Toys “R” Us, as well as thousands of independent shops.

The speed and usability of the UI, the amount of applications available and likelihood of further apps being released, and the limitations imposed by the OSes’ creators all have their place in smartphone shoppers’ considerations. In a way, the smartphone market is more like the PC market, and so it makes sense that as Linux challenges the dominance of the established OSes in that market, so it should in others.

Not just a “Linux OS”

It’s worth mentioning that simply saying “Linux” is misleading – many “Linux” devices only use portions of code from the base, or have built upon the kernel, or are different OSes altogether. However, “Linux” is the term which unifies people on these matters, and while “Free and Open Source Software” is more exact, “Linux” is a brand.

You don’t see too many phones running Linux for the same reason you don’t see many PCs running it: it rarely comes pre-installed, and it’s not the easiest thing to install from scratch. Things are changing, however, and not only are many phones beginning to ship with Linux built-in, but there are resources available for savvy users who want to break out of the cage imposed on them by the manufacturers. And just as many free and open source programs like VLC are becoming popular, components of free and open source OSes and programs belonging thereto may also be poached by mobile developers to augment their systems.

Many companies are focusing on the upcoming open source tidal wave by developing with that environment in mind; the LiMo Foundation and the Open Handset Alliance are two formal groups of companies comprising many major manufacturers and developers whose common goal is to bring Linux to the handheld world. Even the well-known Ubuntu distribution has added its weight behind a mobile initiative.

Some Early Contenders

First on everyone’s minds has to be Google’s Android platform. Google has become a trustable, non-evil household name and seems to be the shot in the arm for the Linux phone world that they couldn’t give themselves. Like many things, a simple lack of real exposure is one of the things that has held Linux back in the mobile world. Google has enough clout to make people see what they’re missing, and actually push a product to market where it will, hopefully, be judged on its merits and not dismissed as a flash in the pan.

The UI has been shown to developers, though there was some concern over the usability of the SDK. Since no one has their hands on an actual phone at the moment, it’s hard to judge how well it works, but with Google’s coders and the open source community, my guess is there will be many bugs that will be squashed in a timely fashion.

One emerging platform is OpenMoko. Their Neo 1973 phone has been a mascot of sorts and is touted by some as an open-source iPhone. With a big touchscreen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, USB, GPS, unified hardware architechture, and so on – and it will be open from the start, no putting off of SDKs, no jailbreaking necessary. At the moment it’s still in development, and if you feel like putting the phone together and programming stuff for it, go for it. But a commercially viable, end-user-capable product probably won’t be ready for at the very least several months.

On the other side of the spectrum, we’re seeing major companies like Motorola injecting their popular products with a creamy Linux filling. In fact, they’ve sold millions of Linux-powered phones – just not in the USA. But just a couple months ago Motorola shipped the RAZR2 V8, which doesn’t exactly qualify as a smartphone, but it’s close, sporting a touchscreen on the outside, 2GB of storage space and a full HTML browser on EDGE. Motorola was $1bn under estimates and committed to using Linux in many of its devices, though they have only recently brought them here.

Palm recently tapped Wind River, a mobile Linux/BSD development company, to provide the OS for its ill-fated Foleo device. That didn’t turn out so well, but they also have their ACCESS Linux Platform, which is supposed to be the successor to the current Palm OS. You can’t find it any any real form anywhere, but it had a presence at the last 3GSM World Conference, and looked pretty functional. It’ll support multiple frameworks and continue with Palm’s philosophy of simplicity.

Future International Standard

Right now, the state of Linux in the smartphone world is split in two. In the US, it’s an emerging phenomenon and as such is only available as a platform and in a limited fashion in some phones. However, in the rest of the world, it’s an established force and has overtaken WinMo in China and holds 30% of the market. The basic philosophy of a free and open source OS with a dedicated support system has caught on in other places as well – in India and Japan Linux is used by some of the majors and is gaining market share as it is updated and the application base is expanded.

2008 will likely be another preparatory year in the US – Google wants Android-based phones to be shipping in the summer and OpenMoko is planning on a wider, cheaper, and more advanced phone release around the same time, but neither will likely hit their target.

That said, the SDKs will be out there and the platforms will be publicized and scrutinized, and the phones that do eventually come out will be powerful and versatile. And with the smartphone portion of the market growing as well, we’ll be seeing flagship devices with all the capabilities of smartphones today, but adding the flexibility of an open platform. Expect the big phone manufacturers to all try their hand with Linux handhelds to test the water – and if their success here is anything like their success around the world, they’ll be an established market force by this time next year.

This is an odd duck out of left field, if you’ll allow me to mix metaphors like I mix a cocktail. The HOP2001 by Hop-On is a Windows Mobile 6-based smartphone with a Treo-like form factor that can be used for either AT&T or Verizon Wireless, due to it’s fairly unique dual-mode GSM or CDMA architecture.

While GSM/CDMA Frankenphone’s are unheard of, Hop-On nearly is, notable for making disposable cellphones not long ago. The company also specializes in mobile gambling technologies, and is aiming this phone at those who like to wager.

You’ll pardon the pun, but this phone seems like it coule be a sure bet, features-wise. a 320×240 touchscreen lives above a T9 keypad. The backside features a 3-Megapixel camera with a 10x (probably digital) zoom.

The insides are winners, too, with Bluetooth 2.0, Wi-Fi-g, a 400MHz Qualcomm proc, 256 internal memory, microSD, and a GPS locator with Telenav.

This is really a WinMo phone with everything short of QWERTY, but with the touchscreen you don’t really need it. How this phone is going to work for gamblers, or where they’re going to get it, is unknown, but with both AT&T and Verizon touting the openness of their respective networks, this phone should be popular with some crowds.

Hop-On HOP2001 [Product page, via Slippery Brick]

Sidekick Slide from T-mobile

Danger’s line of Sidekicks changed the landscape of mobile messaging devices by bringing smartphone-like features into the mainstream while still looking and being cool. I, myself, have owned the Sidekick 2, Sidekick 3, Sidekick iD and Sidekick Slide. Because of these devices I’ll never be able to go back to a non-QWERTY device. It would be wrong and immoral. The Danger OS is so easy to use and navigate that even an 80-year old could figure out. But it’s strapped down and limited in terms of applications unless you’re in the developer community and even then nothing exceptional is out there. It can’t do Exchange and lacks the features we’ve grown to love that other smartphones have like Wi-Fi and an alarm clock. You have to pay for the alarm clock and that’s BS.

It’s a great device, though. There’s a reason I went through four generations of it. The QWERTY is the best on the market hands down. Everything is laid out nicely. It has the best suite of IM clients that are built-in. I stayed with the Sidekicks because of its AIM client and POP e-mail. It still caught the eye of girls when I was out too. The Slide was a damn sexy device despite its power cycling issues. But I’ve grown out of them and the Slide/LX was what I wanted from the Sidekick 3. Sorry, Danger/T-mo, but I’ve moved on. If the next generation has all the features that are available in devices at that time then maybe I’ll consider coming back. Put a better camera in it, too. It’s a great messaging device and does what anyone needs it to do in that respect. The unlimited data plan is the cheapest around as well.

LG Rumor from Sprint

My next not-so-smartphone comes from LG and runs on Sprint’s 3G network. The Rumor is a lightweight enV that focuses on messaging with dual keyboards. It has all the necessary features you’d expect from a smarphone that isn’t a smartphone like a QWERTY, camera, Bluetooth, Web and e-mail. Works as a storage device, too. Holding up to 4GB of your music, photos, voice memos and video. The included planner, scheduler, calculator and alarm clock keep you in the know. It’s a QWERTY so you’re bound to get some stuff done on it.

Verizon Voyager

The Rumor’s big brother, the Voyager, teeters on the verge of being labeled a smartphone, but a haptic touchscreen does not qualify. Not in my book, at least. It’s packed with loads of features, but no support for third-party apps and Verizon’s proprietary UI cripple what it’s capable of. It’s a great multimedia device, though. The keyboard is very nice, but a little too spread out and big for my taste. You can’t go wrong with two screens and the haptic touchscreen is pretty cool to play around with. It’s certainly a step up from the enV and Rumor, but doesn’t compete with BlackBerries or WinMo devices.

Samsung SCH-u740

The Samsung SCH-u740 is in no way a smartphone, but it’s unique 2-way hinge is hard to ignore since it reveals a QWERTY on what appears to be a standard flip phone. LIke I said before, most phones these days come packed with what are now considered standard features. It has camera, music player, Bluetooth, and memory expansion. It gets a mention because of its QWERTY.

Apple iPhone

My least favorite of the bunch is the iPhone. The camp is divided on this one. You either love it or hate it. It’s too locked down for me and it’s not 3G. It’s a glorified iPod Touch and everyone knows it. Those who e-mail and text pretty heavily will not like or survive with the iPhone. It’s more of a media device than anything else. I wanted one in the beginning and almost took the plunge after the price drop, but I’m glad I didn’t. BlackBerries are the the way to go and my Curve and Ocean kick the sh*t out of the iPhone. I’ll wait for the next one, but I doubt I’ll be dropping any coin on it. Truth be told, everyone else has been working on similar things, but they don’t have the advertising or R&D dollars Apple does. Not everyone is riding on Apple’s coat tails.

Helio Ocean

My favorite of the not-so-smartphone bunch is the Ocean from Helio. Matt and I are fanboys, but there’s definitive reason behind it. Sure it does Mail for MSE, but it’s not quite on par with other smartphones on the market. It’s the quintessential messaging and multi-media device. The dual slider design is ingenious. It appeals to both QWERTY users like myself and those who just can’t give up on T9. The list of apps is long and stupendous, but we’ve mentioned them once or twice before.

If you don’t want a smartphone but want something right on the verge then take into account exactly what you need out of it and which carrier you’re willing to tolerate. This was not meant to be a guide, but it sort of is, I guess. Consider these training wheels to see if you’re ready for the big leagues. It’s quite painless.

Speeding things up

Some people are unaware that when you close a program in Windows Mobile, the program doesn’t actually close. It stays open and running in the background so that, just in case you need to use it later, it’ll be all ready to go for you. Well, get too many programs running in the background and guess what happens? Your phone slows down. Here’s how to close one or more running programs, which will in turn speed up your phone.

1. Click Start > Settings > System tab > Memory > Running Programs tab

2. Choose the program you’d like to close completely and click Stop. I generally close all programs except the one I’m using.

You can also shut your phone off and power it back up, but that’s no fun and it takes over a minute to do in most cases.

Increasing available storage

You’d be shocked and amazed to discover how much space browsing the web takes up on your device. That’s because Pocket Internet Explorer keeps a cache of temporary Internet files in your system memory in order to cut down on data loading times for sites you frequently visit. I cleared out these temporary files the other day and it freed up a whopping 15-megabytes of space. That’s a lot when you consider that most Windows Mobile phones have well under 100-megabytes of built-in storage.

Here’s how to quickly clear up some space on your device.

1. Open Internet Explorer

2. Tap Menu > Tools > Options > Memory > Clear Temporary Files

Your phone might appear to freeze for a bit, but that’s just because it’s puking up all the garbage that it’s been retaining for so long. It’ll start moving again soon, though.

Working with e-mail

The initial setup of your mail service is beyond the scope of this article but here are some tips for working better with your e-mail once everything’s all set up.

GMAIL
If you have a G-mail account you get a ton of messages every day, change your e-mail address in the E-mail Setup area to recent:yourusername@gmail.com, replacing "yourusername" with your actual user name. Adding the "recent:" to the front of your address tells Google to only send messages to your phone from the past 30 days and will, in effect, free up a lot of space and save you a lot of downloading time.

HEADER vs. PARTIAL vs. FULL MESSAGES
You should have a section of your e-mail setup called something like "Download the following messages" where you can set Windows Mobile Messaging to download e-mail from today only, the past three days, the past month, and so on. There should be another option where you can choose to download the header only, the entire message, or the first 500, 1000, or 5000 bytes.

I find that 500 bytes is too short for some messages and instead opt for the first 1000 bytes. If you choose to display just the header, you’ll have to manually click each e-mail you’d like to read in its entirety and reconnect to your e-mail service to download the full message(s). It’s a big pain most of the time. The first 1000 bytes should give you most or all of each message so that you can either delete or reply without going through a bunch of extra steps. Be careful, though. If you get a lot of large e-mails (with attachments, for instance), it’ll take a while to download even 1000 bytes of each message and it’ll drain your battery much faster than normal.

AUTOMATICALLY CHECKING FOR MESSAGES
In the interest of battery life, if you get more than 25 e-mails each day, set this option to Once a day or Never. If you need to constantly check your e-mail, just open up the program and do a manual Send and Receive every time you want to get your new messages. All it takes is one instance where your phone tries to automatically check for messages when you’ve got a weak signal and the amount of time it takes to slowly download everything sucks the life right out of your battery.

Use your phone as a flashlight

This is one of my favorite tricks whenever anybody drops something under a table in a restaurant and it always gets a "of course Doug has a flashlight built into his phone" comment, but it’s ridiculously simple and most people with Windows Mobile devices can do the same thing if your device has a built-in camera and flash.

Simply navigate to your camera program and turn on the flash. It should stay illuminated until you turn it off. On most devices, it’s a focused beam of light instead of an actual flash that illuminates an area at the exact moment that you take a photo. Use this trick sparingly, though. It’s a huge drain on your battery.

Quickly turn various connections on and off

This will be done differently depending on your phone but most devices have a hardware button that you can hold down to quickly access your connection settings. It’s great if you’re getting on a plane, going into a meeting, or just want to conserve some battery life.

On the PPC-6700, for instance, you can hold down the Internet Explorer button to access this feature. On the Motorola Q, you hold down the home button. Check your device’s manual to figure out which button to use on your own phone.

I keep the Bluetooth function of my phone off at all times and I’d suggest you do the same unless you use that feature all the time. It’s a pretty good drain on the battery. Likewise, if your phone has a wireless network connection, you can keep that turned off unless you use a wireless connection in your home or office frequently. On my PPC-6700, I found that my connection to Sprint’s network was fast enough that being connected to my wireless network at home didn’t provide enough extra speed to justify the battery drain. Your mileage may vary, especially depending upon which network you use.

More tips and tricks

Anyone out there have any really simple, quick tricks? There’s a lot of really good device-specific information in PDAPhoneHome.com’s forums section and other sites like it if you have questions about your particular phone. HowardForums is also a really good resource and there are a lot of sites that cater specifically to one particular phone model. Just search for your phone or a phone you’re thinking of buying and you’ll be able to find plenty of info by real people who use the technology every day.

Smartphones are like custom Nikes in a world of 10-peso tourist-shop flip-flops. I can’t think of a reason to pick the flip-flops unless you’re going swimming, and that doesn’t even make sense for the purposes of this metaphor. The point is that smartphones do everything regular phones do, but better, faster, and harder. And entirely separate from that fact, they also do things regular phones don’t even dream of. But Let’s at least be fair and look at the reasons why you might not have a smartphone.

Can’t afford it? Well, you pay $60/mo. for your 1000 minutes and unlimited texts, and you probably paid $50-100 for a relatively nice phone, a RAZR or something no doubt. Well, if you check out our Smartphones Now features, you’ll find you can get a Palm Centro for $100 and a plan with Sprint for about $80.

An extra $20 a month is not going to break the bank, fools. Admit it, you’re being cheap. Next time you take a girl out on a date, cook her dinner instead – there, you saved that $20, plus she thinks you’re the man. Ladies, that works for you too. The cost is negligible, and I won’t accept it as an excuse.

You say you don’t need it? Please, I think I know what you need. What does your phone do, call people? Send messages that you have to type out with the number keys? Wow, welcome to the year 2002! Seriously, let’s take a look at what’s on offer here:

Service	Your phone	Smartphone
Calls people	Yes	Yes
Sends messages	Using number keys	Using QWERTY
Web Browser	None, or crippled	Full HTML, native or Opera
Cool 3rd party apps	Not likely	Tons
GPS	No chance	Free and built-in
Media Player	Cheesy, crippled if even present	Full-on
Use as laptop modem	Please	Costs an extra $15 but yeah
Other stuff	There is no other stuff	List goes on forever

It’s almost 2008, and when your phone can have most of the useful capabilities of a laptop and for a fraction of the price, to choose not to use a smartphone would be most illogical.

Buying a regular phone is like investing in brontosaurus futures. You might as well get a rotary phone for all the use you’re going to get out of a standard flip-phone. My phone can practically run Crysis, and they’re still trying to get Tetris working properly on yours. You could be carrying Wikipedia, Google Maps, 20 games, Myspace, your work and home email, and so on around with you, in a package just a little bigger than your current phone. My list of apps is probably longer than your actual phone. And why not? None of these features are extraneous, none are unnecessary – all are essential for everyday use anywhere other than the farm. Furthermore, the almost excessively usable UIs in such mobile OSes as Windows Mobile 5 and Symbian make navigating all this rich content as easy as taking candy from a sleeping baby. If you don’t have a smartphone, or don’t at the very least want one by now, the only explanation is that you’re an anachronism, a luddite grubbing around at the bottom of the technological latter for fear of being too awesome.

The whole world is moving to smartphones. They’re not just for business guys any more – there’s far more to them than just checking your office email. In Japan they’re already on a next-gen network, doing two-way video chat and buying pop with their mobiles – and this comes standard. Of course, we don’t have that functionality in the USA or too many other places yet – and why do you think that is? Because of people like you, pouring money into an archaic system that’s nothing more than a telecom scam to keep their old network in place. So not only is it cost-effective and practical to get a smartphone, it’s also a moral imperative.

It’s been shown that people using smartphones are rated as more attractive by the opposite sex and more intimidating by rivals. This comes as no surprise, since a smartphone is a statement of competence and capability. Once merely the sign of a pompous showoff trying to impress everyone else in the Starbucks line, now they are a necessity and a gift to humanity. So I say this to you: get a smartphone, or at least make a show of trying, or risk being rightly labeled as a bumbling technophobe and social failure.

Unreasonable Stance is a column in which one CrunchGear writer tries to argue for the other, not usually accepted, side. Sometimes it’s satire, sometimes it’s trolling, sometimes it’s gibberish. Most importantly, however, it is an attempt to see a technical issue or product from another perspective, something we rarely do in our compartmentalized, partisan world.

Let’s be perfectly honest with each other for a few minutes: most built-in mobile Web browsers make me (and probably you) want to scratch my eyeballs out. Any Java-enabled device not running Opera Mini is a travesty. You’re just not living and there are no bones about that. Not only is it faster, but it doesn’t take up a whole lot of space on your device’s already limited memory capacity.

I’d like to think most of you are savvy enough to know how good Opera Mini really is and you’re already running it on your device of choice, but if you’re just joining us or have no idea what it is then step into my office and let’s rap about this for a few.

Opera Mini is a Java-based app that’s around 100KB and it’s free. Most of your run-of-the-mill smartphones are Java-enabled and will play nice with Opera.

Opera Mini 4 is typically faster than other mobile browsers by two fold. How does that happen? It’s quite simple really. All the content is compressed by an Opera proxy server, which gets it to your device much faster and it’s cheaper on your data plan if you’re doing the ala carte thing.

All the content you see has been scaled down specifically for your mobile device rather than having a ginormous picture or text take up the whole screen, which requires you to scroll far less. But it doesn’t really matter with the current version (4.0) because Opera has added power scrolling shortcuts. The number keys do all the work for you. Press 2 to go up, 6 to go right, 8 to go down and 4 to go left. That’s fine and dandy, but aren’t the pics and text extremely small now? Nope. Hit 5 and it zooms in and out. The addition of Mobile View does a heck of a job rendering pages so you don’t have to scroll horizontally, too.

Previous versions of Opera were lacking a landscape mode for QWERTY-enabled devices, and that’s been taken care of with v4.0. But, then again, not a lot of devices needed that feature until recently. The Tilt comes to mind as well as the Ocean. Another great addition is the virtual mouse that comes in mighty handy because you won’t be wasting time while you painstakingly go from one link to another. Relocate that cursor where you need it and you’re golden.

All these new features were much needed and I’m glad they’re here now, but the greatest addition to the feature set has been Opera Link, which allows you to sync your pre-existing bookmarks from your dekstop browser to your mobile browser. This brings everything full circle. Your desktop browsing experience is now fully compatible (except for videos) and available on your smartphone.

In a nutshell, I’m happy with v4.0 and have it running on my Ocean and Curve. The only thing I dislike about Opera Mini is the way you input text for passwords (or anything for that matter), and having to click through various sub-menus. For instance, when I’m done inputting a URL I don’t want to have to hit the menu key to hit Ok. I just want to hit return and have it to jump to the link.

Of course, reading about it and using it are two completely different things. Try it out and I guarantee you’ll never turn back.

Opera Mini Download

Palm, as a company, should need no introduction. The chameleon of a technology company has changed hands more times than a Hilton’s phone number, and is used just as often, too. The company essentially founded the concept of modern handheld computing back in 1996 with the Pilot 1000, and kept the platform evolving into what it is today, the secret behind the best-selling and popular Treo line of smartphones.

Sadly, the OS hasn’t developed much in the last few years. We have Palm (at the time Palm One) selling off the operating system to Access a couple of years ago to thank for that. Access has shelved the operating system to focus on a next-gen, Linux-based version. And while we like the idea, there has been little fruit borne from the labor.

And this is where the Palm OS on smartphones stands: still. Palm last year did succeed in getting a permanent license to the Palm OS from access, with exclusive rights to modify and improve the source code, which it’s done, notable improvements visible in the Centro and in the upgrade for the 680 that was released last week.

While we’d like to see more improvement, it’s a start, and a needed sign of life for the platform. But there needs to be more, which we understand the next year will show us.

But for now it’s still a great way to get into smartphones. The current batch of Treos based on the Palm OS are all pretty impressive, despite the 680’s lack of 3G. The Palm OS is easy to use, not just for daily tasks but to customize as well. Add-on programs are plentiful, and many of them are almost mandatory downloads.

What’s more, the Palm OS is the only smartphone OS with native sycning to all major operating systems; you can use it on your PC, your Mac, or even your goofy Linux box without any real trouble.

This sync isn’t just basic information; emails, contacts, notes, to-dos, pretty much everything syncs quickly and easily, so you don’t even have to think about it.

But real smartphone users don’t care about that. The built-in push email sync works over the air (OTA), meaning that as an email arrives in your account, it also arrives on your phone, almost instantly (if your email provider supports the function, most do). This, combined with text messaging and instant messaging, is what makes the Treos and Centros attractive smartphones for those who are required to always be in touch.

And speaking of touch, that’s one area where the Treos excel. All Palm-OS based devices have a touchscreen for navigation, and once you’ve used one it’s hard to go back to button-based operating systems. Everything is withing one or two screens of wherever you are on the device now, making it the easiest and speediest mobile OS to use in our opinion.

That’s part of the appeal of the Treos, and part of why owners tend to love them. There’s a little bit of grousing, sure, but for the most part Treo owners are like Mac owners in that they love their devices, and they just plain work. There’s little to think about, once you’ve got it configured, and that’s the way it should be. Smartphones are supposed to be our computers when we’re truly mobile, and they’re supposed to make our lives easier. Having to worry about your handset is the opposite of that.

Thus, if you’re in the market for your first smartphone, or if you’re just tired of Windows Mobile, a Palm OS-based phone is definitely worth a first, or, indeed, another look.

CrunchGear’s handy comparison table!		Treo 755p	Treo 700p	Treo 680	Centro
Price		as low as $199	as low as $399	as low as $199	as low as $99
Carriers		Sprint Verizon Wireless Alltel	Sprint Verizon Wireless Alltel	AT&T Wireless Unlocked GSM	Sprint
Memory/storage		128MB (60MB user accessible)	128MB (60MB user accessible)	64MB (64MB user accessible)	64MB (64MB user accessible)
Size (inches)
	w	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.1
	h	4.4	4.4	4.4	4.2
	d	0.84	0.9	0.8	0.7
Weight		5.64 oz	6.4 oz	5.5 oz	4.4 oz
Colors		Burgundy Midnight Blue	N/A	Arctic Copper Crimson Graphite	Onyx Ruby
Digital camera		1.3MP w/2x digital zoom	1.3MP w/2x digital zoom	VGA w/2x digital zoom	1.3MP w/2x digital zoom
Expansion slot		miniSD	SD SDIO Multimedia Cards	SD SDIO Multimedia Cards	microSD
Built-in instant messaging		Yes	No	Yes (With upgrade)	Yes
Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, Memos/Notes		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Office docs		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PDF reader		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Games		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Calculator		Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

My dad is an inveterate pack-rat and when I was home this weekend I was going through a copy of Bon Appetit from 2001. Don’t ask me why. On the back page was an ad for the Handspring Visor. It showed the Visor in four configurations — phone, black and white camera, MP3 player, and I think GPS. Each of these features required a separate piece of hardware along with some software. Seeing these four Palm-powered devices made me tear up a little. I believe I was still using a Palm V back then, adding and deleting contacts with abandon and scribbling my calendar on the Palm V’s dark screen. Palm — and Palm OS — wasn’t just a trademark back then. It was part of the zeitgeist. It was part of our culture.

That, sadly, is no longer the case.

Companies that were once part of the cultural landscape either fade away or flame-out spectacularly. IBM is one of the fade-outs and I think Microsoft is next in line. But Palm went from king of the world to also-ran in a blink of an eye. In the interim they’ve maintained a 10-year-old product, the Treo, and even older OS and over-promised and under-delivered for years. This, friends, is the last year of Palm.

I love Treo and Palm OS. I used to program for it back in the day and considered it a very elegant solution to the thorny problem of creating a smartphone with a usable operating system. Look at Windows Mobile — the Redmond giant couldn’t even create something that worked smoothly and without issues yet a scrappy little group of programmers made one of the most popular smartphone operating systems in the world.

But its day — and Palm’s hour — has passed. With the Foleo sunk and Palm hemmoraging money, things are looking grim. Even their move to WinMo and their new Centro won’t pull them out of this hole. For example, CNBC reported today:

The company will report earnings Tuesday, but we already know the news will be bleak, thanks to a pre-announcement a couple of weeks ago that the company would miss its topline expectations by $30 million; its gross margins have been killed.

This is getting ugly, but it’s leading to a lot of speculation that Palm’s days as a public company may be slipping through the hour-glass. There’s a growing sentiment in the Silicon Valley that Palm may go private; that this was the plan all along and that such a plan is getting far more affordable for the team at Elevation.

So if Palm goes away what happens to the universe of 3rd party apps and the user base? I suspect Palm will be subsumed by a larger company and the OS phased out. The hardware design is still very popular and fairly usable but the OS is definitely showing its age and with a potentially uber-cool WinMo 7 coming up, Palm will have quite a bit of catch-up.

What should Palm do to save itself? It should pull an OS X out of its hat. Take the Linux core, create a killer UI, and have HTC make cool new Treo. The icons we know an love that populate that start screen need to go away. Palm can still win against Symbian — albeit only in the U.S. — and if they don’t amaze us with a full overhaul, they’re dead.

If this doesn’t happen, Palm is finished. I know you like your Treo and I like Treos as well, but this market is too large and too expensive to dabble in. Sybmian has the might of Nokia behind it and WinMo has the might of millions of installed Windows PCs. Apple has a cool factor and Linux and Android, bless their hearts, aren’t even in the race. RIM has business locked up, leaving what for Palm? Sodoku fans?

I might have to eat my hat, but unless Palm stuffs fifty guys in a room with some coffee and danish and tells them to make iPhone 2.0, they’re screwed. If we’re still talking about Palm next year, I’ll be very happy and very surprised but this is not the same company that once held a generation of dot-commers rapt with awe. This is a dying company and only extreme measures — or extreme unction — can save it.

Smartphones and not-so-smartphones are gaining popularity and the necessity of finding a decent plan is becoming more and more important. Not every carrier is really providing a good price point for first adopters or really, even slightly economically-minded smartphone users. What we’re looking at today is what the Big Four carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint) have on offer. It’s not a comprehensive investigation, just a look at what you’d probably want to get if you signed up with one of these suckers today.

What we’re looking for is basically a decent unified plan with a fair amount of voice (around 1000 minutes, we’ll say), unlimited or near-unlimited messaging and e-mail, and unlimited data. Because really, it’s almost 2008, we shouldn’t need to be counting our bytes when we’re paying hundreds for these high-tech phone-PDA hybrids.

T-Mobile
I’m on T-Mo with my normal phone on their cheapest possible plan, which is costing me less than $40/mo. for enough minutes and messages to last me. So T-Mobile is the affordable, domestic carrier with no 3G but a lot of plans aimed at families and such. Not exactly the ideal home for a smartphone buyer, but let’s take a look. All phone prices include applicable rebates and discounts for the usual 2-year ball-and-chain.

Standout Phones:
-Blackberry Curve ($250) and 8800 ($350)
-Sidekick Slide ($199) & LX ($299)
-Wing ($299)

Plans:
$80 – Blackberry Minutes & Mail Ultra: 1500 minutes, unlimited data and email
$80 – Other: $40 for 1500 anytime minutes, $40 for unlimited data and email
$70 – Sidekick: $40 for 1500 anytime minutes, $30 for unlimited data and email

Your best value is probably the Sidekick – the plan is a good deal and there’s lots of extra stuff available for the phones. However, if you’re going for the full experience, get the 8800, it’s got a native HTML browser and a unified plan. On the whole it’s affordable, but their network is limited at the moment, although there are persistent rumors of rolling out some 3G action sometime soon.

Verizon Wireless
They need no introduction, this monolithic corporation whose closed phones and rigid policies have aggravated users nationwide. Despite their evil nature, they do have the biggest and most reliable network, and you’re going to be charged a premium for it. You’d think they would lower prices to wholesale, but no, they’ve raised them to the ceiling to take advantage of the people who really need that always-on 3G connection. However, their professional-level aspirations don’t mesh well with their CDMA network, so you’ll be out of luck if you decide to take your Q across the pond.

Standout Phones:
-Motorola Q ($100)
-Treo 755p ($300)
-XV6800 ($350)
-Some ugly Blackberries ($150-$200)

Plans:
$120 – $20 for 900 minutes, $100 for unlimited data and messages

Speaking bluntly, their plans are huge rip-offs. You’re being charged a huge amount of money – and while the Q is functional, the 755p sweet, and the XV6800 impressive, it’s not really easy to say whether it’s worth going with getting punched in the crotch by your bill every month.

AT&T
AT&T has really taken a lead when it comes to smartphones, currently offering more models than any of its competitors. What’s more, AT&T’s dedicated business unit acts more autonomously than the consumer side, meaning you can find group deals and plans for biz that you can’t for personal users.

Standout Phones:
-iPhone, what’s that? ($400)
-Treo 750 (refurbed for $100!)
-Tilt ($300)

Plans:
-$90 – $60 for 900 minutes, $30 for Smartphone Max unlimited data and 1500 messages
-$105 – $60 for 900 minutes, $45 for Blackberry Unlimited data and messages

The AT&T plans are very reasonable and easy to understand. The voice portion is a little excessive, but the cheap unlimited data plans make up for it. You could be running a nice 3G Treo for $100 down and $90 a month, and while some people debate the smartphone-ness of the iPhone, there’s no denying it’s at the very least a very popular crossover device that a lot of people want, which makes AT&T an even stronger competitor. A little extra cash lets you tether the phone to your laptop, making for a portable internet that you don’t have to squint at. The Blackberry plans are not so tempting, but with so many great other phones available, there’s no need for them.

Sprint
Lastly there’s Sprint, which recently absorbed Nextel. It’s a more consumer-focused carrier, but that doesn’t mean it skimps on the smartphone class of devices. In fact, Sprint has some of the easiest to understand and most reasonable smartphone data plans. Sadly, like Verizon, it’s a CDMA network, which means most of its phones won’t work in most overseas markets.

Standout Phones
-HTC Touch ($250)
-Blackberry 8830 ($200)
-Centro ($100)

Plans:
$85-90 – $60 for 900 minutes, $25-30 for unlimited data, messages, and extra services
$100 – $60 for 900 minutes, $40 for unlimited Blackberry data, messages, e-mail and so on

Sprint has a good deal with its data plans, and our own Peter Ha really likes the Touch. Matt even likes the Centro, and the 8830 is a pretty serious phone for $200, although at $100 per month you’re starting to push the limit of affordability.

To be honest, the situation is a bit grim. Expect to pay almost $100/month even with the cheapest carrier, or even more if you need a little minute cushioning or extra lines attached to your phone. Because it’s a growing market but still not nearly the size of, say, the RAZR market, you’re going to be paying a premium for true smartphone ability. Keep an eye out for our features on not-quite-smartphones to save a bit of cash, and also start keeping an eye out for wi-fi capability like T-Mobile’s, which can make things faster to load and easier on your wallet.

These eight great apps are easy to install, easy to use, and should help you be more productive from day to day.

Opera Mobile
Devices: Windows Mobile, Symbian

Browsing the web on your phone can be a somewhat enjoyable experience, believe it or not. If you have a Windows Mobile device like I do, you’ll definitely want to replace Pocket Internet Explorer as soon as possible. And great news for Symbian devices, you already have Opera Mobile as your default browser.

From the dynamic reformatting of web pages to faster-than-average tabbed browsing, Opera Mobile makes a good addition to any compatible smartphone. There’s a 30-day trial and then the software costs $24 to keep. Those looking for an even quicker, lighter version of Opera can try Opera Mini. It’s free and works on most Java-enabled devices.

Google Maps
Devices: J2ME, Palm, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian

Use your device’s built-in GPS chip to show your location on Google Maps. Or if you don’t have a GPS-enabled device, find your location anyway thanks to Google’s new "My Location" feature, which triangulates your position using nearby cell phone towers. Get directions, view live traffic conditions, and find nearby businesses easily and quickly. Best of all, it’s free.

PdaNet
Devices: Windows Mobile, Palm

Got a laptop? Got a smartphone with a data plan? Then you’ve got yourself a high speed modem. Install the PdaNet software on your computer and your smartphone and then connect your device via Bluetooth or USB to access the web on your laptop using your mobile data plan. It’s great for airports, coffee shops, in the car (not while driving, of course), and anywhere else you either can’t get a WiFi signal or don’t want to pay out the nose for hourly access. There’s a 30-day trial and then the software costs $34 to keep, which pays for itself in no time.

Missing Sync
Devices: Windows Mobile, Palm, BlackBerry

Mac users, meet your new best friend when it comes to synchronizing your information between your Mac and your Windows Mobile, Palm, or BlackBerry device. It’s especially useful for Windows Mobile. Can you believe that a Windows Mobile device wouldn’t be easy to synchronize with a non-Windows computer without the help of third-party software?

Sarcasm aside, Missing Sync allows you to synchronize your contacts, calendar, notes, memos, voice recordings, Office files, videos (it even transcodes them for you), photos, iTunes playlists, and more. While $40 might sound steep, the amount of time and trouble it’ll save you will seem well worth it.

Agile Messenger
Devices: Windows Mobile, Symbian

If you want anyone and everyone to be able to get ahold of you wherever you are, you’ll like Agile Messenger. You can keep in touch with your friends on MSN, ICQ, AOL, AIM, Google Talk, and Yahoo! Messenger without loading each separate program onto your mobile phone. Agile Messenger handles them all.

You can buy an all-in license for $44.95 or pay tri-monthly at $11.95.  

LogMeIn
Devices: Windows Mobile

Sign up for a free LogMeIn account and discover the pure productivity bliss of being able to access your home or office PC from anywhere. Then discover it again by accessing it from your mobile phone. The free version allows you to view and manipulate your files while the $12.95-per-month Pro version allows you to transfer and synchronize files between multiple computers and your phone, print remotely, and more.

MagiCall
Devices: Windows Mobile

The ability to block unwanted calls is a feature that should be pretty simple and included with your phone’s plan, right? Well that’s not always the case. MagiCall blocks unwanted calls by sending a text message back to the individual’s phone saying something like "kindly go F yourself and stop calling me forever" and can also automatically delete incoming text messages from a troublesome texter.

There’s a week-long trial available and the full version costs $24.95 should you wish to keep it.

SimulSays
Devices: Windows Mobile, BlackBerry

Visual voicemail doesn’t just have to be an iPhone thing. With SimulSays, you can manage your voicemail messages as easily as e-mail messages, skipping directly to important ones and saving certain messages for later. You won’t have to call in to your voicemail system and skip past old messages just to get to the one you want to hear. You can also reply to voicemails by sending an e-mail, text message, or initiating a phone call. Service starts at $9.95 per month for 40 messages or there’s an unlimited plan available for $29.95 per month. You can try the service free for seven days.

It’s that time of year again… Smartphones Now time! Smartphones Now is our annual discussion of all things smartphones and will detail the ins and outs of a turbulent and exciting year, a year eclipsed by an 800-pound gorilla and witness to some spectacular flame outs. This is a year of transition, a time when Apple redefined the market and Microsoft played catch-up. New interfaces and gesture-based systems were taken out of labs and universities and smashed into smartphones that are better — or worse — for the effort. Things are changing, and this is just the beginning.

We’ll talk about Palm, Symbian, Palm OS, and WinMo. We’ll talk about the iPhone — is it really a smartphone? We’ll talk about the gadgets and gear we played with all year and predict, pontificate, and do penance for our lack of foresight. Welcome to Smartphones Now.

Have any smartphone horror stories? What is your favorite phone? The worst phone you used this year? Drop us a line at tips@crunchgear.com.