What cell phone meets my criteria?

May 31, 2004 1:45 PM

CellPhilter. It's time for me to accept the leash and collar and get a cell phone. I know nearly nothing about the subject. I have some ideas on what I'd like. I found this thread, which has some helpful sites, but nothing that satisfies my curiosity. [m to the i]

Features I would like, with the aim of minimizing my gadget pile:

• Mac-centric PDA (Palm, please, but negotiable)
• large-capacity on-and-offline voice recording
• desktop synching / downloading (ideally for the audio)
• headset jack

Nice, but optional:

• camera
• radio receiver
• mp3/digital audio player
• non-proprietary WiFi
• web browsing

don't care:

• text messaging
• keyboard
• form factor
• video
• standard
• geographic tracking
• games

One of the reasons I need the phone is that I am working away from my home office and customarily pick up interviews on very short notice. this would allow me to do the interviews on the fly without needing to tote a separate recorder.

The extant feature comparison stuff I located fails to distinguish between flavors of voicerec. Snippet-based won't do.

A fallback is the most vanilla, cheapest phone I can find that has a headset jack. I don't want to lug but I can live with it.

posted by mwhybark to Shopping (10 answers total)

Actually you probably don't want a phone with a headset jack --- you want a Bluetooth phone and a bluetooth headset. I used to have a cabled headset and always managed to pull it off by catching the cable with my hands. Not good.
posted by nathan_teske at 2:15 PM on May 31, 2004

Response by poster: the jack is important as a backup method of getting audio signal to a recorder. I have actually found myself running phone interviews that run into three and four hours (although, admittedly, one hopes to be able to plan for such things).

That aside, bluetooth is not something I'm against; but it doesn't make me salivate.
posted by mwhybark at 2:19 PM on May 31, 2004

that's a very full featured phone you have in mind. the treo 600 has all the features you need. SD expansion card for audio storage. It also has a camera, mp3 player, and web browsing, although the screen is small and I have no personal experience with them, so i don't know how workable that is.
posted by rhyax at 3:31 PM on May 31, 2004

Man, I really don't get the attitude that a cell phone is a leash. Don't want to be interrupted? Turn it off. Much easier even than with a land line.
posted by NortonDC at 4:04 PM on May 31, 2004

I agree with norton too, most cell phones now have profiles or modes with conditional call forwarding. Like when i'm sleeping, i only accept calls from my immediate family and friends, the rest go to voicemail, which i can check when i wake up. It's a lot less leash-like than just answering every call.
posted by rhyax at 4:10 PM on May 31, 2004

Response by poster: Lets just say I've had some interesting experience with bosses and cell phones and leave it at that.

Also, wristwatches oppress us all with the tyranny of industrial time.
posted by mwhybark at 8:44 PM on May 31, 2004

More information than you ever, ever wanted to know about cellular service from Steven Scharf at sfbacell.com. On the newsgroups, he acts pretty arrogant, but despite that, he provides a thorough overview of everything you ever will need, or want, to know about cell service there.
posted by calwatch at 9:38 PM on May 31, 2004

Just one other thing...please don't drive in the left lane while talking on your new cell phone. Thank you.
posted by oh posey at 8:08 AM on June 1, 2004

I can't believe you used "[m to the i]"
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 2:05 PM on June 10, 2004

cell phones have off switches. learn where it is and how to operate it. cell phones have caller id. learn to look and see who is calling before you answer. where do you get all this "leash" crap? master your technology, don't be dominated by it!
posted by quonsar at 2:09 PM on June 10, 2004