PDA Phones

PDA phones and wireless handhelds rock ... For oh so many reasons. I'm typing this column from the beach with on my wireless handheld Danger Hiptop (a.k.a: T-Mobile Sidekick) PDA phone. Believe it or not, I'm laying here in the sand, staring into a beautiful blue sky. Yes, indeed, I am a geek. But I just can't help myself ... PDA phones and wireless handhelds make all kinds of amazingly geeky things a reality. Why just now I had to stop thumb typing to help bury my son's feet in the sand.

For the last year and a half, this little PDA phone has allowed me to keep up on my business no matter where I've been. I've checked into my mission-critical web apps from airport shuttles and instant messengered while waiting for a plane. I've used the stopwatch to keep track of the time in my team's soccer games. And I've emailed with my toes in the waters of the Florida Keys. (Okay, so I emailed with my thumbs, but my toes were still in the water.)

Truth be told, I've taken to leaving my laptop at home when I go on the road. I lead the danger(ous) hiptop life, with my PDA phone as my only electronic tether to the online world.

Don't get scared off by the thumb typing thing. It's really not that bad on a fair sized wireless device like the Sidekick. I can crank along at perhaps twenty words per minute after I get warmed up. It can take a little while to get accustomed to it, but once you do, you'll fly along. A simple spell checker helps smooth out some of the bumps.

While I may not be happy with some of T-Mobile's policies, I am quite pleased with their Sidekick plan. For $40 a month, I have an all-you-can-eat data plan (the phone time is admittedly light). All-you-can-eat data means all the web, all the instant messaging (SMS and AIM), and all the email you can cram into a month. Now if only my daughter had borrowed my Sidekick, she wouldn't have run up that $150 instant messaging bill.

T-Mobile now offers even cheaper data plans. And even better, the funky little device (now in color!) costs about $50 after rebates when purchasing a new plan. That's right ... just fifty bucks. You can find the details at LetsTalk.com and other sources online.

I like to refer to my Sidekick as a poor man's Blackberry. It's a versatile device ... Not the be all end all, to be sure, but a nice little way to tide me over until I can afford a beefier wireless handheld.

I know that one day (maybe soon), I'll have to give up this wacky little wireless handheld for something newer and more colorful. Until then, it's still doing the job (knock wood). But if I had my druthers (and a fat wallet), I'd be doing the wireless thing with something like the Handspring Treo 600 ... If only the price would drop into a less stratospheric price range ... and if only the device would become available on one or two additional networks ...