I have been lusting over GSM phones for a while now. I’m in a two year contract with Verizon, so my phone choices have been limited. Don’t get me wrong, I love my LG VX6000 for what it is, and Verizon’s network coverage is hard to beat in North Carolina. But I LONG for one of these awesome GSM phones. I have Bluetooth in my Powerbook just urging to connect to SOMETHING. Verizon has one phone with Bluetooth I believe, and it’s crippled beyond belief. The phone carriers, specifically Verizon and Sprint, love to cripple the connectivity of their Bluetooth capable handsets to keep people from bypassing the revenue-generating content-downloading services they offer. Verizon’s variant of this is “GetItNow”… I haven’t put a penny into that service, and I hate that the possibility of me getting a fully functional Bluetooth capable handset is negated because of it’s existence.
Anyway… Another GSM handset has caught my eye. In fact, it has grasped said eye, and tugged at it with a force similar to the Sun’s pull on Earth. This is a very sexy hunk of plastic and silicone. It appeals to every ounce of gadget-freak in me. Not only does it boast a unique slide-twist mechanism, it also has Bluetooth, a 1.3megapixel camera, and a MSDuo slot, among other things, all for $400 with a two year contract. I’ve read posts that say it’s not extremely small, and feels like a wallet in one’s pocket. That may be a deal breaker for me, as I currently carry a Sony Clie NX80V around with me, along with a Rio Karma DAP. The only thing that will take the NX80V out of my pocket is the Treo 650… which you can read my thoughts on here.
Sony Ericsson S710a Product Page
While I most likely won’t end up with this Sony phone, I greatly admire it as a piece of technology, and like many others I am amazed at the kinds of hardware we are seeing hit the cell phone market. I’ll continue to drool helplessly until September, when Cingular has a chance to show me that their network coverage has indeed improved with the acquisition of AT&T’s towers, and Verizon has a chance to lure me with their $100 of upgrade cash to put toward any new hardware they may have brought to the market. (Verizon, pleeeeese… Treo 650 with no crippling and I’m your’s)
