My wife needs a new smartphone

My wife is a family physician in private practice and she needs a new smartphone. Let me give you a bit of background on her:

• One of her first PDAs was a Sony Clie running Palm OS (remember those?)
• Then, she switched to Pocket PC/Windows Mobile. She used an HP iPaq for a while.
• Then she upgraded to a smartphone. Her first one was a Palm Treo 700wx running Windows Mobile.
• Her most recent smartphone has been a Samsung i760 (pictured above). 
• Now, she planning on an upgrade with her "new every two" program on Verizon Wireless. 

She could leave Verizon and switch to AT&T to get the Apple iPhone, but she's "stuck" on Verizon since the overwhelming majority of our friends and family are on Verizon.
She could get another Windows Mobile smartphone on Verizon, but she wants something different.
She also uses a Mac, so she's more inclined to get a non-Windows Phone this time.

So, which smartphone will she end up getting? Stay tuned to find out! (Although at one point we were both using a Palm Treo 700wx running Windows Mobile, I don't think she would get the same phone that I would get.) Will she go with Android? BlackBerry? Or back to Windows Mobile?

Do You Love or Hate Your Smartphone?

My friend hates his smartphone. I can't say that I love mine, but I also don't hate it. It does its job and every time I get a new smartphone, I think about which features I liked and disliked about my old one. This way, I can almost imagine what my next one "should" be like.

For instance, I started with a Treo 700wx (Windows Mobile). It was a "candybar" design. Nothing slides in or out. No flips. It was a nice phone, but it was bulky. It had a small screen and the buttons were small, but I could use it with one hand. No Wi-Fi, slow EV-DO speeds. No GPS.

Now, I have a slider phone (the Verizon XV6800, AKA Sprint Mogul or HTC Titan or PPC6800). This phone is roughly the same size. It has a larger screen and since the keyboard slides out, the buttons are larger. This one has Wi-Fi (which I hardly use), fast EV-DO speeds (great for tethering), and has a built-in GPS (if you load a custom ROM and radio).

I'm hoping that my next phone will be more like the Treo in terms of design/form/function. I hope it's thinner than the Treo, but it will need an internal aGPS (I've grown to depend on this so much, especially when I travel and drive in a new city). Fortunately, there are currently several phones that I can select that would meet my "requirements." However, I'm not in the market to purchase a new phone, so I'll wait patiently.

Upgrade Your Treo 700wx to Windows Mobile 6.1

You may have heard that some developers have gotten their hands on Windows Mobile 6.1 for the Palm Treo 700wx. If you want to learn more, then take a look at this forum on XDA-Developers:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=397134

Flashing a phone's ROM is not for beginners. This is true especially when you're loading a custom ROM. If you make a mistake, then your phone may turn into a permanent brick that you can use as a paperweight. I always advise people to ask for assistance or to hand the phone over to an expert who can do the flashing correctly.

In my opinion, there are significant advantages to running Windows Mobile 6.1 over Windows Mobile 6.0. That change from ".0" to ".1" at the end of 6 makes a big difference. Now we have Windows Mobile 6.5 but that's not available for the Treo (at least not now). Not sure about the version differences? Take a look at this chart that provides an overview of Windows Mobile 5.0, 6.0, and 6.1:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/meet/version-compare.mspx