Saving Companies Thousands. Be One!

This weekend I had the pleasure of experiencing a 3-day swim meet with my daughter at the University of Incarnate Word. While I didn’t enjoy getting up at 5:30 AM every morning, I did enjoy people watching during the course of the long days. With hours and hours of down time, I, like many others, took to my smart phone to pass the time. As I look around, it seems that EVERYONE has a smart phone of some kind. I’ve seen Dad’s getting score updates on NFL playoff games, Mom’s taking pictures with their multi-pixel smart phones kids playing games and listening to music. I personally have pushed my Blackberry to the max…I’ve watched entire TV shows, listened to my music, streamed the UT Men’s basketball game, sent Blackberry Messenger updates on my daughter’s progress to friends and family, read my entire newspaper and other articles from my Viigo, browsed the Net, played online blackjack and poker, taken pictures/video, followed the weather AND used the stopwatch timer on my Tour (whew). Needless to say, my smart phone has had a workout this weekend. I’ve also done my best to “educate” others on applications or uses on their own smart phones that perhaps they were unaware of. If you’re still one of the few people that do not have a smart phone, perhaps it’s time that you look at one now. You too can do all of these things for just a few extra bucks a month. If you’d like to know how, call me…(800) GET-A-CELL. Don’t settle for another “dumb” phone when you could have the World at your finger tips! Oh, and did I mention that I even posted this blog from my phone?

Cell phones have been around for a relatively long time. Many people I know claim they used to have bag phones, I personally do not remember anybody having a bag phone. Then a while later we had those Nokia bar phones with the horrible screens and we all thought we were cool. So how much have phones changed since a few years ago?

We have always been able to make calls, some people debate the coverage and call quality. My favorite lines go something like “With my bag phone I could make calls underwater and they sounded perfect”. Then we started taking advantage of text messaging, web, e-mail, media. That is where we are now, we have devices available that do so much more.

I have a Blackberry, Blackberry and Palm have been in the smartphone market for some time. Blackberry has been constantly evolving, albeit a little slower than some other companies. Palm has basically reinvented themselves to use their new WebOS. With my Blackberry I send/receive text messages, I can update and read my Facebook, I update my Twitter, I read news and other RSS feeds with Viigo (which is super awesome). I do so many more things it is hard to list them.

As much as I love my Blackberry, Apple’s iPhone is, in my opinion, what changed the game. Apple made a device that has much more memory that RIM devices or Palm devices had. They released a fairly simple development kit to developers. The iPhone became more about the apps than the phone. People thought “Wow I never knew I would be able to do this with a phone”. Apple is very smart and they did a great job marketing and showing us some of the cool apps, they also give the feeling that there is an application for everything you could imagine.

Windows has been making their Windows Mobile platform evolve. I am really excited for Windows Mobile 6.5 to come out. I used to have a Motorola Q, which was my first smartphone, I liked it but did not love it. I liked Windows Mobile, I love Blackberry OS. I am keeping an eye on this one to see how it goes.

The next big contributor to the smartphone realm was Google. For me Google is just an awesome company, some people know them for their search engine only, but now they have thing Chrome browser and Google Voice which are cool products. Google initially had a good relationship with HTC, but now Motorola and LG are going to start making Android devices. It is open, so I think many manufacturers will start using the Android OS and tweaking it to fit lower end and higher end devices.

Our phones have always done what they have done, they have slowly added features and we have been familiar with the layout. The main things that change are what carrier you have. A Sprint phone’s menu may look different from an ATT phone. The first time you pick up a Blackberry you are lost, although once you get the hang of it YOU LOVE IT, at least I do.

Carriers know applications (apps) are what people are falling in love with, they are trying to cater to these apps a little more now (think LG enV3). A dumbphone will not let you cater to apps, at least not in the capacity that will make them successful. I see business users using Blackberry for years to come. Some business users I think will also use iPhone. Google Android and Palm WebOS are the operating systems to watch. With their abilities they can be tweaked to fit into a consumer or business customer device.

If you have any questions you can contact us. You can also reach me on Twitter @gizmoalex or Charlie @phonestore. We like to think we are smartphone experts, but we also love using our gadgets and devices and we want people to enjoy them too. If you have any questions or any suggestions let us know.

Okay, it has been announced for a few months. I am eligible for an upgrade (with Sprint) and my inner Crackberry addict is really struggling against my inner “I want every new tech toy that comes out”. I feel committed to Blackberry. I started with the 8830 and now I have the 8330. I have not had it nearly as long as some other addicts, but I do love it just as much.

That “it” I am referring to is the Palm Pre. The coolest phone Sprint has hyped up in a long while. There has not been a really cool consumer type phone that has looked like it was going to live up to the hype since the Fusic. I know it was a few years ago, but it was pretty cool. So the Palm Pre is a touchscreen, slideout QWERTY, angel of a phone.

The Boy Genius has recently put his little paws on the phone and says it is a pretty solid choice. He did not write too much, but says the touchscreen is good. The only gripe he had was with the top row of keys on the QWERTY. I am a BB fan, a Windows 6.5 fan, the new WebOS fan, and an Android fan, It is hard to like all of these things, but relying heavily on e-mail keeps me glued to my BB. So a coin flip may determine whether I get the Pre or not. The other determining factor may be an announcement of another cool device (Blackberry Tour/Niagara) in the coming months. If you have any questions contact us or you can @message me on Twitter (@gizmoalex) or (@phonestore).

As you all know we really like cool phones with our company, and it is hard for anything to compete with Blackberry in our hearts unless it is super awesome. I have always like the HTC Touch phone because of the TouchFlo or MediaFlo interface it has. It has always been a cool phone, and a nice small touch screen phone for business users.

Now there were some problems with the HTC Touch and HTC Mogul when they came out, but some of the carriers like Sprint put out software upgrades to give them faster internet and patch some of the issues. So now that those problems have been resolved, what is the next step. Make a great functioning phone that looks awesome as well.

The Touch Diamond is the non QWERTY sister of the two. It looks to have a really cool interface, a 3.2 Mega-pixel camera, tons of on board storage (4 GB for current versions), and a slew of other features. I would recommend checking this video out to see what I am talking about.

The Touch Pro is the QWERTY sister. It has all similar features, and if the QWERTY is anything like the Mogul’s it will be awesome. I have felt HTC has always been a very innovative company, and we do not get to see many of their really awesome phones here in the U.S. From what I have read they will be making a stronger push this year and next year with their marketing to make it more of a name here. So HTC makes good phones and I think they listen to their customers by making improvements people ask for, as well as giving us awesome features we did not know could exist.

I doubt I will give up my Blackberry, but these two phones coming to Sprint are making me entertain the idea. If you have not become a Blackberry Addict yet TAKE THE CHALLENGE!

Have you checked out our Time Savers page? When you’re travelling or wasting away in traffic, wouldn’t you prefer to be reading your favorite websites on your phone? Like most people, you probably don’t want to go to those sites on your phone, because it is slow and cumbersome. Enter Viigo. With Viigo, you quickly and easily set up your favorite sites to automatically update on your phone. Then, on your time, you can check out the latest articles. Sports, news, weather - no problem. All of this is done via RSS. “RSS?!! Yikes, what’s that? Sounds complicated!” Not only is RSS (and Viigo) easy, but we have a quick video, courtesy of commoncraft.com, that explains it in plain english. Check it out below, then download Viigo for your Windows Mobile or BlackBerry device here.