I just bought a fancy new phone. A very fancy, state of the art, not crippled by T-Mobile, phone. I bought a Blackberry Curve 8310 in Titanium, and it is my dream phone. At first my wife said I absolutely couldn’t buy it, but she finally relented! Instead of getting me a PS2 for my birthday (she’s running a tad late on it), she is contributing the $90 cost of a PS2 to my purchase of the phone. I got an AT&T version off eBay, and you can buy unlock codes on eBay too, so I will be unlocking it and putting my T-Mobile SIM card into it.

My bill will go up by $5-15 when I switch to the Blackberry plan, because it doesn’t include unlimited texts like the Sidekick, so you have to pick the 400 ($5), 1000 ($10), or unlimited ($15) text plans. I got it on a trial basis, from a seller who accepts returns for any reason for 7 days. When I had the T-Mobile Dash a few months ago, I knew within a few days that I didn’t like it, so I think I will know for this, too. If I decide to keep it, I have to sell both my GPS device (there’s one in the phone) and my Sidekick 3 (don’t need two phones). It won’t be SUPER easy to do geocaching with the Blackberry - there’s no ideal application for it yet - but it is possible.

The phone has everything I want except WiFi, and I don’t really NEED that because I’ll have the unlimited data plan and I have cell coverage everywhere except my house. But we might be moving to my in-laws’ house soon (we are still house-sitting, but we are going to ask if we can stay in the spare room where we are now) so I don’t have to worry about it, they have cell coverage here.

If you haven’t seen me online much today, it’s because I’ve been playing with the new phone. In fact I am using it to write this. It is still hard so I will be brief. As of right this minute, I don’t like it. But I must give it time. It’s hard though because there are things I can do fine on the Sidekick but I don’t know how to do them on the Dash yet. It’s also hard because I don’t want to register any programs yet that cost money like the ssh programs I’ve found. I do like that I can use it on the wifi at home though. But yeah…still a lot of issues so far.

For those of you who missed it in the paid post, I’ve got a new phone on the way. I bought a T-Mobile Dash on eBay. I’ve been underwhelmed by my Sidekick for a while, and the Helio Ocean doesn’t have certain capabilities I need, so I looked around and decided on the Dash. I just called T-Mobile and asked about switching plans; because the new data plan requires a few days for setup, I’ve already activated it so it’ll be ready when the Dash arrives. I’m a little annoyed that the wifi will only work with their hotspots, it costs $20/month for “Hotspots at Home” which lets you use any wifi network. Switching to the Dash will cost $15 more per month, because that’s how much unlimited SMS costs - the Sidekick plan has it built in, but the Total Internet does not.

I’m planning to try the Dash for up to a month. The keyboard is much smaller than the Sidekick’s, so I want time to get used to it and decide if I like the phone before I sell my Sidekick 3. The Dash cost me $181 including shipping; if I decide to keep it, I will post my SK3 on eBay for buy-it-now $181 with free shipping, and it will get snapped up fast, I think. I’ll probably do the same thing with the Dash if I don’t like it, too. So we’ll see how it goes - I am looking forward to trying it!

I have been looking around lately for T-Mobile phones, because I discovered that the Helio Ocean is not all cracked it’s cracked up to be. (No ssh? No thanks!) I was looking at the MDA instead, and I glanced at the Wing and some Blackberries. But I really ended up with my heart set on the T-Mobile Dash. I read dozens of reviews and the pros seem to outweigh the cons. Plus I would have had to transfer my contract to someone else if I had bought a Helio, this way I don’t! I was really amazed to see that A1 Wireless has the Dash for free if you’ve never been a T-Mobile customer before. (I’ve been a customer since 2002, so the lowest Dash price I could possibly have qualified for was $150, but I bought the Sidekick 3 in May.) A1 also offers one-year contracts, so you can get a reduced price on any phone without locking yourself in for two years. But since I’ve already done that, I ended up buying the Dash on eBay for $181 including shipping. I’m not committing myself to it yet. Once it arrives, I will have T-Mobile switch my plan to the Dash plan and then I will try it for 2-4 weeks. If I like it, I’ll make a Buy-It-Now auction for $181 for my Sidekick 3 (free shipping) and it’ll get snapped up right away. Same for the Dash if I don’t like it!