The smartphone for webmasters

If you own and maintain your own property management or real estate web site - then you are a webmaster.

I got my first cell phone earlier this year. I spoke with several of my friends that work in the cell phone industry before I got one. I was told the phone to own was the Treo 650P. So I went down to Costco and picked one up for a bout $320 (after rebates). Since then I have come to use just about everything on the phone and I thought I would share my experiences.

The reason I titled this post “The smartphone for webmasters” is because it seems that everyone in my industry is using one. This became clear at the SES conference in San Jose. I am sure most of you have been to a conference where you see a line of computers set up to allow people access to their email, well at this conference I notice those lines where extremely short. I noticed that after each session was over a lot of people took out there smart phones and checked their email. Most of the smart phones appeared to be the Treo.

So why do webmaster love the Treo?

• Email: I use my Treo for email far more than I do making phone calls. You can check your email just about anywhere. I have Sprint service which seems to have very good data and (EVDO) coverage.
• MP3 player: I use the built in MP3 player a lot because I listen to many different podcasts during the week. I purchased a 1 Gig SD card for $39 so I can add a lot more songs and podcasts to my phone.
• Internet: I use this a lot more now that I upgraded to the Treo 700p with the EVDO package the allows for faster download speeds. I surf my Bloglines page often to get alerted when someone on my blog list has posted.
• Phone: Now with the Treo 700 I can be checking email on my phone and receive a phone call at the same time - before with the 650 the phone call would have gone to voice mail.
• Contacts: Since I can sync all my contacts on my phone from Outlook 2003 I have all my information with me.
• Camera: When I am out with my kids I can always take a photo that I might have missed before. The 700 has a 1.2 mega pixel camera which is a lot better than the 650’s camera. Using the external SD card I can quickly transfer my pictures and MP3’s using my portable card reader. The Treo also has a video camera, but it is not that good.
• Voice memos: If I am out hiking and I think of an idea, I can quickly say it in to my Treo to play it back later. This can be less geeky than it sounds because people won’t look at you funny because you are talking into a phone. I also use this feature to record conference sessions. When I lower the sample rate (using the free SoundRec program) I fit an entire conference (many hours) on my phone.
• SprintTV: This is pretty cool. You can watch live streaming shows like ABC news on your phone. The video quality sucks, but the audio is pretty good.
• Calendar: Just like my contacts I get reminded when I need to do something.
• Calculator: I don’t uses this that often, but it is nice to have.
• Word, Excel and Power Point: Another item I don’t use much, but it is nice to have.

For my business being able to check email just about anywhere is extremely helpful. Now when I go on vacation or a conference I don’t even bring my laptop anymore. Typing a long email on the phone can be a pain, so if you are out of town and need to respond to a ton of emails you can bring a long a portable keyboard that folds up really small. The other downside of bring a laptop and tapping in to Wi-Fi is that you are not as secure as you are are on the EVDO network. Free Wi-Fi can threaten your passwords and other information you are passing over the air.

When I bought my Treo at Costco they gave me some free extras like a leather case, car charger and ear buds. But the best part of the deal is I could return my phone for a full refund. So what I did was purchase a used 700p on Craigslist for $299 and then returned my Treo 650 and got $320 back so I actually came out ahead. But the downside is when you make even the smallest of change on your plan your 2 year agreement starts all over again.

I have not receive my first bill since I switched over to the 700 but I am guessing it will be around $60 a month which includes the $15 for the EVDO package.

[tags]smartphone, Treo, 650, 700, webmasters[/tags]