Buying a new phone

[knight_of_ni]

Hi everyone, I am in the market for a new Pocket PC style phone with a QWERTY style keybaord on it. Through my research I have found out that all QWERTY style Pocket PC's are also phones.

So after looking around at a number of models out there the i-Mate JASJAR phone really caught my eye. However, also while looking around I found this site and figured I would ask an active community what my best choice would be. I will buy from anywhere in the world if it will be cheaper in the end.

I have a plan with Fido currently and a sim card in my LG phone working at the moment.

The things I need in a Pocket PC Phone:

Hardware
- Fido Canada Compatability (GSM ~1900) for phone
- WiFi (802.11b) for data
- Bluetooth support
- SD Card Slot for my 1gb card
- USB port to connect to computer
- Decent processor and RAM.

Software
- Windows 2005 (or whatever the latest is)
- General Word / Excel Applications
- MSN Messenger

I'm not used to looking up information about phones and cross compatibility, and being in canada all I am used to is being screwed up the rear with cell phone costs and locked phones. So thats why I am coming here for help.

Any help would be greatly appriciated.
Thank you all in advance.

Antonio the Knight of Ni.

[lie_ui]

Hello,

If all you you need are those listed, basically you can pick any PPC that is offered today by the cell phone providers today in North America, as it will be cheaper than buying an unlocked one. Mostly the providers today offered one of the Wizard varians, like in the USA, most of the providers (Cingular, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint), all of them carry of the Wizard varians, with price around US$350 for 2 years contract. Full price without contract here is around US$500.

I'm an owner of i-mate Jasjar (Universal). Compared to a Wizard, Jasjar/Universal is much more expensive here in North America, because no provider carry it, thus we have to buy full price.
Compared to Wizard, however, Universal has the following:
1. Processor is twice/more faster technically.
2. Screen is VGA, compared to Wizard (QVGA).
3. Heavier, bulkier, etc.
4. Universal is wow when used as a mini laptop, but Wizard is wow when used a mini PPC and phone.

I can tell you, I'm always impressed with my Uni when I read PDF doc, emails, remote connecting to my PC, watching videos.

All of your requirement can be easily fulfilled by a WIzard instead of a Universal.

[knight_of_ni]

Well, I am willing to spend up to $800 so I dont have to be in a contract, and my goal is to get it to work on my Canadian provider Fido. So, the phone is going to have to be unlocked in order for me to beable to use it on my provider as they dont sell any pocket pc phones, only their parent company rogers does but I am on a grandfathered contract with fido that gives me unlimited calling, so i would like to maintain that.

So, as far as unlocked phones go, your saying that the Jaspar is probly the best call? Excuse the pun. :P

[kronarq]

I am in the market for a ppc phone as well and I have come down to a decision between the Universal and the Wizard, but I would like some user feedback about both models. I noticed the Wizard has a 200mhz TI cpu and the Universal has a 520mhz intel cpu. What is the actual performance difference between the two? Does the wizard use its clock cycles more efficiently closing some of the gap or is the universal really 2.6 times faster? What about the resolution difference? I think this might be a big selling factor for me. Does it make a big difference? I know on a computer I can't stand to use anything less than 1600x1200. The bottom line is it looks like it is going to cost me twice as much for the universal as the wizard is the extra money worth it? I am looking at using T-Mobile here in the states. They only offer the MDA(Wizard) and not the MDA Pro(Universal) but I think either way I will probably pick one up off of ebay and try and save some money. Thanks in advance for your help.

[lie_ui]

Last year, around Oct-Nov, I was in the same place you were today. I had the plan that I did not want to lose. I did not want to sign any new contract.
I want unlocked Pocket PC so that I can use it when I travel to Asia and any where. And I decided I would not mind to pay the full price. My budget was... however, I pushed it all the way to over $1000 in order to buy the best.
I considered that single invesment to fullfill at least many years to come needs, therefore, go with the most advance one, rather than buy a cheaper one, but half way.

That's the whole reason I was finally decided to get a Universal. But if you ask me to share my opinion with you today, after using Universal more than 6 months, I think it was not the best decision I made with the purchase. Do not get me wrong, I learned and experienced many new things since I had my Uni, and its extremely well built and nice device, nothing like it really. The screen especially, may be the best you will ever see in any Pocket PC. But for daily use, for phone, for carry around, for many occasions, I do not use it, simply its not pratical. I usually swiched back to my old one. Then I would blame myself, why did you buy it if you do not want to use it? Sad
Most of the time now I leave my Uni at home to be used with my home wifi. I have seen many ppl are happier with their decision to get a smaller scale one like Wizard or Prophet. Prophet is about the same size with the Wizard, except its thinner as it has no keyboard but better button layout. They do not mind even though the screen is a quarter than the Universal and the processor speed is half of the Universal as well. And indeed, for daily practical use (phone, email, notes) it does serve the purpose. Absolutely, when you want to browse the web, then smaller screen is not as good as VGA like Universal Smile When it comes to size and easy carry, smaller size is better.

Hope I'm not making your more confused. But if I can re-decide I would pick a Prophet instead. Since I have decided with a Uni, I'm happy to live with it as I do not want/cannot afford a new one right now.

KJam and Jamin (Wizard and Prophet) are identical in term of hardware spec (procesor, memory, etc) but has different apperance.
KJam/Wizard is thicker because it has a keyboard, Jamin/Prophet does not have one, but Jamin/Prophet has a better button layout that will allow single handed use of the device.

The last thing which is very important to know as well, KJam/Wizard use Mini SD, Jamin/Prophet use SD (Full size). Many ppl (like myself) will not buy something that use mini SD as I have invested quite a lot in big size SD card and would like to continue using the same card.

[JwY]

keep in mind that canada and a lot of the US uses 1900 and 850 freq for cellular
that being said, the wizard will work in more places than the universal because there are places that are 850 only and the universal doesn't have it
but if you want more pda features, then you'll have to give up some possible reception

[lie_ui]

Here, check out this link:

http://www.htcamerica.net/products/default.htm

Here you can find all the Wizard variants that are being offered in the US market, by each cell phone provider. Canadian providers are also listed here.

[kronarq]

I signed up for service with T-Mobile a week ago and just got a crappy $10 Samsung R225m for the time being. I decided I will get The Universal and if I know I am going somewhere out in the boonies where I will need 850mhz analog I will grab the samsung. Is cloning your sim legal? Like let us say I want to have multiple cards in case something happens or if i want a data telemtry device in my car which would be used rather infrequently to share everything.

[kronarq]

Wait a minute.... I was just looking and the Universal doesn't have EDGE does it? Does anyone in the states know how widespread T-Mobile's EDGE coverage is? How much of a difference does it make in speed?