Recommend Me Your Smartphone

[ricevermicelli]

I have held out against having the internet in my pockets long enough, and now I need your help and recommendations to figure out *which* internet to have in my pockets. Please, oh please, tell me how you like your smartphone and what kind you have.

My smartphone must:
Have a lockable keyboard.
Be durable.
Allow me easy, no hassles access to gmail, LJ, and Google Maps. No complications, no special things to install, no fancy tricks with tech.

My ideal smartphone would:
Have long battery life and/or cheap extra chargers.
Cost me no more than $60 a month to run voice and data on.
Be easy to use. More keyboard = more better.


Cameras and spiffy form factors are optional.

Suggestions?

Comments

[shayde.livejournal.com]

iPhone is really da shizzle nowadays, particularly for the things you're asking for. Keyboard is always locked until you explicitely unlock it. However, $60 a month is going to be tricky to do.

Unless you're thinking of going Windows Mobile (and hey, it's your choice), you've got the G1 which can do most of that, and various offerings that carriers are punching out as 'smartphones'. But the G1, the Palm Pre, and the iPhone are thebig contenders right now.

[bagoffarts.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I really dislike my iphone. The best thing it does is visual voice mail which I actually like. The rest of it is mediocre or worse. I may have a crap phone, and also have not tried the 3G version.

[patrissimo.livejournal.com]

I think the G1 meets all your requirements except the long battery life.

The gmail / maps integration is superb. It works great as a web browser. I think it's about $50/mo for Tmobile voice + data service. It has a fun app for toddlers.

The battery life blows. With heavy use, it can die by dinnertime. But unless you spend 10+ hours out and using it heavily, it will get you through a day at the office. You just might need to charge it when you get home. And you can recharge it from a laptop (I think the cable is even included), which helps.

But heavy use = web browsing or long phone conversations. Short phone conversations and email will let the battery last all day long.

[patrissimo.livejournal.com]

p.s. Iphone also does excellent google maps, email, and LJ. But the on-screen keyboard is annoying.

[fraterrisus]

i also have a G1, and can attest to everything here, including the mediocre battery life. i am in the habit of plugging in my phone every night anyway so it's not usually a big deal, and there are things you can do to improve it (disable the GPS and WiFi) if you know you're going to be without a charger for a while. and i love the hardware keyboard on the G1, more so than i liked the Treo 650 keyboard.

chargers are cheap and ubiquitous because any charger that provides power to a "mini-USB" port will work with it. i even plugged it into the charger that came with my camcorder by mistake once and it worked fine.

plus, the automatic syncing to gmail, gmail contacts, and google calendar is really handy.