Late January and most of February for me was spent in the hospital. It was at this time that I realized that my phone was not quite up to par for being away from a computer for extended periods and it was then that I decided when I got out I would get a smartphone.
Unlike a lot of people these days my fetish isn't the latest and greatest phone. I've gotten by for a long time with a simple flip phone that just makes calls and texts with little else notable about it. I only know about the iPhone and the Google G1 because they got a fair bit of press. Enough press to know that I didn't want either; not because they're bad phones, but because of the cost of the base phone plus the required data plan.
When it came time to look for my "perfect" phone I asked a couple of people that were far more knowledgeable in the mobile arena than myself and finally figured out that I wanted an HTC Excalibur (more commonly known as the T-Mobile Dash). I didn't really have a lot of requirements in my search. I knew I wanted it to be in the $100 range and WiFi would totally be a bonus so as not to have to get a data plan if not absolutely necessary. Hotspots are everywhere now it seems and being able to tap an existing network for a quick email check or something seems a far better alternative to a ~$20/month data plan.
After checking a few favorable reviews I started looking into buying an Excalibur. The phone has been around since 2006 but that doesn't seem to keep it from being competitive with current-gen phones. Out of the box it runs Windows Mobile 5 (which I've found to be pretty awesome, can't believe I'm saying that) but is upgradable to 6.1 (not sure about 7), but I haven't really seen a need to upgrade immediately. All of your functionality is a few clicks away and it's just a nice U.I. It seems the median price for a new Excalibur is about $150. This was a bit out of my price range so I checked eBay and found a used one (and unlocked, this was an important feature for me, don't want to be tethered to any network) for a bit under $100 including shipping.
I got the phone yesterday and have been playing with it ever since. There's a tiny learning curve but so far I've found everything I need. The phone is much smaller than I could have imagined from videos and pictures I saw. It fits comfortably in one hand and the buttons are easily accessible. Some reviews have mentioned erratic behavior from the JOGGR (the little touch sensitive strip on the right side), and I did too at first, but after configuring it for volume only it seems to work just as intended.
Since the phone was not tethered to T-Mobile I had to manually configure my GPRS (EDGE) connection which only required a little Googling. Yes, I do have a data plan. I subscribed to it in the hospital so I could check my mail and such and haven't gotten rid of it yet, but since I've been using it I don't want to get rid of it. The always connected aspect really appeals to me and the push e-mail is great. Automatic notification anytime you get a new message. Quite handy. Configuring GMail on Outlook was really easy at first, but by default uses POP3 and this just won't do. I noticed that deleting the messages on my phone sent them to the trash in GMail--not optimal. A friend suggested I enable IMAP and reconfigure Outlook and this seems to do the trick, you have the option of deleting messages on the server or not when deleting the local message. I wish you could archive directly from Outlook but I guess you can't have everything.
The next order of business was contacts. I wanted to be more efficient about this for now and in the future so I purged unnecessary contacts from my GMail contacts, updated relevant information on existing contacts and used Google Sync to transfer them, along with my Google Calendar data, to my phone. This worked perfectly and now my changes are reflected both in GMail and on my phone. Lovely. The calendar stuff works well, I can create, edit and delete appointments easily and the next appointment shows up on my home screen. Makes me wonder how I lived without a smartphone before!
Battery life seems a bit questionable. It could of course have to do with the fact that I'm constantly connected to the GPRS network and various other things but I don't really know. I haven't run out of juice during the day, it just got around the 30% mark when I plugged it in for the night. As I haven't really run into problems with this yet I'll just put it in the back of my mind for now. I'm not sure what kind of life this phone had before (though it seems in pretty good condition, the ad said small scratches were around the screen and there are, practically unnoticeable) so I may just need a new battery to freshen it up.
One thing that caught me off guard was how cheap memory is. The Excalibur accepts microSD cards and a quick Google turned up some really low, and appreciated, prices. I ordered a 2GB card from Newegg for $6 plus free shipping! I haven't gotten the package yet, but I have high hopes. Two gigs seems like it will be sufficient for now, I can even use it as a media player, so I'm excited.
So far I'm very pleased with the Excalibur. It may be slightly dated but its functionality is not. This phone should last me many years barring any craziness like a shark eating it or something.