[RE-wrenches] Is a Smart Phone a Useful Tool in PV?

[Kurt Albershardt]

On 2/28/09 11:14 AM, Cvsolar2 at aol.com wrote:
> What can I reasonably expect to get out of this thing for the $$? 
> (that I can't do with a phone).

Having fairly extensive experience with both Treo and BlackBerry phones 
over the past decade, here are a few thoughts:

BB is overrated in most respects.  The email is just OK - I actually 
prefer the IMAP client I had on my Treo (but I have run my own 
mailserver for 15+ years and know far too much about protocols and 
networks to put up with most of what passes for email.)  The contact 
sync is probably the coolest thing on the BB for me, and there are other 
phones (some just barely smart) which offer that.  If you do use email 
on the phone, either setup a separate account for the purpose or (better 
yet) check a special IMAP box on your main account.  Then use filter 
rules on the mailserver to control who and what you have to look at when 
you're on the road.  One big thing to remember is that (unless you have 
a separate cellphone for voice use) most of these smart phones actually 
make pretty poor telephones.  The buttons are too small to dial when 
you're using the other hand for something or with gloves.  The voice 
quality and RF sensitivity is better on most of the newer models, but a 
number of them in the past were really atrocious.


> Is there a "killer app"? The GPS stuff looks cool.

The killer app for me has become Google Maps.  It's my yellow pages and 
map combined when I'm in a city, especially one that I don't know well.  
Unless you need turn-by-turn directions, it doesn't even need a GPS, 
since it finds your location within a half mile or so by using IP lookup 
tables to identify the cell site you are using.  Verizon was nice enough 
to disable the built-in GPS on my $589 phone (BB8830 when they first 
came out) but I don't actually miss it at this point.  Google Maps is 
less useful when you are looking for longhaul routes, as the perspective 
you get from a large paper map really helps.  It rocks when you are 
trying to find the nearest Home Depot or Trader Joe's in unfamiliar 
territory, or find your way to a house.  It turns useless when you are 
in the sticks or otherwise out of data netowork range.

The killer app for the Treo (which I have yet to find a BB eauivalent 
for) is Electrist from Red Binary 
http://www.redbinary.com/electrist_index.php and they also make a few 
others that are handy.  I actually keep my old Treo in the truck just to 
run it.



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20090301/1e0a2440/attachment-0004.html>