My next phone?

Anyone who’s seen the iPhone knows that it’s very cool technology. Just from the commercials it looks great, but if you’ave actually gotten your hands on one, the impression is backed up; it’s impressive.

But I didn’t want one, because it’s not really built for synchronization, it’s built for doing everything over the air. (It can synchronize, but, surprise surprise, it syncs with iTunes.) Which means that you need a good data plan from your carrier—and Canadian cellular service providers are outright thieves when it comes to data costs for cell phones. Rogers came up with a temporary, kind-of-reasonable service plan when they released the iPhone in Canada, but it still wasn’t great when you compare how much we’re paying with Europeans, or… well, anyone else in the world. (That article is probably out of date, but I’m pretty sure the main point still stands.)

But I need something. The phone I’m currently using has gotten worse and worse over the years. (Does software actually degrade over time? Whenever I use a smart phone based on a Microsoft operating system, it seems so.) So I wanted to get away from a Microsoft-based device; what does that leave? RIM? I don’t want live email, which is the thing that device is built around. As mentioned, I don’t really want to do everything over the air; I just want to sync with Outlook (or whatever), which leaves out the iPhone, and also the forthcoming Google device.

So I pretty much settled on the Palm Centro. I haven’t used the Palm OS before, but from what I understand, it’s a lot more stable than any Microsoft-based operating system—especially the mobile ones. But today, I found a new phone, that might become my next phone (depending on when it’s released).

Unfortunately, again, their plan is not to do synchronization—they want to do everything over the air. This seems to be the trend, which means that no matter what phone I switch to, I’m going to have to set aside a large portion of my salary going forward to paying my cellular carrier.