[Cialug] cell phones with wifi

[Bill Davis]

For Web browsing and Google Maps and other Internet related things like
e-mail, I'm EXTREMELY pleased with my iPhone.  I use the heck out of
the internet access for browsing, email, Google maps, and more.

The monthly bill is for "unlimited" Internet access is $18 more expensive
than what I paid AT&T for my Motorola RAZR with VERY limited (and almost
useless) internet access.

As a contrast to that, I'd recommend AGAINST a Palm Treo cell phone.  I say
that because  I'd used the WiFi stuff on my Palm TX and the Palm web browser
(same as on the Treo) was what convinced me NOT to get a Palm Treo cell
phone instead of an iPhone.   It's not anywhere close to a full browswer.
Note that I've used Palm units for years.  I tried some other Palm based
browsers too.  All junk.  Web browsing on the Palm is absolute garbage.
Email is adequate.  Google Maps IS available and not too bad, but the screen
on the Treo is smaller than the iPhone.  On the plus side, you can probably
get some SSH or other clients easily for the Treo.  You can get 'em for the
iPhone too, but you must "hack" the phone to install them at present.   The
hacking process is all one-step GUI-based, however. I haven't tried it
myself, but it looks slick.  I'm thinking about doing it.

The iPhone's browser is OS X Safari, based on the Konqueror (sp?) engine
that is probably familiar to Linux folk.  I believe that the Konqueror
engine is used in another cell phone/brand as well but I cannot recall the
brand/model at the moment. A bit of Googling will probably find it for you.

Another iPhone plus for Linux folk is....it runs OS X, a BSD Unix variant.
 You can (unofficially) do all sorts of Unixy stuff, if you want.  OReilly
just released a book on hacking the iPhone.

 - Bill

On 3/26/08, Matthew Nuzum <newz at bearfruit.org> wrote:
>
> Hi, a while back I saw talk about cell phones that had wifi built in.
> My cell phone died (it went through the laundry). I've wished for a
> phone that wasn't too expensive that could do a little more than just
> be a phone. I'd like to be able to surf the web (for doing maps,
> reading wikipedia or the news etc, view/edit google calendar) when in
> wifi range.
>
> Can anyone recommend a phone? I'm not positive but it looks like the
> tmobile blackberry curve 8320 can. As an added benefit it looks like
> it can use voip when you're at home to avoid using cell phone min,
> though I don't know if that's worth $10/mo as little as I use the
> phone.
>
> I guess the only reason I ask for wifi is because I'm almost always
> near it. However maybe there's some innovative service that gives
> ubiquitous internet access that is very inexpensive. However this will
> be a phone first and foremost.
>
> --
> Matthew Nuzum
> newz2000 on freenode
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-- 
Bill Davis
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