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Don’t know about the rest of the crowd, but my budget is really limited when it comes to travel - be it vacation or business travel. Unlike some big-name CEOs I can’t afford business class (let alone a private jet), so I travel just like most of the Americans - the cheapo way.While traveling to Chicago and back, I refreshed on usual travel things. Like purchasing tickets for early morning flight, avoiding weekends (I flew on Wednesday to Chicago and on Monday back) and packing lightly (you can have up to three luggage pieces for free, but each must be less then 50 lbs. For me it would have been easier to pack one large suitcase then two small, but…

Another thing I figured out is how NOT to rent a car. On the spot, even if you have a reservation, agent will try to upsell you stating that they don’t have the car you reserved. In my case instead of Dodge Charger the company’s (Dollar Car if you’re interested) representative stated that the only car they have in the same class would be Dodge Caravan. How are they in the same class beats me, but I ended up renting Chrysler 300 which was good enough for my purposes. Next time I’ll skip online reservation altogether and just show up at their desk inquiring as to what they have. If I don’t like the selection - I’ll just move on to the next desk. In Chicago Midway airport (another saver on ticket price) all rentals’ desks conveniently form a single line, so it won’t be a big deal with two bags under 50 lbs each.

Hotels are finally catching up to the 21st century. Last year, when I was in Arizona, Hilton hotel wanted $25/day for high-speed broadband. One year later, on this trip to Chicago, I stayed in two hotels (how that happened - long story) - La Quinta in Arlington Heights and Holiday Inn. Both feature free wireless internet, no problems and no strings. Of course you have to jump through couple of screens and maybe enter the access code (listed on a special note in your room), but other then that everything worked smoothly. I even didn’t have to pull out my cell phones (I brought both AT&T and Verizon devices, just in case) to use as a cellular modem.

On the road I used my Garmin nuvi 360 GPS unit with firmware updated to version 3.90 (was actual as of the first day when I arrived in Chicago). Except for one total failure to deliver me to Olive Garden somewhere close to airport (almost ended up in someone’s backyard) the thing worked fine, much better and faster then Google Maps on my HTC Advantage.

Last thing I’d like to mention is the airlines (again). If the current trend is any indication - in next several years seat space will decrease even more (I guess we all be standing on short flights), the weight of allowed luggage will also decrease and there will be almost no room for carry-ons in cabin, so we will only be allowed one personal item (like laptop). But they will be banned for security reasons.

Popularity: 38%

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Palm readings - vital signs decreasing. User death imminent. Or something of that nature. That’s pretty much what I hear any time I see any news about PalmOS platform. There is a poster hanging on one of the subway stations I pass, promoting some Palm device (I think it’s Palm Centro Red Smartphone, from Sprint) as a socializing platform, poster with hot girls having fun and all. I don’t know if any such (hot and geeky enough) girls exist, but the hot girls I know own RAZR. Or Sidekick. Or iPhone. Not even the Blackberry. They don’t know what PalmOS platform is, and they couldn’t care less.

And that’s the problem with PalmOS platform - not the lack of hot and geeky girls, of course, but the lack of marketing. When I first got my hands on my first PDA - it was Palm III, I think - it was the hottest thing in town. I adored my little baby and was loudly complaining that I want my cell phone integrated into the blessed thing. My prayers were answered years later, but it was the different device on a different platform already.

The first blow that Palm delivered was the paid upgrade to PalmOS 3.5. It wasn’t whole lot of money, but it was expensive enough to go cautiously - which I did at that time. All the hottest commercial software titles somehow were requiring version 3.5 as well. I didn’t want to invest in the outdated hardware, so instead I started saving for new device - and found an incredible deal that landed me an iPaq (color Windows mobile device) nearly free. Turned out the iPaq was the hottest kid on the block by that time and Windows CE became almost ubiquitous - unlike gray and black Palms that started to fade away. Besides, the familiar concept of a file system, somewhat skipped by PalmOS, was all the way back in WinCE, which introduced the familiar Windows interface (I later on figured what old PalmOS looked like - it looked exactly like stripped down TI-92 scientific calculator).

Everyone and their mothers were after WinCE devices, and another thing that Palm was missing was the sex appeal. Palm devices just weren’t appealing anymore - to any crowd, corporate or casual. Despite being cheaper (or maybe because of that) they looked like an ‘uncool’ alternative to cool PDAs (after all - when did we, consumers, refuse to pay for an expensive cool gadget?).

The platform itself may not be all that bad - I’ve seen college students put full blown Java development environments on their Palms to develop apps. Those apps, however, weren’t in demand, because the devices weren’t all that hot anymore. At that time it still wasn’t too late to save the platform. Maybe opening up would have worked, or some sort of remarketing, appealing to a different audience - we will never know. Then RiM came about and Palm lost its last foothold.

Sorry attempt to jump on the bandwagon of mobile computer (I am referring to Foleo here) might have worked, if company was a little braver. After all, who would want to lug around a PDA phone AND its “companion” (and a laptop). I was happy enough to get rid of mp3 player when I got my music in my PDA phone. Ditching the phone for the one integrated into PDA - and you got yourself a good deal of space savings.

To wrap up the thought here, I must say that Palm once again missed the opportunity to get back in business - at least before Android. Now it’s so late that the word “palm” should get back its original meaning - front side of the hand. Especially that modern mobile devices so much smaller, better and - sexier.

Popularity: 27%

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• Small business travel (November 28, 2007): Don't know about the rest of the crowd, but my budget is really limited when it comes to travel - be it vacation or business travel. Unlike some big-name CEOs I can't afford business class (let alone a private jet), so I travel just like most of the Americans - the cheapo way.While traveling to [...]
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US cellular providers are starting to wake up to popular demand and bringing some more attractive hardware stateside. This, however, brings another problem for uneducated consumers - which cell phone to buy? Should I get a smartphone? Or PDA phone? Or regular cell phone and PDA separately? Would iPhone be everything I need or will I need some other piece of hardware? Which data plan should I get then?

These are not some foreign questions, these are the questions that people keep asking their friends and friends of the friends - because they usually tend not to trust sales associates (who all work on commissions and tend to push whatever product brings the most profit). These are the questions I am myself being asked on a constant basis.

The breakdown, the way I see it, is as follows. If the only thing you need to do with a mobile device is talk, plus occasionally play some games on a subway - save your money and go with as fancy a cell phone as you want. After all, there’s little need to pay extra for features you will not or will hardly use. Cell phones, on the other side, produce better talk and standby times, somewhat better call quality and are cheaper to replace in case something happens. On a downside - in most cases cell phones require much additional effort to backup contacts and call information.

Smartphones (which I am not really a big fan of) are something of both worlds. This means both upsides and downsides. More functionality for a phone (it is a phone, after all) comes with a detriment to battery life, price and convenience.  Additionally, the (poor) attempt to fit QWERTY keyboard into a cell phone frame leads to compromises that don’t benefit neither cell phone users nor PDA fans. Whatever those gadget freaks may tell you - the keyboard on the smartphone is the worst kind of input device there is. The bright side of the smartphone (at least the Samsung BlackJack that I use right now) is that it’s a fully functional Windows Mobile device fit into the size of the Motorola Razr, with whole contacts database, document reading and mobile internet connectivity included.

PDA phones are totaly different breed. Aside from Sidekick (which I have no idea of what it is), any PDA phone is first PDA and only then - phone. As a climax of such approach HTC developed its Advantage, which doesn’t even have a regular phone speaker - only the speakerphone. Latest variations of PDA phones (such as Shadow, Wing, ETEN X800/M800, etc.) are addressing PDA functionality adding GPS, WiFi, more CPU power and more memory. PDA phones are especially good if you don’t like to take your laptop with you, or - if you already did - save you the trouble of taking it out of the bag any time you have a spare minute. Besides, it fits much better when you are stuffed in the airplane or train seat. Of course, you take your contacts database with you (even with pictures), you may even work on spreadsheets (although I am not sure what can you spread on 320×240 pixels screen) and edit text documents. Additionally, you can be brave enough to surf the web with mobile IE or Mobile Opera, which is an eye-opening experience all by itself. Additionally, with PDA phone you can purchase data plan with ability to hook up your laptop (it’s also called laptop tethering by AT&T) via PDA to browse Internet. 3G speeds are pretty decent for full-featured e-mail and occasional browsing activities. The disadvantages of the PDA phone are short battery life, larger size and weight, and, obviously, the price. To me personally, however, they are much outweighed by many features a PDA phone has.

Blackberry is totally foreign universe to me, as I was never on board with all this corporate PDA use. Therefore I completely skip this device as I have no knowledge of it and never used it.

Summarizing the whole story, it all boils down to what you need to do with your phone.  For occasional gaming and heavy talk use the regular cell phone is just perfect. For occasional e-mail exchange and some small typing the smartphone would probably be the best. If you need to be constantly connected to the web no matter what - the PDA phone is probably the best choice. By the way, do use the 14 days grace period to try out several devices to see which ones fit best into your daily routine.

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