What WAP Phones Do You Use?

Splunge asks: "I'm looking into buying a new mobile phone (in North America) with a good WAP browser, Internet access, and the general spiffy phone features. I'm assuming I'd want one with a fairly large screen (6 lines at least, maybe more) and also good battery life, etc. So far I've found the Nokia 7160/7190, the Mitsubishi T250/T255, or maybe the Sprint PCS NP1000. They look decent but I haven't seen them in person so I don't know. I'm also considering the new VisorPhone but wonder if a Visor for a phone would be too bulky. Any ideas on some good models and what to look for? Even a good Web site for cell phone reviews might help. I've found fairly little."

Comments

What's your priority: phone or mobile internet...?

[Chris Coster]

I have a Sprint PCS Touchpoint 120 and it's pretty nifty. It handles the essential phone basics very well - a reasonable battery life and good coverage around town and the city (town = Boulder, CO, city = Denver). The signal easily gets lost if I go up into the mountains, but that's to be expected. I am a little wary of their billing / web ordering process though - when I signed up they accidentally created two accounts in my name and billed me an extra $50 that I didn't owe before they eventually got it sorted out. Finally, their web site is also often overloaded if you want to check or pay your account online.

The WAP features were quite a fun toy for the first week or so, but you can't really do any serious stuff with 6 lines of text. I find myself using it occasionally to check my email and get movie times when I'm outside (one of the dangers of being in Boulder, I suppose). Look on Yahoo! for a WAP directory. Note that sending mail is possible but requires much patience, and there is no direct POP3/SMTP support (web email like Yahoo! works just fine). It has a secure WAP implementation of some sort, so you can happily buy stuff online from anywhere. The phone also has some basic PIM features, but I largely ignore them as I also have a Palm. I think I could plug my Palm into this phone and get online that way, but I've not yet had the urge to try.

In short: I love this phone. As long as you don't want the world, you should be fine with whatever Sprint WAP-enabled phone takes your fancy. You mention the NP1000 - I had a look at one in the store and I didn't like it. Sure, it has a larger screen - but it looked suspiciously fragile, and it was only single band (ie: no analog roaming).

I did find some reviews on Epinions, so go have a read. There was a mobile phone section up on the Deja.com buying forums, but they're gone now that Deja has reverted to being a usenet feed (yay!).

If you primarily need a new mobile phone - get one and enjoy WAP as a toy. If you need full web access (or if the phrase: "mobile ssh or telnet client" starts you drooling), get a VisorPhone (or wireless Palm if you don't mind not being able to make voice calls) - but the monthly subscription fee might be astronomical compared to the 1500-minute per month holiday offers I've seen Sprint pushing recently.

- Chris.

*So* last month!

[maggard]

WAP phones are passé. For the screen to be any use they have to be too big, for the phone to be any convenience it's got to be too small. Plus what kind of 'web experience' is it when you're just scrolling through lists?

Look, I'm sure there's a "killer app" for celphones but I haven't found it yet. Movie-times? Got an audio service that does that and aside from the Santa-on-speedballs quality of the announcer it works fine. Same for most of the other services - nothings uniquely useful, nothing pressingly important to me.

It's all the shopping-power of an inflight magazine with the information services of an 80's "press-1-for..." service. Oh - and for stocks - what percentage of the population really needs constant access to the stock listings?

I'm not being Grinch here, I've a WAP-enabled phone myself & played around with it. Yawn. Go find some friends/co-workers/other locals & ask them what they use their WAP phones for - most of them *don't*.

Buy a phone for size & weight, buy it for audio quality, but it for battery life, buy it for ringtones if you want, but don't make WAP an important criteria unless you're in the WAP business.

-- Michael

ps - Motorola StarTAC 7867W - small, rugged, great battery life, excellent audio quality (esp. with the EVRC codec turned on.) All of the bells & whistles plus WAP. CDMA 800/1900 & analog 800 MHz. My only complaint is that the Data Kit (cable & software) costs US$100.

Mitsubishi T250

[jheinen]

I have a Mitsubishi T250, and I'm happy with it. The big screen really helps (10 lines using the small font). The T9 word-completion feature makes text entry very easy. I was surprised at how accurate it is.

That being said, I have to admit that I don't use the WAP capabilities that much. It was cool when I first got it, but the novelty has worn off. It does come in handy for looking up phone numbers and addresses, or getting driving directions. It has been a real lifesaver a couple of times. But on average I probably use WAP only once or twice a week at most.

I use AT&T, and the nice thing about it is that the basic WAP service is free for unlimited usage. So you have the capability when you need it, but it doesn't cost you anything

Disclaimer: I am a consultant currently working as a WAP developer for AT&T's PocketNet service. This message should not be considered an endorsement for AT&T's service.

-Vercingetorix