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Hacker-Friendly Wireless Phones w/ GPS?

Posted by Cliff on from the geeky-preferences-sought dept.

Milo_Mindbender asks: "I'm looking to buy a cell phone that is reasonably accessible to hacking. Not illegal stuff, I'd just want to be able to write and load programs on the phone myself. I particularly want access to the GPS in the phone. I'm not picky about what language or environment I have to use as long no hardware mods to the phone are required and I don't have to pay someone an arm and a leg for a developers kit. Can anyone recommend something (just normal sized phones please, not the big PDA hybrids) they've had good luck with?"

3 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. If Perl is your thing... by CertGen · · Score: 3, Interesting
    ...you might be able to go with Nokia soon enough.

    IRC

  2. VZW by $Mr_Pippy_X · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't waste your time looking at any of Verizon's phones. I don't think that any have full GPS capabilities (just the tower-dependent form for e911), and none use J2ME. In fact, the only ones that can take non-BREW apps are the Palm and PPC hybrid phones. Almost all (if not all) of the VZW phones also prohibit downloading of ringtones and wallpapers over WAP, even on my Nokia 3589i. Sadly, Verizon Wireless seems to be gaining a stranglehold on the US wireless market, so good deals, phones, and features will be found elsewhere.

  3. Treo isn't that big by PiranhaEx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not sure about the hackability of PalmOS, but I would tend to think that it'd be pretty pliable. The new Treo 600s are the size of a normal cell phone, it's really amazing, so you shouldn't count it out based on size.