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Is ATT's ogo A Worthy Purchase?
PhosterPharms writes "The ATT Wireless ogo is a new device on the market which allows unlimited instant messaging, e-mail, and SMS for a $99 purchase, $20 activation, and $15-24 a month service fee depending on options. The idea of having access to my e-mail and AIM no matter where I am is very alluring, but the only review I can find seems somewhat negative. The ATT Forums seem mixed. Does anyone have any experience with the ogo or any suggestions for alternatives? I don't need another cell phone, just a cheap e-mail and IM client - the $300-400 that service providers want for Sidekicks and Blackberries (Plus $40 a month) seem a bit too much."
it is $25-29 a month, and you also get a web browser, and it has MANY positive reviews, which this dosent. The sidekick also has the ability to be a phone for $10 more a month.
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
They don't seem too happy either. "The T-Mobile Sidekick II does everything the Ogo does but much better, and it doubles as your phone." and "The Ogo is fairly unique [...]. But we wish the device's shortcomings weren't so glaring."
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
is "Is it hackable?", might be interesting to be able to load your own programs on there, however it's hard to find that info out for new devices it seems, and the trend has been(well, for Verizon anway, ATT/Cingular may be different) is to go with less hackable devices.
god damned, i'll admit im an aim junkie but everywhere you go?
t ml
Well i'm not here to judge other slashdotters. so here is my advice and what to do.
firstly, the cost (100) was what i paid for my dell axim x5 basic. spent snother 70 for a wireless nic and 20 for a 256 sd card. total 200 bucks. (but no activation and monthly fee)
how do i get my aim anywhere fix? setup imfowarding to your phone.
http://mymobile.aol.com/portal/im/index.h
My phone provider allows 300 messqges a month for me. (really old plan before they realized people would pay for sms...which is stipd becaue it takes up *no network resource* compared to phone calls)
anyway. im fowarding allows me to reply via sms, or i can burn a min or 2 by calling them back.
Email? If I'm not in my apt, im probably on campus. campus wirelss (see wlan nic) keeps me in touch if i want to check with webmail (but i dont care for email. if its anything important, i'd get a call/aim anyway.) There is a pocketpc aim client by aol.
I've heard of using gprs data through phones with the pdas. basically setup a bluetooth/cable/ir connection with the phone and do data that way. don't know much about it though (sorry). i don't do gprs because i don't want to pay an extra 36/year for basic "web and internet" services.
I say get a pocket pc/palm kinda thing. Its a one time cost, no activation, no monthly fee.
Grump.
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
and a laptop, and roll your own.
I did read your whole question, so sorry for recommending what you said you're not eager to do anyway :)
You're paying $120-ish to get started, then $20 a month for service. Except it's mail, IM, and web only. No phone, SSH, other apps, expandability, etc.
Take a couple hundred dollars ($300 or so, I think), grab some rebates from amazon.com, and get a Treo 600 (or preorder a 650). It's a cell phone, that also runs PalmOS. It supports two-way SMS chat, web browser, IM clients galore (many of them free), IRC clients, mail clients (including POP3 and IMAP), SSH clients, etc. You can be on a phone call (with a headset or just on the normal stuff, or speakerphone) and still get into the other apps and do other things (phone and data are mutually exclusive, but you can play games, mess with the PDA apps, load cached browser pages, etc., while on a call).
You're paying more, yes (service starts at $50 a month), but you get a hell of a lot more, too. I think that's at least 300 national minutes on peak, unlimited off-peak and weekends, and data in unmetered. Using the same cable the beast comes with (though they make smaller/more portable ones that both charge and sync via USB -- even handier on the road), you can attach the phone to your desktop or notebook and get internet access at about 4x dialup speeds with better latency.
Add that you can throw in memory cards to increase storage room, use all its PDA stuff, add software (lots of it free, the rest pretty cheap), and it adds up to a *very* handy device. Use something like Trillian, which proxies your IM messages (on lots of different networks), you can maintain a constant online presence without having to have the client open all the time, etc.
Essentially it's worth the money. I had a Treo 300 for a year and a half (until a number of personal issues destroyed my ability to, um, pay any bills :) and loved it. The Treos are infinitely hackable, amazingly flexible, do lots and lots of stuff, and they're one of the few examples of really spiffy technology that actually works right and can help make life easier. Oh yeah, the 600 and 650 have one of those goofy cameras built in too.
So, um, yeah, my input may not be entirely helpful if you're really limited by budget, but if you can afford it, you will officially like the Treos if you give them a shot. I miss mine and intensely wish I still had mine in service or had a 600 :)
Read my stuff.
It would be cool to have full rights to that blue death star logo. Wonder why they are selling it off?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Treo 650
Some people may think that it'd appeal to deaf users like me, but from reading up on it, I think the Sidekick II (which I own) is a much better choice. Granted, you pay more (Although if you go here you can purchase the Sidekick II for $139.99 instead of the $479.99 retail price.) but you have the ability to do telnet/SSH (REALLY useful!), upload homebrew games and programs.
The Ogo, on the other hand, seems to be an entirely closed system. If I was really strapped for cash, I would consider that but overall the Sidekick II is a much better choice for the geek on the go.
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
...and tell them you're holding out for unlimited VOIP, too. ;-)
The SKII is made by danger inc.
The name of their company should tell you something about their screw-you attitude. If you care about having access to your own data, avoid the danger platform completely. It's really nice crack, but it is still crack.
Fortunately there are some great alternatives.
From the brief look at the website it seems that they emphasize that email only works with select providers. So does that mean it won't work with MY POP3 or are they just covering their ass when so Joe Schmoe can't complain it doesn't access his corporate Exchange server?
Bleh!
The Hack value for Ogo is very interesting to me.
;-)
You can easily implement a Windows/Linux chat program which uses one of Ogo supported IM protocol(AIM/Yahoo/MSN).
Later you can add this user to Ogo, which sends RSS news feeds(eg:reuters, stock quotes)in clear text to Ogo on demand or even based on some kind of menu selection.
Imagine checking slashdot feeds on Ogo
My coworker and I each bought one about a month ago. For the price of the device I've been pretty happy. The Activation was a little troublesome, but what do you expect from ATTWS.
Why I like it... Well first off I work in court rooms, and 80% of the time you can't bring in phones.. that rules out use of a sidekick, treo6X0 or even something like the Nokia 6820 (did I get that right?). And about 100% of the time, you can't bring in cameras, so that rules out most new devices. For a while I was using my Zaurus with a GPRS CF modem, with T-Mobiles data only plan ($30/month). all I was using it for was IM and email.
Along comes the ogo.. it isn't a phone, not a camera, and is about half the monthly price of my tmobile data plan. SO it just seemed to make sense. (also a lot cheaper then a blackberry)
I like the device. The thumbboard is average, couple of the keys that I'd like available on top, or under the alt level aren't there, you have to go into a symbols menu. The Battery time is good. It charges over a 5v mini usb connection. I think it is just the power leads, as plugging it into the computer has no effect execpt to charge it. (which is nice for when you don't have an outlet handy or just one outlet and need to share it with your notebook). Coverage is good, but you do have to wait for a GPRS connection, so even if you have a signal, you aren't guarenteed a connection.
I haven't tried the bluetooth yet, so don't really know what that can and can't do.
As far as negatives.. the big draw back I don't like is that there is no way to delete multiple messages. you have to hit delete for each one.
Fees and what you get. I pay $17 a month and get access to AIM, and an AOL mailbox (if I had one), also I get as many pop3 mailboxes as I want. it just pulls the mail down directly from the mail server.
There is no html mail support, so that can be an issue, and if plain text isn't available the ogo won't display the message.
I've set up a mail account on my server that gets all the mail that gets through my spamassassin filters forwarded to it. I also tried to set up a procmail script that pipes html only mail through lynx and saves it out as text. That hasn't been working, and I haven't had time to check why.
Finally for News and Sports scores and stuff, you can just use AIM Bots liket WSJ, and AOLBuddy.
Well hope that is helpful
I was somewhat interested in this product until I saw the Motorola a630 which seems to be everything an ogo is, but with a phone and a camera thrown in as well. Now if they'd just release the damned things....
Keep Austin Weird!
It's a condition of mental divergence. I find myself on the planet Ogo, part of an intellectual elite, preparing to subjugate the barbarian hordes on Pluto. But even though this is a totally convincing reality for me in every way, nevertheless Ogo is actually a construct of my psyche. I am mentally divergent, in that I am escaping certain unnamed realities that plague my life here. When I stop going there, I will be well.
Are you also divergent, friend?
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I bought an ogo the day they came out. I wanted a way to access yahoo mail from anywhere. The IM was a plus. I live in an area without TMobile service so the sidekick is not an option for me. Actually, ATT gprs service is spotty around here too. And I currently have my yahoo mail going to my Timex watch over Skytel.
Given all that, the ogo is OK but not great. The Yahoo/watch does a better job of scraping html mail than native yahoo mail on the ogo service. I get many messages with no body that say , which is not useful for me. I have to go to friends and clients and reconfigure their email to send plan text. The mail only seems to work in areas where I have gprs service and in the middle of nowhere (where I live) that is a problem. It also is a problem in the Philadelpha suburbs where my folks live. Having access to yahoo mail without dialing up or finding an open access point was my main driver for the ogo.
As far as IM goes it works great on yahoo messenger, but I've had no success with my AIM account. I've not had time to troubleshoot it and my aim account is really a grandfathered cheap aol account from the days when aol did not have enough dial up modems.
It looks like the bluetooth is a future feature. You can pair with it, but it did not expose any useful features. Among the things I would like it to do is: Backup the contacts, Sync the contacts and act as a gprs modem. So much for my wishes.
After all that, the ogo is $17 a month useful. I like the ability to send yahoo mail without the laptop hassles. The IM functionality is cool, even though ATTWS was/is supporting AIM though IM on most phones.
Just saw this product (don't remember where from), but the details are EXTREMELY sketchy. It's being sold exclusively through Target (apparently online only).
http://www.zipitwireless.com
I ordered mine today so we'll see what it actually is. It's supposed to use WiFi to connect to multiple IM services with no service fees. I'm not sure if it's via proxy or direct, and what kind of support it will have for non-open hotspots. I've also heard rumors that it will eventually get a firmware update to stream audio to it. I'm doubtful though!
I'll post a full report when it arrives. No affiliation with company (and I don't even believe it will do what it claims).
--D