Except at least from what I've seen, the prepaid "plans" end up costing more than postpaid if you use more than about 30 minutes or so a month, IIRC.
The only real reasons to go prepaid, rather than a $30/mo basic plan:
1. So you can get a new phone (rather than someone's ancient brick) you can call 911 with, which is a free call 2. So you can get a phone without signing a contract (minors can't sign contracts) or passing a credit check
The same applies in the US, at least on Sprint, but I can get a subsidized phone (and yes, renew the contract,) and if that phone doesn't require a plan change, I stay on the old plan (and sometimes the necessary plan changes are made - for example, I had a 1xRTT phone, which used $7.50/mo Vision (their 1xRTT service,) and then moved to an EvDO phone. Back then, Sprint policy was that if you had Vision, and moved to an EvDO phone, they would grandfather you into the ($15/mo) Power Vision (EvDO service) at the $7.50/mo rate you were paying.)
Right, but on the same token, just as easily as you can buy a 3G GSM phone (or use one you've already got there,) you can buy a 3G CDMA phone, is the point. They've got both GSM and CDMA carriers, too.
Either that, or they're saying that this is a way to provide proof that this guy was well educated. If you say "this guy went through a program like ours," nobody's going to think, "oh, this guy knows his stuff," even if he does.
Well, I wasn't sure if it just checked for the presence of the card, or continually read it to stay authenticated. If it's just checking for presence, I agree, that won't fix it.
CDMA phones also exist in Japan and, IIRC, China. (Oh, and the Canadian market is like ours, same shit, different companies. Including both CDMA and GSM carriers.)
(However, both countries use R-UIMs, which are like SIMs, but are for CDMA. An R-UIM device doesn't even have an MEID (the CDMA equivalent of an IMEI,) it's in the R-UIM - necessary due to how CDMA authentication works, the ESN/MEID is tied to the account, so it'll reject the call if you change MEIDs without requesting the change from your carrier.)
But, there is also the fact that the GSM carriers suck. (So does every cell carrier, but it's finding the ones that suck ever so slightly less.)
AT&T lies out their ass and has a shitty network, and T-Mobile's coverage isn't that great and they're expensive (and, IIRC, they're just now rolling out 3G.) Verizon cripples their phones. That, for the big four, leaves Sprint. Their customer service department is a bunch of morons that couldn't find their assholes if there were a giant sign saying where they were, but at least their retentions department gave you everything you wanted, up until recently, when the customer service department almost bricked your phone.
Now if only we could get R-UIMs in US phones, and carriers weren't paranoid about devices they didn't authorize appearing on their network... (As it is now, to get a non-Sprint phone on Sprint, I have to MEID hack it, which IIRC is a felony good for 15 years in prison. At least so far, of the phones I've wanted, they've all been Sprint models. (In the case of my Touch Pro, there's two CDMA versions in the US. One is used by Sprint and Alltel, the other by Verizon, and the Verizon one has a much worse keyboard and half the RAM. (And I regularly push over 50% RAM usage on my TP in normal use.) The only phone that would've met my needs better was the SE Xperia X1, and that's GSM, and even if it weren't, it's Sony, which I'm still boycotting over the whole rootkit thing.)
And this post got way too long and went off on a bit of a tangent.
All of my phones with Bluetooth have been smartphones and allow transfers of whatever you want (a Sprint Palm Centro and a Sprint HTC Touch Pro,) but I didn't think Sprint crippled Bluetooth-equipped dumbphones quite that badly.
Verizon, OTOH, does everything you say, though. IIRC, their official policy is that Bluetooth is for headsets and headsets only. If you're lucky, you'll get some contacts transferred.
Hell, I had to use a Motorola hacking tool just to get pictures out of Verizon phones at my former employer. (No data plan, so they couldn't be uploaded to Verizon's site, and no texting plan, so no e-mailing them to a PC that way.)
Some prepaid carriers will give you data, but IIRC, they still double-dip on some carriers - data is charged by both the time the EvDO/1xRTT/EDGE (let's face it, there's not gonna be any 3G GSM prepaid phones) connection is active, AND data transferred (at an astronomical rate, too.)
Probably Sprint after being with them for 5 years on a SERO account, and getting screwed over multiple times by clueless customer service, so they hit up the retentions candy store every time, and got what they asked for. You could get ridiculous incentives out of retentions up until recently.
But Sprint's CDMA, not GSM, so that won't work with this thing.
There's a reason for that - everyone wants to tether a Kindle, but nobody wants Amazon to find out about a tethering hack, because then they'll close it down, or worse, start charging for the wireless service.
Because a landscape display is better for other types of document handling, for starters.
Also, anything a portrait display can do, a landscape display can do two of. I have a 22.2" widescreen LCD, which was sized to show two letter or A4 documents side by side at 204 PPI. No good way to display two portrait letter or A4 documents side by side on a portrait display...
I'm well aware of the Centro, I have one (although Sprint will pay me $50 for it, so it'll be leaving now that I've got a Touch Pro,) and it was mentioned in the summary.:)
My point was more to point out that the Treo Pro is WinMo (and not Palm OS like the summary says,) and that you can still get a 755 from Sprint.
WinMo really is much better than Palm OS - I honestly use my WinMo device like a netbook, whereas my Palm OS device was a phone with more apps. And, in some ways, it's the least restrictive platform (for running apps you get from some random source, anyway) other than Palm OS.
It goes like this:
Palm OS (no support for signed apps) > WinMo (support for signed apps, signed app requirement on a device by device basis, nobody requires it) > Android (requires signed apps by default, has an option to disable that) > webOS (requires signed apps, has a no-signing-required developer mode freely accessible) > Symbian (requires signed apps, Symbian will rubberstamp apps, and open source apps are rubberstamped for free) > BlackBerry (requires signed apps, $30 developer key to run unsigned apps, IIRC) > iPhone (requires signed apps, $99 SDK access required to run your own code, and I'm not sure you can run binaries from anyone else unless they provide source code and you compile it.)
Although, Palm Desktop doesn't support Vista or Win7... so, no current version OS will have official support for Palm OS devices (everything in Linux distros is unofficial,) unless you count XP Mode in Win7 Pro/Ultimate.
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but you can develop Windows Mobile apps on a Mac.
http://cegcc.sourceforge.net/
People who object to Apple's treatment and wish to object (no quotes) in a meaningful way can not buy an iPhone.
Yeah, that particular quirk of slashcode has been known for years now. Log out to post as AC first.
Something like this: http://www.realweasel.com/pcivga.html
Looks to the computer like a text video card, but has an RS-232 interface instead of a VGA interface.
Except at least from what I've seen, the prepaid "plans" end up costing more than postpaid if you use more than about 30 minutes or so a month, IIRC.
The only real reasons to go prepaid, rather than a $30/mo basic plan:
1. So you can get a new phone (rather than someone's ancient brick) you can call 911 with, which is a free call
2. So you can get a phone without signing a contract (minors can't sign contracts) or passing a credit check
The same applies in the US, at least on Sprint, but I can get a subsidized phone (and yes, renew the contract,) and if that phone doesn't require a plan change, I stay on the old plan (and sometimes the necessary plan changes are made - for example, I had a 1xRTT phone, which used $7.50/mo Vision (their 1xRTT service,) and then moved to an EvDO phone. Back then, Sprint policy was that if you had Vision, and moved to an EvDO phone, they would grandfather you into the ($15/mo) Power Vision (EvDO service) at the $7.50/mo rate you were paying.)
Right, but on the same token, just as easily as you can buy a 3G GSM phone (or use one you've already got there,) you can buy a 3G CDMA phone, is the point. They've got both GSM and CDMA carriers, too.
Yes, but I had to use a slightly outdated version of P2KCommander to do it, on multiple Motorola W385s..
More like there's not any CDMA networks in Denmark.
It might have actually worked in Japan, though.
That's PETA's job, to torture animals that they say are being tortured.
Either that, or they're saying that this is a way to provide proof that this guy was well educated. If you say "this guy went through a program like ours," nobody's going to think, "oh, this guy knows his stuff," even if he does.
Well, I wasn't sure if it just checked for the presence of the card, or continually read it to stay authenticated. If it's just checking for presence, I agree, that won't fix it.
CDMA phones also exist in Japan and, IIRC, China. (Oh, and the Canadian market is like ours, same shit, different companies. Including both CDMA and GSM carriers.)
(However, both countries use R-UIMs, which are like SIMs, but are for CDMA. An R-UIM device doesn't even have an MEID (the CDMA equivalent of an IMEI,) it's in the R-UIM - necessary due to how CDMA authentication works, the ESN/MEID is tied to the account, so it'll reject the call if you change MEIDs without requesting the change from your carrier.)
But, there is also the fact that the GSM carriers suck. (So does every cell carrier, but it's finding the ones that suck ever so slightly less.)
AT&T lies out their ass and has a shitty network, and T-Mobile's coverage isn't that great and they're expensive (and, IIRC, they're just now rolling out 3G.) Verizon cripples their phones. That, for the big four, leaves Sprint. Their customer service department is a bunch of morons that couldn't find their assholes if there were a giant sign saying where they were, but at least their retentions department gave you everything you wanted, up until recently, when the customer service department almost bricked your phone.
Now if only we could get R-UIMs in US phones, and carriers weren't paranoid about devices they didn't authorize appearing on their network... (As it is now, to get a non-Sprint phone on Sprint, I have to MEID hack it, which IIRC is a felony good for 15 years in prison. At least so far, of the phones I've wanted, they've all been Sprint models. (In the case of my Touch Pro, there's two CDMA versions in the US. One is used by Sprint and Alltel, the other by Verizon, and the Verizon one has a much worse keyboard and half the RAM. (And I regularly push over 50% RAM usage on my TP in normal use.) The only phone that would've met my needs better was the SE Xperia X1, and that's GSM, and even if it weren't, it's Sony, which I'm still boycotting over the whole rootkit thing.)
And this post got way too long and went off on a bit of a tangent.
All of my phones with Bluetooth have been smartphones and allow transfers of whatever you want (a Sprint Palm Centro and a Sprint HTC Touch Pro,) but I didn't think Sprint crippled Bluetooth-equipped dumbphones quite that badly.
Verizon, OTOH, does everything you say, though. IIRC, their official policy is that Bluetooth is for headsets and headsets only. If you're lucky, you'll get some contacts transferred.
Hell, I had to use a Motorola hacking tool just to get pictures out of Verizon phones at my former employer. (No data plan, so they couldn't be uploaded to Verizon's site, and no texting plan, so no e-mailing them to a PC that way.)
Some prepaid carriers will give you data, but IIRC, they still double-dip on some carriers - data is charged by both the time the EvDO/1xRTT/EDGE (let's face it, there's not gonna be any 3G GSM prepaid phones) connection is active, AND data transferred (at an astronomical rate, too.)
Probably Sprint after being with them for 5 years on a SERO account, and getting screwed over multiple times by clueless customer service, so they hit up the retentions candy store every time, and got what they asked for. You could get ridiculous incentives out of retentions up until recently.
But Sprint's CDMA, not GSM, so that won't work with this thing.
But, in the US, you won't get your plan any cheaper, at least from what I've seen, by bringing your own phone.
Problem is, a lot of companies point to companies that point to the MPAA.
Such a model may rate the MPAA and RIAA as higher ranked than the biggest single companies around.
Bad analogy, the stick of RAM *CAN* partially work, with data corruption, if some of the contacts are bad.
And, theoretically, the same mechanism could affect a SIM - SOME bad contacts causing corruption of the data being read.
There's a reason for that - everyone wants to tether a Kindle, but nobody wants Amazon to find out about a tethering hack, because then they'll close it down, or worse, start charging for the wireless service.
Because a landscape display is better for other types of document handling, for starters.
Also, anything a portrait display can do, a landscape display can do two of. I have a 22.2" widescreen LCD, which was sized to show two letter or A4 documents side by side at 204 PPI. No good way to display two portrait letter or A4 documents side by side on a portrait display...
Ah, my bad, it was Vista64. I take it all back, then.
I'm well aware of the Centro, I have one (although Sprint will pay me $50 for it, so it'll be leaving now that I've got a Touch Pro,) and it was mentioned in the summary. :)
My point was more to point out that the Treo Pro is WinMo (and not Palm OS like the summary says,) and that you can still get a 755 from Sprint.
WinMo really is much better than Palm OS - I honestly use my WinMo device like a netbook, whereas my Palm OS device was a phone with more apps. And, in some ways, it's the least restrictive platform (for running apps you get from some random source, anyway) other than Palm OS.
It goes like this:
Palm OS (no support for signed apps) > WinMo (support for signed apps, signed app requirement on a device by device basis, nobody requires it) > Android (requires signed apps by default, has an option to disable that) > webOS (requires signed apps, has a no-signing-required developer mode freely accessible) > Symbian (requires signed apps, Symbian will rubberstamp apps, and open source apps are rubberstamped for free) > BlackBerry (requires signed apps, $30 developer key to run unsigned apps, IIRC) > iPhone (requires signed apps, $99 SDK access required to run your own code, and I'm not sure you can run binaries from anyone else unless they provide source code and you compile it.)
Every other Palm OS phone except the Pre, that is.
The Treo Pro ain't Palm OS. It's Windows Mobile. (6.1, IIRC.)
(The 755, which Sprint STILL sells, despite being so old that it's still an ESN-based device rather than MEID-based, is Palm OS, however.)
Although, Palm Desktop doesn't support Vista or Win7... so, no current version OS will have official support for Palm OS devices (everything in Linux distros is unofficial,) unless you count XP Mode in Win7 Pro/Ultimate.