I’ve read your post but still recommend the iPhone…. Our entire team is getting them, because it is an excellent testing ground for new mobile concepts. I see you have philosophical issues with Apple but there is the best open source developer community around jailbroken iPhones… This makes up for their official closed-platform policy. There is nothing like that for other handsets.

If Apple is still a no-no-no I’d recommend a recent Samsung or a Nokia N95/N96 with Rogers/Fido.

… and some random Greek characters.

… and the Euro symbol and generic currency symbol.

Fun!

My new cel-phone, the MotoROKR (like the RAZR, but with a slide-instead-of-a-flip) fills me with hatred and anger. The software is horrendous. My phone is currently exhibiting a bug whereby if I recieve a phone call and *open* the phone, it will -instead of answering the phone- start a reboot sequence. Wrong answer, MotoROKR.

While it has ‘neat features’, like a 2-3 MP camera and a mp3 player, the camera delivers shots that are grainier than most of your 640×480 webcam pictures, and the mp3 player drains the battery faster than .

I’d much rather have a phone with useful features.. or even a phone with NO features that functions as an acceptably decent phone.

The BlackBerry was actually great, in retrospect- it’s web browser was crap, but on more than one occasion it was usable enough to read some blogs or Wikipedia when I was bored.

The e-mail and calendar functionality was quite good.

I know that newer BlackBerry Pearls might be equipped with GPS and a flash-enabled camera, so there’s always that as an option?

As for providers, well, I’ve had no problems (a few dropped calls, a decent-enough plan) with Bell, but my younger brother has a multi-part horror story that involves at least 32 hours of dealing with slow-witted customer service agents.

In the end, I went with a Nokia 6126. Actually cheaper than what I had money for (now, I guess I have Fido bucks leftover), looks more rugged than the more expensive Nokia phone (which is a big deal for me), and does all the above (no GPS or Wi-Fi, though). It does sync with Address Book and iCal on the Mac. No idea about open-source options (I don’t have BlueTooth on my linux box).

As far as plans: Good luck. I can’t think of any that won’t charge for text messages and caller-ID and not charge a large amount. I went with the Fido-to-Fido Plus. Most people I know are on Fido or Rogers (including the missus, who is on Rogers, hence the Plus), and that allows me to talk to them for “free”. These plans *used* to have free text messaging as well, but don’t anymore, so I had to get a freakin’ bundle for the voice-mail/messaging/caller-ID/whatever else.

I’ve had no issues with their service, and their website is semi-non-sucky.

Phil

So you’re down to whatever you think looks good. Nokia’s are generally thought to fairly decent at syncing and what not – I’d say just about anything you can get from them is a safe but ugly bet.

As for Carrier sounds like you might want to look into Koodo – they’ve been raving about their unlimited text and small minute plans (at least from what I read on their Skytrain ads)