Treo 650 which carrier...or any other smart phones?

[nowstime]

Hi~

I'm planning to get a Treo 650 to replace my black and white Samsung phone...

I found Treo 650 is covered by Sprint, Cingular and earth link...which provider had the best plans? plan prices and other additive services...

Or should I wait till Verizon carries it...?

I'm planning to use it for scheduling, movie watching(using a SD)...wish it supported wifi...

Any other smart phones that I should consider...?

Thanks in advance...

Austin, TX

[BillMorrow]

well, verizon DOES have this wideband cellular thing..
very fast and affordable and in many metro areas..

cingular has rollover minutes..

take your choice..

[stgreek]

The Nokia Communicator is an excellent smartphone. The 9500 model has a camera and supports wi-fi, while the 9300 is the "basic" model (still loaded with features though). However, they are probably more expensive than the Treo, which I have heard very good thinks for.

[Orbitz]

I have both a Treo 650 and an AudioVox 6600 on Sprint. I really like the Treo 650 form factor compared to the 6600...but in terms of power and convenience I find the 6600 to be the best...though I would qualify this by saying that I am a long time PPC user (also have an Dell Axim X50v and several Ipaq's before that) so I find the PalmOS hard to adapt to. Both units are excellent from my use...just keep in mind that most agree that the 650 is a great phone with PDA capabilities and the 6600 is a great PDA with phone capabilities. I carry another cell phone anyways, so the PDA functions were more important to me...if this is your primary phone as well as your PDA, I would say go for the Treo. The phone functions on the 6600 are a little flaky at times for me. Neither have built in wifi (although with an always on internet connection this hasn't been a big deal for me) but the 6600 will take an SD wifi card that works very well...I don't believe they have gotten this to work with the Treo yet..although there is a sled being sold for the Treo that adds wifi...just increased the bulk of the phone a lot. Both have onboard cameras...the Treo's is better imo. Both also have built in keyboards...the Treo's is always visible...the 6600's slides out...I find the 6600's easiest to use but the Treo keyboard is very good as well and considered the best by many people.

For movie watching and multimedia in general (I just watched the Oceans 12 on it last night ) the 6600 is without question my choice....the bigger screen just makes a lot of difference for me not only for movies but in general for daily use (the 650 screen is fantastic and higher res...just smaller physically which I find limiting).

As for service, Sprint has been excellent for me and the rates for data can't be beat. I think Verizon does offer both the 650 and the 6600 and their high speed network is allready turned on....Sprint is just turning on their EVDO network on now. On average, I get about 120kbs on Sprint...passable for light web browsing and fine for email. With Verizon (and Sprint when the rollout is complete) you can get up to about 650kbs...around DSL speeds but with much higher latency (10ms for DSL verses 200ms for CDMA).

The other smart phone that is getting very solid reviews is the Imate JAM (I think on Tmobile and/or maybe Cingular?) In most of the communities following this stuff, both Cingular and Tmobile and seen as behind both Verizon and Sprint in terms of roaming, footprint and network reliability. Don't know if this is true as I have only used Verizon and Sprint and liked both of them (I keep Sprint because if is cheaper for heavy data usage otherise I would probalby be with Verizon since I found the coverage just a tiny bit better where I tend to travel). Tmobile's strength of course is GSM...if you travel internationaly a lot this might be a deciding factor.