My Palm Phone

I started being careless on how I put my $400 Palm PDA of 3.5 years in my pocket one day on 7/22/08. As a result, on that same day, the money clip on my wallet broke the screen, and rendered my PDA trash. I am sad. On 8/3/08 I ripped out the money clip from my leather wallet. I never carry cash. I carry only cards, and they are all the same size.

However, a replacement Tungsten-C Palm PDA on eBay is about $125. A new basic cell phone is $200 brand new (free with a contract). A new PDA is $200-400. My 7-year old cell phone has frequent drop outs (one band), and a talk time of one hour. The buttons don't respond well. I have a green screen with black characters. It requires being flipped open. Sometimes I have issues with the ringer. Having both a separate hand-held computer, & a cell phone is too much for my pockets. I often use a wired headset to hear and be heard better.

I decided to get a Palm PDA/cell phone combo. This is called a smart phone. Instead of the $400 cost for a new one, I purchased a Centro on eBay for about $215. I picked it up from the post office on 8/4/08.

Brand new, the $400 smart phone is $100 with a contract. Unlike most people, I do not have a mobile phone contract. I only pay $15/month for 750 minutes. Its similar to buying a car or home instead of renting or leasing. I would rather pay full price, and save in the long run.

I feel decadent replacing my 6/28/01 SCH8500 Samsung Sprint cell phone that only cost me $84. It still works, I only use 250-500 minutes per month. I am sad my PDA broke. It is one of my favorite things in my life, and cost me $300 on eBay. However, I have now fulfilled my fantasy of a device that will do more than both devices together, and smaller than either! All my electronics and communication are finally together and integrated.

Since the phone/PDA will be more reliable and dependable, I plan to disconnect my home phone service and number. It has been $15/month for unlimited local, long distance, and Europe. Now it is only $5/month. However with tax and fees, it is $8/month or $100/year! I receive two 45-60 minute phone calls in total per week.

I enjoyed Don Adams in Get Smart, as Max Smart, in the 1960s. He recently died, as did Charles Shultz. A new movie called "Get Smart" has recently been released. He had a wireless phone in his shoe. So, when the term "Smart phone" came into our lexicon vernacular, I thought of the fact that Maxwell Smart had a "Smart" phone thirty years early! Please click for my posting. Another TV show of the sixties had a cell phone and PDA thirty years earlier. It was the communicator and Tricorder of Star Trek. Today we have one combined device called the Treo! I have the successor, called the Centro.