I retired the Motorola MPx200 last week. As much as I loved this phone, the radio was an 1800/1900 unit, and completely impractical in Ottawa. Reception was always spotty, and battery minimal as the poor thing valiantly tried to keep a signal alive by increasing the gain on the radio.
I replaced it with a Blackberry 7290. This quad band unit has great reception, great battery life, and can do email too! So far, I like it a lot.
I also grabbed a Motorola HS-820 headset, and a D-Link DBT-120 bluetooth interface for my PC. Both are a little tricky to set up (I highly recommend a visit to support.dlink.com to read the Windows XP SP 2 directions), but the end result is excellent. Sound quality is very high, and the HS-820 is so light and comfortable that you almost don’t notice that you’re wearing it.
Cutting the cord eliminates one of my biggest complaints with PC telephony – the cord. I can now roam wirelessly around my office chatting on Skype, or a SIP softphone. Similarly, I can be up to 30 feet away from my cell phone and answer it.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
