SMART Phone and Photo Blog

The main thing to know about “smart” phones today is that they ALL come with a required $29/month internet/data plan IN ADDITION to your voice plan.  That’s $720 over the two years of your contract.  That’s why I-Phones and Blackberry’s are so cheap.  Those devices cost $300+ to manufacture, but are sold for $49-199 because you’re committing to the two years and $720, and it gets you hooked on a smart phone for life.

That said smart phones can be terrific value.  If you do alot of email, a Blackberry from Verizon is a terrific productivity tool.  You can be “in the office” and online wherever/whenever you need to be. 

There’s three key elements to a smart phone:  email, synchronizing to your desktop/laptop Outlook, and the internet.  Email means managing multiple email accounts and many messages in the day.  You can still view and receive all your messages on your desktop when you get home, but with a Blackberry you can get rid of many of them before you do get home.  Synchronizing your Outlook allows you to see and manage calendar appointment, tasks and contacts on the go, while synchronizing all that back to your desktop at night.  The Internet on the go is quite handy, but remember that no matter what you do, that screen is pretty small compared to your desktop/laptop at home.

Feel free to stop by the store for an in depth discussion about smart phones, regardless of what carrier you’re looking into.  We usually have a working Blackberry here in the store you can try out to see for yourself.  If you’re interested in web browsing in particular, try out some of your favorite sites before you buy that phone.