I’ve had a Nokia 6160 phone since about 1997 - when I moved to Texas. And for even longer I’ve had AT&T Wireless service - back when they were CellularOne - and then more recently when ATT sold off to Cingular.
So finally my old phone starts to act up and it’s time to get something new and whizzy. But Cingular wants me to sign up for a 2 year contract - even though I’ve been a subscriber to the company they just bought for 8 years. Well hell - may as well shop around, then.
Nextel caught my eye. Partly because they’re geared for business use. And partly because they make phones for people, not kiddies. Only one of their phones has a camera, everything else is just for work. And then I read about their built-in GPS and the TeleNav software which lets your phone function like a in-car GPS. Well I’ve been wanting that a while, but I only need the functionality once or twice a month. Spending $1000’s on in-car GPS was a waste, but the $10/mo charge for Nextel is about right.
So I got the brand new i836 phone - because it looked cool, it was small and easy to carry (unlike the Nokia “brick”), and the case matched my Dell laptop.
Other cool things about Nextel and the phone:
All in all I’m pretty happy with this little device. Only knock so far is they released the phone but not the case back-panel which would accomodate the bigger battery. So talk time is a little limited until they release that.
