Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Advice on mobile phones please

[Dave Love]

"Giacomo Lacava" <address@hidden> writes:

> That really depends on the contract more than on the phone... T-mobile
> and  Vodafone now have flat data plans with sensible prices,

Also T-Mobile have a capped £1/day rate, apparently also on PAYG, if
you use it intermittently.

> however Vodafone will proxy all http requests through their
> transcoding software Navarra...

As far as I can tell, 3 do something similar, as does Opera Mini.

> If you use ssh, you probably want a qwerty keyboard. That will
> restrict your field a lot. The typical phone with qwerty is Nokia
> E61/61e/62, a geek favourite.

Or E70, with fold-out keyboard and possibly more convenient shape.
It's harder to come by, though; I ended up ordering from Nokia.
Presumably if you have deep pockets -- figuratively and literally --
the best bet is the E90, especially for the large display.  You can
always use a Bluetooth keyboard, but that's not so convenient unless
you're at something like a desk.

> S60 is probably the most open "mainstream" platform,

Is it more so than Palm (Treo 680, if you don't need 3G)?

> it even runs python :)

That's so far failed to install for me.

> Have a look at http://www.s60.com/life/s60phones/browseDevices.do
> Linux interop is very good via bluetooth & wifi; USB cable support is
> patchy, mainly because it's a jungle of nonstandard proprietary
> drivers.

There typically seem to be issues with S60 3e (current phones)
c.f. 2e.  (The bit from gnokii that needs installing on the phone
wouldn't install for me for some reason on the E70.)  I'd be
interested in info about getting such things working, though I haven't
tried hard yet.  The USB cable is OK to see the SD card as a disk, of
course.

Everyone bring your smart phone to the next meeting for comparison?
The free software angle on mainstream phones might be finding out how
easy it is to port/develop to/for them.