Fixing broken laws

I've written before about the California hands free cell phone law and how useless it is. While studies say that hands free still distracts people (my wife says that I'm distracted when I'm just talking to her in the car), a hands free law is a start to getting people to focus on the road.

On Saturday, as we were driving back from REI, we turned onto Convoy Terrace near the Air National Guard base when I saw a truck from A-Pot Rentals coming out of the base and moving in the same direction I was going. The driver was in the right lane and I was in the left lane; he was yapping on his phone and changed into my lane right where I was. Luckily there was a turn lane and no oncoming cars, so I was able to move into the turn lane and get around the driver.

This driver was clearly distracted by illegally using his cell phone while driving. I called the company later that day and the person that answered didn't seem to really care. If the driver had hit me, I'm sure the family owned company would have cared! Why can't people just get off their phones and drive? The fines need to be increased and enforced to discourage people from violating the law. How about raising the fine to $500 for the first offense, $1000 for the second offense as well as driving over the cell phone, and $5000 for the third offense? Maybe that would get people to think twice about talking while driving.

Useless case protector

Since the Samsung Reclaim isn't a flip phone and the screen risks getting scratched in my wife's purse, she wanted a case. I saw that Sprint had a plastic case that clips onto the Reclaim to protect it. I didn't order it right away because the price went up from the time I looked at it and the time I was going to purchase which basically meant that I could get it cheaper at the Sprint store with my Sprint Premier discount. I was at the store today and tried out the case; the sales person was nice enough to clip it onto my phone.

While the case fit tight and protected the phone, it didn't protect the screen! So, it protected the back cover and the sides that no one really cares about. It appears that someone forgot that the Reclaim doesn't have a touchscreen so having a hole for the screen is a bit pointless.

My wife is using the case from the Pre I have for work and it fits well, but having a clear case to protect it would probably work better in the long run. Anyone know of this type of case for the Reclaim?

Review: Samsung Reclaim

Last week, I finally bit the bullet and got new cell phones for my wife and me. (The batteries weren't holding charges and I've been unable to get replacement batteries that hold a charge.) I was very cautious to pick phones that wouldn't affect my plan, so that pretty much ruled out phones such as the Pre or HTC Hero. As I liked the slider on the Pre I have for work, I decided on the Samsung Reclaim for our new phones (we already had unlimited data for both our phones; unlimited data being EVDO Rev. 0 data).

Some may think that this is a step down for me as I've had a smartphone pretty much all the time since I first got a Treo 180 on Cingular. Every smartphone I've had has been for work and paid for by a client or by work. In addition, I swore off smartphones as my primary phone since the Treo 300 when its battery drained itself on a number of occasions due to OS crashes.

In any case, I've had my Reclaim for about a week and my wife has had hers for a day. The primary use of a phone for me is to make phone calls and the Reclaim does that fairly well. I paired the phone with the Bluetooth car kits in both our cars (both car kits are aftermarket, one is a Parrot CK3100 and the other is a Raytel Tellphone 4200) and it works well. As a phone, so far it lives up to what I need.

Battery life is a major concern for me and even playing around with it throughout the day, the battery hasn't completely drained, so in that regard, it is looking good.

While the phone isn't a smartphone, its email and web browsing capabilities are quite respectable. Email can't show HTML, but I don't see that being a bad thing. I was able to setup my Gmail account quickly and reading email isn't half bad. The keyboard is small, but usable. If you don't have big fingers, you can text and compose email with very few mistakes.

Pros

• Speaker independent voice recognition. (Only some smartphones have this which is surprising as my 3 year old Motorola RAZR had it.)
• Battery life appears to be good.
• Keyboard is usable despite it's small size.
• Decent email client.
• Good value for the money (phone was free with a 2 year contract renewal; I just had to pay taxes on it).
• Very compact size.
• Easy to navigate using one hand.

Cons

• I'm unable to use Google Maps even though there is an icon for it; I'm getting a SAX error when I download the handler. I'll need to contact Sprint about this.
• Sending a bunch of contacts over Bluetooth from my Mac resulted in 1 entry, so I had to send them one at a time and I'm not quite done with this.
• Sending contacts from my wife's RAZR to the Reclaim failed when it got to an entry with a / in it. I'm not sure if this was on the sending or receiving end, but I tend to blame the receiver as it gave the failure message.
• Email can't display HTML messages.
• Web browser isn't a full browser.
• Only a limited number of J2ME applications can be loaded onto the phone and most aren't very exciting.
• The Sprint network can't do voice and data at the same time; it's a minor inconvenience.
• Dialing phone numbers that aren't contacts is a little harder than on the RAZR.
• Contacts and calendar don't sync with Google where I store all my info.

Summary

While I've only had this phone a short time, I don't plan on returning it. It looks like it is going to more than adequately meet my needs. It is a basic messaging phone that I think can meet the needs of many users. Many of the features of a smartphone will go unused and paying extra for features that you don't need doesn't appeal to me.

If you're on Sprint and looking to replace a phone, the Reclaim is a good phone. The "green" aspect may appeal to some, but to me, it's just a gimmick. My wife has never had any type of messaging phone and is really enjoying the phone. While she wanted a BlackBerry, I couldn't justify adding the BlackBerry plan and then text messaging on top of that. For her needs, this phone is comparable to the BlackBerry.

Affording cell phone service

Recently I replaced my cell phone and my wife's phone with new ones. As I was doing so, I was quite careful about not getting a phone that would require me to change my cell phone plan. Many of the new phones (at least on Sprint), can't be activated on the plan I have. My plan is over 7 years old; I got it when I first got my Handspring Treo 300. This plan originally cost $85/month which included unlimited data, unlimited picture mail, unlimited SMS, 2000 anytime minutes, free mobile to mobile (on Sprint), and a second line. Since then, I've been able to get some additional discounts on it and I've added 2 lines to the plan (for my parents). Now I pay about $90/month including taxes for the 4 lines (unlimited data and SMS is only on the primary line).

Let's compare this plan to what it would cost for an iPhone plan on AT&T. A 2100 minute plan for 2 lines costs $109.99 + $9.99 for each additional line. Data for the iPhone is $30/month and unlimited messaging is $20/month. So to get a comparable iPhone plan for me and standard phones for my family, it would cost me $180/month + taxes which is more than twice what I currently pay.

If we just look at individuals, we're talking about $39.99 for 450 minutes + $30 data + $20 for messaging. That is $90/month + taxes for a single line!

It turns out that I've basically written about this before, but aimed at teenagers.

Maybe I'm just cheap, but I can't justify spending more on cell phone service. This might change later on, but for now, I'll stick with what I have. If I was more mobile and didn't work from home, maybe I could justify the added cost, but my cell phone needs are pretty basic. It's kind of funny saying that as I work for a company that provides wireless data solutions to companies!