Samsung SCH-i600 phone

I upgraded from a classic Motorola StarTAC to a Samsung SCH-i600 and I am very pleased with the upgrade. I research things to death and I like to purchase the right tool for the right price and use it until it breaks or is obsolete.

My motivation was upgrading Sarah's phone before she left for college. We got a two-for deal at Verizon, but after attempting to synch the Samsung SCH-650a with Outlook, I gave up.

I had already researched phones to death and my requirements were

• Stay with Verizon
• Local synch with Outlook ~800 contacts, calendar, tasks, and Notes (if possible)
• E-Mail access min, full remote synch icing on the cake

Benefits of SmartPhone over 'commodity' phones

• no additional software or cables required
• full synch with Outlook
• inexpensive peripherals (miniSynch cable and power $12-15 each)
• greater capacity for contacts
• 'free' ringtones (copy WAV/MP3 files to phone)
• external storage using same card as camera!

Third party applications I really like (and purchased):

Power Tasks from Developer One - $15

• very flexible Task applet
• full management of Outlook Tasks
• synch w/Outlook Tasks

SmartPhone Notes - $13

• Outlook Notes not synched by default
• Synch and edit notes w/SmartPhone 2002/2003
• I maintain my to-do, shopping and other info in Notes