Goodbye Blackberry - Hello Drift…
okay, after looking at several options, i have finally picked the helio drift as my next phone. for the past two years, i have kept a blackberry 7250, and it just hasn’t been there for me.. if anyone needs any info on this, i will expound. but anyway. i should have a helio drift delivered pretty soon.
the clinchers for me were:
gps system - i think i could have alot of fun with this
unlimited messaging - i have plans for this, too.
cheap-ish price - they will are like $150.. pretty cheap..
some of the down sides were:
no official support for 3rd party developers. i can live with this. maybe. although i did see here that the ceo of helio was talking about supporting developers. he had this to say: Are are you going to encourage people to develop applications for the phones? Totally, I mean you can develop in WIPI Java or WIPI C. WIPI Java’s just a very easy incarnation of Java and is very similar to BREW. We have a lot of Brew developers that have developed stuff in WIPI C for us. They say it’s very easy.
closed buddy system. as far as i know, the buddy system is closed up tight as a drum.
we’ll see over the next few weeks how it works.
Date: 2007-05-10 01:42:02 - update
i called tonight to check and see if my new phone had shipped yet, but i found that they had lost my order.. and it was no longer in existence.
i had the opportunity to start another order up, but i didn’t have time to mess with it again.
now, i gotta decide.. should i put all my plans on hold, and wait for the ocean to come out, or should i just go somewhere else and find a machine that has GPS and java support?
i gotta think about this..
while i was at it, i dropped a note to he CEO of helio, just to let him know what is going on..
i’ll update soonish..
Date: 2007-05-10 09:50:06 - update
i just called one more time to double check everything, and they were able to find my order. whew! it is showing up as in process now, and i am supposed to get my phone tomorrow. we’ll see what happens. sounds like the order might be okay..
so far, of the four customer service reps i spoke to.. three were REALLY good, one was only okay.. but that is a really good batting average.
Date: 2007-05-10 11:56:29 - update
one other thing to think about…
when i posted on the the helio boards that i was making the move to helio, almost everyone replied with ‘you should just wait until the ocean comes out..’
well, this is a good point, but the lady (courtney.. i do have her id, if anyone is interested) told me that i can use helio’s happy or else warranty to exchange my drift for an ocean, if it comes to that..
i also sent a note to sky dayton, the CEO for helio, outlining the initial problem i had. i don’t expect him to answer though, as i am sure he has his hands full with the launch of the ocean
Date: 2007-05-10 14:05:19 - update
wow! i just got an email from someone in sky dayton’s office.. it appears he is gonna get my email. whoda thunkit?
Date: 2007-05-15 10:25:02 - update
i checked with helio about four days ago to check on my phone, and i found that they still had no idea about my order. i still haven’t received anything in the mail, which is kinda weird. they did manage to upsell me on a device for my wife, but i have yet to see that delivered either, although they said i would have it by last friday.. saturday at the latest..
i am wondering if all this time i am spending waiting for my device counts against my 30 day trial time.. i would imagine it does.
i doubt that i am gonna go with helio, just because it seems like i spend alot of time waiting around. their customer service, although VERY friendly, is not very helpful..
i am gonna head down the verizon store and see what they have in terms of GPS phones (maybe a blackbery) that may possible have an open API. but… i am still undecided. i had no idea such a decision would be such a pain in the nuts.