I chose my new phone (Motorola e815) over all the others for 3 reasons.
- Reception
- Works with my previous cables and chargers
- bluetooth
I've been satisfied with the first two since I got it – it does have excellent reception and work with my old stuff. But #3 left me disappointed. I found out (after I bought it) that Verizon cripples their phones, making them basically useless as bluetooth devices. Shame!
As it turns out it is not too difficult to hack the thing to get it to work like it is supposed to. I found a site with wealth of downloads for the e815, and I followed these instructions to enable file transfers, uploading this saved seem settings file to enable iSync (here are some alternate instructions). I did already have a windows PC and the necessary USB transfer cable. I would have been very annoyed if I didn't.
Now I can transfer files to and from my phone, sync automatically with my OSX address book, all while the phone is still in my pocket. I am also now able to use it as a modem with my laptop on the road. It is surprisingly usable. It claims to be connecting at 225 kbps!
On a side note, this phone is a bit of a tank, but that means it is rugged and has a decent battery life. It's only slightly bigger than by previous phone – a Motorola T730, which was junk. I like this new phone now as much I like liked my StarTACs back in the day!
