[ale] OT - Smart Phone [AT&T]

[Ned Williams]

Ok the only way to get what you ask cheap is to do a little work on your
part...but since you want it to work well with Linux, then that should not
be an issue.


1- Get a locked GSM treo 650 or above off ebay, make sure you get the USB
cable with it and power plug
2. Pay 20 bucks (or less sometimes) to one of the many online unlocking
services
3. Now if you want Wifi, you will need get either the hacked SD card wifi
card for it, or the tray.
4- Get the Tmobile 20 per month unlimited internet, its EDGE but its 20
bucks flat rate.
5. If you insist on Mico or Mini SD then get anyone of the trillion adapters
out there if you get a 650 or older treo,,,otherwise just use SD like
eveyrone else in the world.
6. Now get any of the various Linux-Palm utilities and go to town.

I use my treo as my on the road internet for my Nokia 770 tablet(Debian
based) all the time, works like a champ and beats paying the ridiculous wifi
rates at most airports. Also with a bluetooth dongle or bluetooth enabled
notebook it works great as a ppp device to get you online via edge when you
need that as well.

One caveat, TMobile officially does not support the 650/680/700 so if you
call in tell them you have a 600 if they give you any flak most of the techs
no the newer units and dont have any issue working with you.

cost breakdown
1-treo 650 right now is about 100 on ebay unlocked, if you can get the
unlocked cheap that negates the need to buy the locked phone, historically
locked phones are always cheaper since people think they can only sell them
to people on their network.
2-J-Unlock or similar service, if needed 20 bucks
3-USB bluetooth dongle if needed, 20 bucks.
4-Wifi sled/SD card, 50-100 I havnt looked in a while since I just just the
nokia's wireless and larger screen if I want/need 802.11
5-Tmobile internet plan 20 per month you can get it without voice if you
choose, but then you have to negotiate the contract, if you have tmobile
already you can just add the service to your sim and slap it into your new
phone.

One additional note, there are several palm apps out there that will let you
use the treo cabled via the USB, this makes it appear as a usb modem to
linux and is easier to set up than the bluetooth route, I can speak to
Knoppix has a build in wizard for this if your new to mobile networking, I
can only assume Ubuntu does as well. The speed you will get via the cable
will be slightly better since the treo does not have to pass the information
over BT stack but only slightly since we are talk about 128kps esque speeds.

good luck,
Ned












On Dec 26, 2007 11:34 AM, Michael B. Trausch <mike at trausch.us> wrote:

> On Tue, 2007-12-25 at 19:01 -0500, David Tomaschik wrote:
> > I'm a current AT&T customer, but I'm looking for a new phone, and
> > would
> > like to move into the smartphone market.  I'd like to find something
> > that supports bluetooth (PAN for Internet connectivity to my laptop),
> > WIFI, and has a full qwerty keyboard.  I'd also like it to have a
> > micro-SD slot for memory and video/audio playback capability.  One
> > more
> > thing: I'd like it to play well with Linux for internet, file
> > transfer,
> > and addressbook/calendar synchronization.  The last bit is that, as a
> > college student, I don't have a whole lot to spend on this,
> > unfortunately.  Any suggestions of a phone?
>
> AT&T is GSM, right?
>
> What about the Neo?  It is open and easily extended, so it should be
> very possible to get it to do everything you need---and then some.
>
> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973
>
>        --- Mike
>
> --
> Michael B. Trausch                                   mike at trausch.us
> home: 404-592-5746, 1                                 www.trausch.us
> cell: 678-522-7934                       im: mike at trausch.us, jabber
> Ubuntu Unofficial Backports Project:    http://backports.trausch.us/
>
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