And Now For A Word From Our Sponser...

How strange is this? When the Michael Jackson story broke I didn't find out about it on the TV or the radio, I read about it on my cellphone. I don't know if that strikes y0u as strange but it seems pretty bizarre to me. Just imagine how far we've come.

In the old days you probably got your news by going into town on market day and taking in the local gossip. Then when literacy came around newspapers and magazines were added to the mix. Pretty soon the 20th century added radio and television, and now here we are in the 21st century and it's the internet that's finally becoming the dominant source of news. In fact Reuters is reporting that 1/5 of all newspaper readers are now reading their papers online.

What are we to make of this? I don't have a clue, but things are changing fast, and now with this new Smartphone of mine I'm able to carry the newspaper in my pocket and read it anyplace I can make a wireless phone call. And in fact it's better than a newspaper because just like the radio or CNN it's updated continuously throughout the day, and using SMS messages it can even push the days top stories to me on either a pre-scheduled or ad-hoc basis. Yeah, I know this is nothing new to all those veteran cellphone users out there, but, remember, I'm not a geek so this is all new to me. And besides...

This is so cool!

Of course if I was in the newspaper business I might not be feeling the thrill of it all. I mean, I'm probably what the newspapers would consider the prime demographic for newspaper readership and yet I hardly even read the paper anymore. In the morning I fire up my computer and go straight to my "My Yahoo" homepage for all the latest news in the topics I'm most interested in, during the day I keep myself updated by downloading the news to my cellphone, and at night I get in-depth reports from the gang over at PBS and local news from my local TV stations. Geez, who needs the newspaper anymore?

Yep, the times they are a-changing and I for one am all for it. I like having my news come to me, and I like that it's timely, and I like being able to read it wherever and whenever it's convenient for me. Really, when you stop and think about it, the only advantage that newspapers still have is their ability to focus locally and bring me more in-depth, feature type stories about things that are happening in the neighborhood and local community. In every other way the new media are eating their lunch.

So, what can I say except that I love my SMT5600 Smartphone. It's kind of in that middleground between a plain old cellphone and a full-fledged PDA and I like that. I never really wanted a cellphone just to talk on, and I've already got a PDA so I couldn't really see spending $500 on another on just so that I could stick it up to my ear and and talk to Aunt Mabel with it. The SMT5600 is just a good little multimedia device/cellphone that fits my needs to a T. It organizes, it plays media, it makes phone calls, it connects to the net, and if they could have figured out a way to put a little keyboard on it then it would have been just about perfect. As it stands now, you can't really do email or any kind of heavy surfing with it, but like I mentioned in an earlier post you can use it as a bluetooth modem and connect it to a laptop or PDA when the need arises.

And it's only $100.00 (with 2 year activation - ugh).

In case you're wondering what sort of news I can get here's a sampler: CNN, CBS Marketwatch, the NY Times, AP News, Bloomberg, Yahoo, Google, ESPN, CBS Sportsline, SI, E! Online, Premier, Hollywood.com, The Weather Channel, Accuweather, Mapquest, etc... as well as horoscopes and travel guides and all sorts of miscellaneous content. But since it's a Smartphone that means it also has a built-in web browser so I can go to a place like Skeezer.net and get mobile access to all kinds of sites like NPR or the Wall Street Journal as well. In theory I should also be able to go to audio sites and download podcasts and audio streams but I'm not having much luck with that. The device is certainly capable of playing audio and video and sounds pretty good with the included headphones, but I think the connection just isn't fast enough or maybe there's some other network reason why I'm having so many problems downloading audio. If and when 3G ever gets here that might all change, but in the meantime you can always just download audio and video to your computer and sync it over with Activesync. I've tried it and it works just fine.

Well, that's my little SMT5600 commercial. When the Windows Mobile 5 devices start showing up later this year I'll probably wish I'd waited a little longer before buying, but it's hard to argue with the price or the features you can get right now.