All Posts Tagged With: "razr"

If you read my previous blog entry (She’s Got a Habit) you know that I’m using a Palm LifeDrive and a Motorola RAZR to access the web when I’m mobile. On my trip to the Dominican Republic I realized how much mobile websites suck.

Mobile websites are designed to use less graphics, Javascript, etc. so that sites load easily on mobile devices including cell phones, PDAs, etc. Granted these sites are designed to be lighter versions of the actual websites, I’ve found that the absence of certain features have to be an oversight or design flaw.

My first example is T-Mobile. I was sitting in Dulles wanting to go online. I put my Palm LifeDrive on the WiFi available at the airport. After looking at the available plans I decided that it was a better deal to sign up for the $19.99/month access plan being a T-Mobile subscriber. I log into the T-Mobile site and it automatically puts me on the mobile version of the site. On this site there is no option to subscribe to a WiFi plan. The only options available were to add more text messages to my plan. I kept trying to get out of the mobile site but I was stuck in mobile hell. The problem with this is that my LifeDrive can display full websites (the site that showed the access plans was a normal website) so I should never have been sent to the mobile site. In addition, the mobile site should have more options to change or update your plan. T-Mobile lost $19.99/month from me.

My next example is Flickr. I took a photo of the Caribbean with my cellphone and sent it to Flickr. The way I sent the photo set it to private so I logged in to Flickr from my phone to change it. Flickr showed me that the photo is private but did not give me an option to change this setting. Flickr does allow me to add comments and the like through its mobile site.

I also used Yahoo!Mail and GMail’s mobile sites while on vacation. Yahoo!Mail was more reliable but it was down for an entire day. (I know I shouldn’t have been looking at it on vacation anyway.) I normally have trouble connecting to GMail’s mobile site so I was surprised that I was able to connect to it. When I was able to connect to it I had no problems.

Surprisingly, I had few problems connecting to Twitter’s mobile site (when it was up). My only issue with it is that I am not able to see replies and direct messages from the mobile site. Twitter does, however, allow me choose whether or not I access the normal site or the mobile site so I still have access to those features.

My main problem with mobiles sites is when sites use browser detection to automatically send me to the mobile site and then the mobile site doesn’t have all the options available. My suggestions are simple: 1) If you use browser detection to send people to your mobile site, give us a choice on the mobile site to use the normal site. 2) Add commonly used features to the mobile site.

As an aside: Since I did not experience this on the Blackberry, I’m wondering what about its browser is different that the browser detectors don’t treat it as a mobile device. I ran into problems with this when I actually wanted to go to United’s mobile site to find out where my connecting gate was in Denver as the actual site was taking too long to load.

I feel like I’m just a few steps away from rubbing two sticks together to make fire – well maybe not that bad. MrFresh captured me a few weeks ago at PodCampDC doing something I did often – reading email, tweets, browsing online, etc. with my Blackberry.

The problem is that it wasn’t my Blackberry; it was the property of my employer. So when I submitted my resignation, what did I expect? As of Friday, my last day at work, I no longer have a Blackberry.

Now I’m in Chesapeake, Virginia, for the weekend and I have to admit that I miss that connectivity. So I have fashioned together my Palm LifeDrive and my Motorola RAZR to get online. I’m using the RAZR as a modem via a Bluetooth connection to the LifeDrive. I admit that it is slow but it’s faster than trying to use the browser on the phone and definitely easier to enter text. Also, I can no longer use GMail mobile or the GMail app on the RAZR itself. I haven’t looked into it so I don’t know why.

Before I remembered that I could do this I was really suffering, wondering what I was missing. I even called the BF to get him to look at a site that I was not able to see to get his opinion of it. I almost gave him my Twitter password to get him to check to see if I had any replies. I do have issues.

I did consider buying my own Blackberry but my new employer will most likely supply me with one when I start in June. The device I really want is the iPhone but I would like to be able to use it on T-Mobile. I am not willing to shell out all the money for an unlocked one or willing to destroy one in an attempt to unlock it, so I wait. Though, if the rumors are true about AT&T lowering the price by $200 when the 3G models come out, I may no longer be able to resist the AT&T bandwagon.

I have a few more trips planned before June so there are going to be more instances when I have to use this combination to get online if WiFi is not available. But it should be okay as I did this when I was in Argentina on vacation last year. I’ll probably do it in the Dominican Republic later this month as well. Maybe I’ll learn to appreciate a less connected life. Who knows?