Voq A11 Professional Phone - One Cool SmartPhone
Yesterday was Microsoft Strategy Summit in Pittsburgh, and interesting as it was, it was the final few minutes that were most memorable for me. I won the Sierra Wireless Voq Professional Phone for filling out the survey. Sweet! This is one bad-arse smartphone! This model came loaded with Windows Mobile 2003 SP1, and close to 30MB on-board memory. There's a slot for SD cards, and a groovy flip-out keyboard. Navigation is mainly done with a joystick located just below the screen, and you can sync via USB cable (cradle optional) or the infrared sensor on the top. Being a Windows Mobile-powered phone, there's all the bells and whistles that comes with that. The speaker is actually good for this type of device, and the screen is excellent. VoqMail Professional was included, which is an Outlook-type client that has native communications with Exchange--some of the rich features include continuous delivery, meeting acceptance/decline, attachments and calendering. It's even compatible with Lotus Notes, whatever that is. ;)
As excited as I am to have the phone, using it looks to be an adventure in my area. It's a GPRS phone, and doesn't work with Verizon in my area. The only carriers here that support it are Cingular and T-Mobile, two carriers that don't have great coverage in the mainly rural area in which I live. Undaunted, I headed down to the Cingular store near where I work, just north of Pittsburgh. The folks at the shop were amazed at the phone--they had never seen anything like it. I signed up for a voice and data plan, and Cingular has a 30-day cancellation policy. That was key, given the historical badness of the coverage in this area. Having a plan sold to me was relatively painless, but there were some additional steps to get the thing actually on the web.
Since the phone was not provided by Cingular, I had to set up the GPRS network myself. Doing so wasn't difficult--I had to download the developer details from another website, and punch in a few settings in the control panel, and I was off. Cingular is a DHCP-based network, so the DNS and IP settings I just left blank. This wasn't mentioned in the documentation, but I guess it's not necessary for the usual people reading that document.
So far, the data experience is pretty good. Coverage is four bars from where I sit, but driving around the next couple of weeks will tell the true tale. I'll keep you posted.