Cell phones in action at CES

I went to CES this year armed with three cell phones: the Motorola Q9m, the Nokia N95 8GB, and the Samsung SCH-u900 FlipShot. While I was on the road, I also decided to test out a cell phone application on the Q9m called PocketExpress, which is chock-full of good stuff for travelers, but more on that later.

First, why the three cell phones? Well, I’ve been to CES quite a few times, and it has always been my experience that you should have a backup phone from a different carrier. Quite simply, because there are so many people in Vegas using their phones and sending messages simultaneously, you can’t always get through.

Second, camera phones have comes a long way, and I thought this was a great time to let readers see for themselves just how well or how poorly these camera phones performed.

Third, as a veteran cell phone reviewer, I really like to see how much easier or harder the newer technology makes my life and if I really will use it. Although I know I could have used one phone for all my purposes, it’s more fun to have multiple products on hand. So here’s my take on all four products I used:

Motorola Q9m Music: This is the phone I decided to use as my main cell phone at the show, where I received messages and calls. On this front, the Q9 worked really well for me. Once I manually set the phone to save messages I sent, texting was a breeze. I even chuckled quite a bit at some of the predictions the phone made for me as I typed out texts. For example, it often suggested “surfing” when I would enter the letter “s.” On the other hand, it did manage to learn and predict common phrases I use, which made sending messages much easier – especially since the keyboard is a bit cramped, so typing is a bit sluggish. One thing I didn’t like, however, was that I couldn’t get a time stamp on any of the messages, a feature that comes in handy in a city like Vegas where people are up all hours of the night.

The other reason I decided to use the Q9 as my main phone was because I could sync it easily with my desktop Outlook calendar. This is the first year that I didn’t have a paper backup with me, and on this count, the cell phone did not let me down. On the other hand, I did have to charge it nightly, and a couple of times, the Q9 petered out before I had a chance to recharge it. Thankfully, I had other modes of communication available to me.

Samsung SCH-u900 FlipShot: This cell phone sports a 3-megapixel camera, and like its predecessor the Samsung a990, the FlipShot has a swiveling display, so it folds into a camera mode. I used this camera phone set at the highest resolution, so I did have to resize photos before posting them on our blog. Overall, I really liked that when I turned the display around, the screen automatically went into horizontal mode and launched the camera. There was one issue that worried me, which was that it doesn’t have an external memory option, so I wasn’t sure how many photos I could take and how to get the pictures off the phone in case service was spotty. Luckily, I could easily store a ton of photos at the highest resolution, so memory wasn’t an issue. As for setting pictures free, it wasn’t a problem at all. I was able to email the pictures to myself in seconds, and I should note I was impressed at how quickly I received the photos in my inbox – literally with in a minute of hitting Send. To speed up the process, I just entered myself as a contact with only my e-mail address; this way, I didn’t have to keep selecting where to send the picture: cell phone number or email address.

What was my favorite part of using the FlipShot? The battery life, I rarely had to charge it, and when I did, it charged fast. This turned out to be my backup phone for calls and messages. I didn’t leave the hotel without it.

Nokia N95 8GB: It’s pretty obvious why I had this cell phone with me: the 5-megapixel camera and all that memory, which by the way rocks. Although this version doesn’t have the zoom found on the original Nokia N95, I’m not a photographer, and the autofocus and preset settings worked just fine for my purposes (a trick I learned from our “How to take a Better Picture with your Camera Phone” story). The other reason I brought it is I knew that if for some reason the T-Mobile service I was using with it had any problems, I could always connect to the free Wi-Fi service at the convention center and use that to send the photos to my computer for posting. Fortunately, the T-Mobile service worked much better than the Wi-Fi, and I received pictures in minutes. Also, I particularly appreciated that I didn’t have to resize any of the photos in order to post them on the blog, so what you see is what you get, though I didn’t take the pictures at the highest resolution.

PocketExpress: Finally, this is the last product I tried. Basically, it’s a mobile portal where many of the applications and services available are free to use. Sure, you can get some of the information from the mobile Web page provided by your carrier, but this is formatted better (everything is a click away), it’s not too graphics-heavy (pages load quickly and are formatted to fit the small screen), and it has useful features for travelers, which is what initially appealed to me.

In order to get the service, simply go to the Pocket Express Web site and enter your cell phone number; the application is sent to your phone via text message. Once you receive the message, it automatically installs on your phone a click later. Then you get a message letting you know where it is stored on your phone so that you can access it or make changes to it. Essentially, it’s pretty easy to use.

What I liked best about it is that in addition to 411 information, it supports multiple weather forecasts that are updated as frequently or as infrequently as you want. (Read: If you have an unlimited data plan, let it update frequently; if you’re paying for data by the megabyte, choose to update manually when you need it.) It’s a nice feature if you’re traveling out of town.

It also has flight status information, so I could check the status of my flight without even knowing my flight number. Granted, this takes a bit longer to get to the pertinent info, but the point is I was able to get the info I needed without a lot of details necessary on my end.

There’s also news, sports, stocks, and entertainment. It also has maps, but I wasn’t going anywhere I needed directions, so I can’t really comment on that feature. I do know it gave me the information I needed with little effort on my part and had enough extras to keep me entertained when I was bored on the road and looking to my cell phone for a distraction.