Mobile Internet Suggestions?

[mrtslovechild]

my dad's getting ready to retire and he'll be buying and reselling books online for supplemental income.

right now, when he goes to buy books (at garage sales, etc.) he has to guess which books are worth buying. he'd like to be able to look up the books by ISBN number at the location to check the value *before* he buys them.

i don't even know if this ability exists, but it would be perfect if he could take a picture of the book's barcode and automatically pull up the info online without having to type in the number (similar to delicious library on mac).

i'm leaning towards a PDA-style cellphone with a web browser (we're on Verizon Wireless). specifically the motorola q.

any suggestions?

[jdhore]

i'd recommend going with the Palm Treo 700p...it's a lot nicer than the Q, it's got most of the same features and PalmOS would prolly be a lot easier for your dad to use than Windows Mobile.

[tokenuser]

Avoid the Moto Q.

I'd stick with Verizon, and get a Blackberry 7130e with an unlimited data contract, and tethered modem capability. For quick lookups, he can use the inbuilt browser. For more detailed feild work, he can connect his laptop to the 7130e with a usb cable (or bluetooth), and get wireless broadband connection speeds.

I often work this way when I am travelling. Works really, really well.

[mrtslovechild]

wow. thanks for the quick responses, guys.

sounds like the Q (and windows mobile?) is definitely out.

i'll do some research on the blackberry and treo although it looks like the treo is overkill for my dad's needs...not totally sure yet, though.

thanks again for your help

[tokenuser]

Windows Mobile is still a good option - just not on the Moto Q.
Its far more PDA like than the Blackberry, but the Blackberry is also a great phone as well.

Treo 700P is a PalmOS smartphone. Treo 700W is a Windows Mobile based version of the same hardware. Each of these are good options as well, however, I have had two colleague jump from the 700W because it was flaky, and move to a Blackberry and a Treo 700P.

Personally, the Crackberry works for me, but everyones needs are different.

[f0xh0und]

didn't it used to be that you could just hook up your sprint pcs phone to your computer over your phone's optional usb data cable, and use it's software to connect to the internet during unlimited nights and weekends--for free, of course? it seems sprint has now fixed that--forcing you to buy a data plan. :(

am i just dreaming this up?

[cl191]

In the past (I mean long ago) you can just use the usb cable to hook the phone up to computers and go online that way, Sprint would just deduct the time you spent online from your regular voice minutes, so if you have unlimited night and weekend, you can just go online for free with those night and weekend minutes. But they changed that a while ago, now you have to have a data plan (they call "Vision" or "Power Vision" for their EVDO) on your phone to do the same thing, Vision/Power Vision addons start at $15 a month for unlimited traffic. Keep in mind that, officially, Vision/Power Vision is for phone use only, meaning that you are not supposed to connect to laptops with it, but most people reported (myself included) it worked just fine if you are the occasion user, just don't go crazy and download all the Simpsons torrents and you should be fine. If you do plan to use it often, you may want to sign up for the "Phone As Modem" plan which is $39 I believe, with that, you can "legally" connect laptops with the phones.

One last note, the Treo 700p (Sprint or Verizon) doesn't have dial up networking built in, you will have to do a hack to get that to work. Check this site out for more info:
http://vocaro.com/trevor/treo-dun/

[cl191]

Also, if anyone's thinking about getting a smartphone and signing up for data plans, you may want to read this:
http://www.smartdevicecentral.com/article/The+DataPlan+Disaster/192138_1.aspx