Assorted Afflatuses

Humans will locate Atlantis before I manage to buy a new cell phone, because, in an unexpected twist, two problems have emerged. I mentioned in my previous cellular phone post that I had three choices: the Nokia N80, the Sony Ericsson P990i and the Sony Ericsson M600i. At some point on Sunday morning, I decided that I would plunk down the money and buy the M600i. After all, I have two digital cameras, what would I do with two more? But then, just as I was about to click the "Buy It Now" button on eBay, I had a sudden protective impulse to make sure that the phone would sync properly with my computer.

My reaction served me well. For when I checked said stat, I discovered that, in some cruel twist of fate, neither the P990i nor the M600i syncs with Mac OS X. Apparently it has something to do with those phones' cutting-edge UIQ 3 software, which requires some radically different driver in order to sync with OS X. And, more perturbing still, Apple did not address this problem in their latest OS X update, 10.4.9. Naturally, 10.4.9, happens to be just .0.1 away from 10.5.0, which just happens to be the version number of Mac OS X Leopard. So, I would probably have to wait until Apple releases Leopard in the vague "Spring 2007" timeframe, if not longer, to use either of my two choices with my laptop.

But that's not all. As I snooped around for information about the obnoxious incompatibility between phone and computer, I discovered more bad news. According to the cell-heads whose forum posts I thumbed through, the United States uses the 2100 MHz spectrum for transmitting high-speed 3G data. Everyone else, however, uses 1900 MHz spectrum. And, as luck would have it, neither the P990i nor the M600i have a 2100 MHz 3G radio. Wonderful.

In theory, I should have already purchased the N80. I cannot, however, bring myself to do it. Perhaps my fears that the N80 is too thick are unfounded. Though I simply cannot ignore the fact that my instincts have a very good track record.