I have had the good fortune to have been deeply involved in the Motorola car telephone engineering and manufacturing operations even before car telephones evolved into cellular portables and systems.  During that wireless revolution, I have seen several products which I believe made mile stone achievements.  Certainly the first portable radio that we could hold in our hands and did not need to carry in the trunk of our car - was indeed a great move forward.  Later, the first Motorola flip phone portables impressed me as bringing portables into a new world of "pocket friendly".  Now, portables were no longer cumbersome, but easily carried.  A third product that impressed me was the Motorola text pager.  While this pager did not do everything we might want to do with data, it could do text messages and talk to many email servers directly at an early date.

To be sure, we take much of the above now for granted, since cellular phones have evolved so well and so powerfully since these early achievements.

But now, many of us want to do much more with our portable phones than just talk on them.  Nextel has made DC - Direct connect a faster means for quick conversation.  And of course there are camera options and data options as portable phones take advantage of the world internet data stream.  The question should be - are mobile phones making this transition to add data features and cameras eloquently - or is the change cumbersome?  That question might need to be asked for each new model phone.  The one I chose to use and try was the Motorola -Nextel i860.  The results?  It would be hard for me to imagine how I could be more impressed with the advances it has made.  At some point, I know that I will want to try a Blackberry - a phone version which many say works well with data, email and internet.  But for the time being, I am amazed how much a normal looking cellular phone such as the i860 can do.

First of all, we do need to say early that even if a phone is "data ready" - that one must add a data service package to the phone to receive all of the features.  Since I knew that I would be trying this new phone out through its paces, I took a data plan that seemed to include everything.  A good price is something that each of us customers has to decide.  But in my case, my great data package cost me less than $20 extra per month.  This seemed a great deal to me since at one time I was paying about $90 a month for service for a text pager that had much less capability.

Here are some of the features that I find I can do on the i860 with the Nextel data package that make me smile.  To be sure, my tastes might be unique.  However, you might want to see if you might have some needs or desires that are at least similar.

1.  Having been from Chicago, I am a die hard Chicago Cubs baseball fan.  Now when I am out, I do not miss the fun.  I check the Cubs score using the web internet feature on my i860.  My wife does say that I re-check the score too often, but I say that I am just having fun.

2. My nephews sometimes like to text message me.  Often again, I admit, it is for our opinions of Cubs scores.  It can be much fun to get and receive some of these messages.  My brother also tells me how his son (a different nephew) is doing during his little league game by text messages.  The good thing about text messages - unlike a phone call - is that while they convey information, one feels that they can answer when the get a chance, and not drop everything to answer the phone.

3.  There are some emails that I like to check on - even when I am out.  I sell software on the web.  When a new sale comes in and I see it on my i860 by checking emails, it really cheers me up.

4. I can check for business emails regarding About Wireless on my i860 - which I use a separate email address for.

5.  I have set up web pages that are mobile friendly and use bookmarks on my 860 to retrieve the information when I am out.  So, if I need an address that I know that I sometimes will need, I can get it via i860 web interconnect - after of course I have created the personal web page that I want and have it on line.

6.  Occasionally when I am out, I may hear about a subject I want to know more about.  It seems that the Google search engine is also "mobile friendly" and I am amazed with subjects I have looked up on my i860 and read about while away from home and office.

7.  Of course, news and stock values are also available on web interconnect.

8.  Shopping for furniture for our new store, we were able to take photos with the i860 camera and then send them to our home email - so we could look at the items later.

9.  The DC (direct connect) features are nice.  When you are just looking for a quick answer - such as "where are you?" when you and someone else have gotten separated in a store, for example, a quick DC is much faster than going through a whole phone call.

Summary

There is likely much more I can do with my Motorola-Nextel i860.  However, at this point I am quite impressed and am really amazed how much it frees me up to travel and yet have access to both web and important emails.  As for typing emails or text messages - the software for "word" that guesses which word you are trying to enter seems quite good in the latest phones such as the i860.  This makes entry of multiple word text messages and emails much faster - after one gets used to it of course.  One trick we have learned?  If using "word" and the Nextel phone seems to have guessed the wrong word, try using the "0" key.  In the i860 that tells the "word" software to show you a different word that can be made from the same keys.

(note on email - in the case of the emails here, the emails were in public domains.  If your email is behind a firewall - within a company that is not on a public server, one can still receive emails, but will need added options to work with the corporate firewall).

We do hope that some of this information may be helpful, or at least interesting to you.

Thanks for reading it !

- Ron

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