« Zero Project preview at the Open Circle Theater | Home | Xbox 360 launch: bringing out the worst in common sense »
Phone dilemma
By Sparky | November 20, 2005
I’ve been lusting after a Cingular branded HTC Wizard, or the Cingular 8125 for a while now. Sprint came out with basically the same phone (called the PPC-6700) about a month ago, but it’s much more expensive ($650 vs $450) and has a giant honking antenna on it. PCS Promotions just came out with a special deal offering the PPC-6700 for about $70 with a two year activation agreement and Cingular is still fussing about a release date for the phone.
Now I’m stuck in between a rock and a hard place. Do I leave Cingular and get the PPC-6700 now, do I get both and decide which I like more, or do I wait it out for Cingular to release the 8125? The bad news is I have to decide right now because today is the last day that PCS Promotions is offering the PPC-6700 for any sort of a decent rate. If I decided to keep two phones it might work out well because I could then keep my work and personal calls very separate, but at a cost of about $70/mo.
Worst case scenario I could get the PPC-6700 today and then return it within 15 days for a full refund. I would lose out on about $40 in shipping and such, but at least that way I can check out Windows Mobile and figure out if it’s really worth the wait for the 8125. If I do end up canceling my Cingular service I would have to pay a $150 early termination fee that I’m none too excited about of course.
I really don’t like Sprints service that much, but they do currently have faster data than Cingular does. Both of the phones are virtually the same thing, offering a nice roomy slide out QWERTY keyboard, bluetooth, 802.11g, and running on Windows Mobile 5.0.
What to do?
Update: This is just silly. After sitting down and thinking about the situation I realized that as much as I want a WM5.0 device right now I’m just going to have to wait. If I’m serious about that whole retirement early thing I can afford to be stacking $70/mo onto my life. $840 a year is hundreds of thousands of dollars impact on my eventual retirement. I’ll stick with Cingular and just grumbled for the next days to months until the release the 8125.
Topics: Technology |