I am looking for a mobile device for Twitter/IM/Blogging and got really excited today about the new iPhone.
That was until I did some math and found the total cost of ownership (2 year w/o taxes) of a new iPhone.
The phone, voice, and data cost is almost $2000 ($1,878.76 16GB and $1,978.76 32GB. Includes $39.99/month for voice and $30/month for data) for the contract-mandated 24 months.
That, to me, is far from a trivial amount of money.
So, I decided to revisit a few things.
1. Cost of mobile data on various mobile carriers including possible data-only plans.
AT&T’s prices are about what everyone else offers (when you add text, data, voice, etc) so for me the first solution is out.
Looks like solution 2 (still have choices to make) is the winner as data plans are as much as cable and 12Mbps cable broadband. I am sure if I had a need for such a device for work, I would pay it, but man, cell phone plans in general are overpriced for what you get. Old Ma Bell wanted metered service for POTS and now they have it for wired.
WiMax will you save us? I had an N800, but it full of of my car and I then ran over it.
I liked the device when I had it, so the N810 sounds pretty promising, but having full XP on the Eee is nice too. No decision yet.