recommend a SMS pager/PDA/smartphone? recommend phone network? what wiki?

[Jeremy C. Reed]

Have recent recommendations for choosing a SMS pager/PDA/smartphone and/or 
phone network been covered on this list or maybe a Nagios forum?

I am sure some (many?) of you have alerts sent via SMS or email to your 
phone device and that you expect to have a reliable network.

It would be great if we could discuss experiences. What is good, bad, and 
what is desired.

For past 14 months, I have used a Sidekick II from T-Mobile. It has been 
overall reliable. I have Internet access with AOL Instant Messenger, Email 
with multiple accounts, simple web browser, phone messages, and I have 
add-on for a SSH/telnet client. I have used it to receive over 5000 SMS 
phone messages and over 6000 emails (most sent by nagios). I have used the 
Sidekick a lot in the Seattle, Washington and Fort Worth, Texas USA areas. 
Plus some through out Washington state, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, 
Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, little in Iowa, Illinois, little in 
Tennessee, and little in Arkansas. It has worked fine except in some 
places in south/middle and northwest TX, southern UT, north NM, and north 
AZ. A couple weeks ago, manually checking email stopped working and 
numerous attempts to work with T-Mobile have failed to help (emails still 
work outbound and inbound on T-Mobiles own schedule). I like the 
sidekick's convenient keyboard. Also lately, SMS phone messages have been 
delayed a lot and in some cases they are never received. The sidekick 
service is very inexpensive. The sidekick has a very long battery life.

I want to try a replacement. I need a good keyboard. I need email, SMS, 
and SSH client. I need its network to be available when I travel. Having 
X11 or VNC or remote desktop support would be great (I don't think that is 
possible with sidekick since it doesn't have any pointer.)

What portable device do you all use to receive your nagios messages?

I think a wiki page would be great to discuss this too. What is difference 
between http://www.nagiosexchange.org/Wiki.3.0.html and 
http://www.nagioscommunity.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page -- which Wiki to 
use?

Some of my notes are here:

Like the SideKick, I want a PDA that had long battery life (maybe
36 hours for me), has instant messenger, multiple email accounts,
convenient size, web browser, good qwerty keyboard, SMS phone
messages, and SSH client.

It would be nice to also have 802.11b Wi-Fi (like iPAQ h6315) or USB
but not required.  I also use the camera but that is not important.
The most important is to have reliable internet access throughout
the United States and reliable SMS phone messages. (I rarely will
use it as a real phone as I use a different cell phone for that.)

SMS phone messages are becoming way to unreliable with my Sidekick
(or maybe T-Mobile) so I need an alternative.

I am trying to review several websites but I can't find a single
webpage that lists features and shows pictures.

Here are some links:

Recent top 10 list
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,125397-page,1/article.html

PDA / Cellphone Combinations by Wireless Provider
http://palmtops.about.com/od/pdacellphonecombinations/a/Smartphones.htm

Top 10 Cellphone / PDA Combinations
http://palmtops.about.com/cs/productreviews/tp/top_phone_pda.htm

Comparison table
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone

Here is the beginning of my research:

Audiovox Pocket PC
I don't know if it has SSH.
PPC-6600 and XV6600 keyboard looks too small but haven't tried yet

BlackBerry 8700g
$400
T-mobile EDGE network
has instant messenger

HTC TyTN Smartphone
looks like SideKick a little

ipaq with keyboard?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipaq

iphone?
I don't think it has a keyboard.

Motorola Q
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Q
$300 with 2 year contract (Verizon)
hard to use keyboard
five hours of talk time

Nokia n73 or n95

Samsung SPH-i73
Samsung BlackJack or SGH-i607 

SideKick 3
$300 with 2 year contract
nine hours of talk time

Sony Ericsson smartphone
maybe p990
many features: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_P990#Reviews

Treo 700p
Palm
$650 with 2 year contract
Sprint network
five hours battery life (too little)

Xda IIs
http://www.my-xda.com/

I also saw at Verizon store a device that looks like a Sidekick.
But I don't know what it is.


  Jeremy C. Reed

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