vB Easy Archive - Bought the VM4500 (SCP-5500), thoughts

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Bought the VM4500 (SCP-5500), thoughts
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Posted by: spage

Thanks for all the, uh, impassioned advice.

We tried another phone at the Best Buy (press *2 on display phone bolted to shelf and hold head next to it to evaluate sound quality over booming background noise

) and it sounded pretty good (see my "voice quality" post). So we bought it for my partner for $329 ($50 off) with $150 mail-in-rebate from Sprint, plus $40 for Best Buy protection plan.

Went straight to the Sprint store for activation. Sprint Vision costs $15/month, but video storing with PCS Vision is another $5/month (first two months free). And the salesperson said we still have to pay $5/month to maintain the crummy non-Vision Web access on my Samsung PalmOS SPH-i500.

Best Buy no longer carries the FutureDial SnapSync and SnapMedia software and cable, so that's $30 + $30 + $30 (maybe less at RadioShack).

Sprint accessories has a special offer for the extended battery pack, car charger, and headset together for $60 (same price as the extended battery alone). But to charge phone and spare battery together you need the Sanyo desktop charger http://store.sanyousa.com/osb/itemdetails.cfm/ID/141 which is $80! Eighty bloody dollars for a hunk of plastic , one that doesn't even come with a transformer and plug, so you can't leave the desktop charger at work and the travel charger at home?!

Phone: $180 after rebate, PCS Vision features $480 over 2 years, accessories cost $260. Yikes.

+ Light, full-featured, fun fine phone
+ ReadyLink (should anyone I know ever get it)
+ Runs Java apps (should I ever figure out how to access them without paying Sprint)
+ FutureDial sync software for Outlook and picture transfer (may save us paying for some PCS Vision features?)

- No Bluetooth
- No Mac iSync support
- FutureDial says SnapSync doesn't yet support To Do item sync with Outlook
- FutureDial says SnapMedia doesn't yet support video exchange
- Phone comes with nothing but a travel charger
- Decent set of accessories costs more than the phone
+- Another two years with Sprint!

Cheers, thanks again for your insights, and remember it's just a phone.