[geeks] Cell phones for SSH

[Dan Duncan]

On Sat, 25 Nov 2006, Jeremy Grosser wrote:
> I'm looking at buying a new cell phone in the near future and would
> like to get something that I can use for SSH and possibly some light
> web browsing. Ideally, the phone would have a QWERTY keyboard,
> bluetooth, and be relatively small. I tend to prefer candy bar style
> phones (My current phone is a Nokia 6030) but I'm open to other form
> factors.

My wife just upgraded to a Sidekick 3.  (We both had original sidekick 1
models and she upgraded to color before this one)  We skipped the Sidekick 2
entirely but as of the 3, the hardware seems to be MUCH more robust (plus it's
made by Sharp instead of some no-name fab like the previous ones) and they've
addressed some of the previous limitations. It now has a removable battery,
a removable memory card, bluetooth, and a built in 1.3 megapixel camera with
a flash.  The ssh/telnet app is called "Terminal" (used to be terminal monkey)
and there is now a charge to download it.  I haven't looked into hacking the
3 yet so I don't know if you can install your own apps at this point.  The
signal on the 3 is MUCH better than the old ones.  Whatever you end up choosing
for you cell phone, consider using "screen" once you ssh in because the
connections can be somewhat unreliable.

If you like Nokia, the communicator series (9500 and 9300) look promising. I'm
a current Symbian user so I like that OS quite a bit.  I use a SonyEricsson P800
which is pretty dated now but still works fine.  The P910 (2 models up) has a
qwerty keyboard.  I'm tempted, but like the Nokia communicators it's pricy.

> I'd also like to know what kind of data plan to get. I'm not really
> tied to any carrier but my current carrier (Cingular) has data plans
> at 5, 10, and 20 MB/month as well as an 'unlimited' plan. How much
> traffic should I expect to use with SSH?

I think you are still limited to Tmobile in the US.  They have a special
service plan for the sidekick.  (unlimited data)  You can get good deals
on it through Amazon.

-DanD

-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# We must all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately.
# 	 - Benjamin Franklin -