Re:okay. (Score 1)

I have a new 700w, and agree that screen size is a real limiting factor. Just FYI, try using Google Mobile (I'm using their XHTML version) to search for a site and then click over to that site directly from within Google Mobile. They must be doing some kind of proxy access to 3rd-party sites, because Google is using AI-based logic to drop images, reformat text, etc. for decent display of conventional websites on a tiny screen. It's not perfect, and of course it's not as visually pretty, but it certainly helps you extract the real information and links from a complex website. I can definitely say that these devices aren't going to go mainstream for awhile. Any Palm or WM-bsaed "advanced device" (like the Treos), or even a less-powerful smartphone, is simply too hard to configure and use at this point. I'm in the software biz and consider myself a serious "techie", but I've spent hours trying to set up this phone to be productive. It makes learning to use XP or MS Office seem like a cakewalk -- between the tiny screen, lack of configuration options, limited documentation, and very few wizards to guide you it's a lot like going back to NT from XP. True end users are faced with tons of pure text boxes to enter server names, usernames, passwords, and other low-level info just to get connected. Email is the worst of all: If you're OK with periodically pulling all your existing POP3 mail and having it pushed to your mobile, it's relatively easy to set up. But who's going to use a mobile as their only email device? You really want the mobile and your laptop/desktop to stay in sync - and unless you run MS Exchange server, that's where the horrors begin. I've been forwarding all my personal mail (POP3, Gmail, etc.) to a third-party IMAP mail provider (SlashMail.org - only $16/year with unlimited storage!!) and it works perfectly keeping my laptop and desktop mail in perfect sync. So I figured I'd just access that IMAP store via the Verizon web email client, and I'd be all set. Wrong -- stupid Verizon only supports basic old IMAP, not secure IMAP which uses SSL encryption. That's the best way to use IMAP, and it's all that most decent providers allow. So I'm out of luck again. Anyone using mobile advanced devices (other than maybe a BlackBerry) is definitely on the cutting edge right now, and I can't see that changing for at least a few years. It's not only an issue of advancements in the mobile devices, op sys, and software -- but a need for the rest of the Internet infrastructure to become "mobile-aware". When I access a website via a mobile browser, for example, it should automatically display a text-only version formatted decently for the small screen. That's what happens today when you hit www.google.com, but it's not common elsewhere. And we also need to break the model of having every additional mobile software utility cost $30-40. Even things like AIM, which is totally free for PC users, costs real $$ if you want a mobile version of the client. Rob