Tech Makeover Request
 

Since I respect and value the opinions of many of you on this board, I thought I'd let you fill my shopping basket. I need a Tech Makeover.

Currently:

I have a nearly 4 year old Compaq notebook with fried USB ports. I replaced the hard drive almost 2 years ago. I use a Dynex 2 port Card Bus Adapter for USB functions (expect my iPod Shuffle does not like the adapter, so I cannot sync.) My Internet access is from Comcast and I have a home WiFi setup.

I have a vanilla T-Mobile phone with the tmobile@home service, which gives me unlimited minutes from home and many hotspots. I have 1000 minutes and never hit it. My contract is up, so I am a free agent. I have no landline.

My Shuffle won't talk to my notebook.
And my new Sony Cyber-Shot's memory will not talk to my notebook (that has been confirmed with Sony and Compaq/HP).

My 6 year old Palm is about to quit on me. The battery life is short (been replaced once already.)

So, I am ready for my makeover.

Needs and Wants:

I will probably stay in the PC family. I don't game or edit film. I do email, surf, and some work stuff. I do like to stream movies from Netflix. But other than that, nothing that requires anything above average horsepower.

I like my Palm, or more specifically a PDA. But carrying a PDA and a phone (and even a Shuffle) gets old.

I like the portability of my notebook, both within the house and on my occasional travels. But I would consider an iTouch or Smartphone to give me that connectivity while on the road. I travel about 1x a year for work. My travel is primarily personal.

I am willing to change my phone plan (about $55/month for 1000 minutes, but no texts or data) for more functions. I am also willing to cut Comcast loose too. All my contracts are currently month-to-month.

I live in the Minneapolis/St Paul area. I need a cell phone that provides me with service on the road between ORD and MSP.

Options I have thought about:
Desktop, Netbook, and vanilla cell phone
Notebook and Smartphone
Notebook, iTouch, and vanilla cell phone

I am sure there are countless other possibilities. I am not on a tight budget, but would like the purchases to come in under $3k with a monthly cost of under $150.

Specific brand and model numbers are fine, or general recommendations too.

For all of you that have suggestions, thank you.

I am kind of in the same situation and waiting until mid January to see if Apple announces a "Tablet". The world awaits to see if it materializes and it could be pretty incredible.

- Sony Z ultra-portable notebook (decrapified by ordering Windows 7 pro with the clean install option from Sony)

- External Monitor for home use with the Sony Z

- Portable/Desktop USB drive for backups + Online backup service for data files

- iphone 3gs 32G

What do you use for your mail server, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft Exchange?

I'd think long and hard about giving up UMA. If you do, make sure that whatever replaces it has adequate coverage and that you've got enough minutes. Personally, I'm waiting to see if an Android with UMA materializes in the near future (there are rumors). Absent that, I may get a Blackberry 9700. Worth a look, anyway. Again - this is predicated on whether you need UMA or not... and whether you're grandfathered in on some of the older and far less costly TMO plans.

As to the laptop, I'd lean towards a Macbook, maybe with an external monitor. Get Applecare and put it on an Amex that gives you an extra year on the warranty. You'll be set for four years. No dealing with crappy updates, virus scanners sucking up the system, etc. Sounds like you don't do anything that requires Windows. FWIW, I don't have one, but my kids do. I switched them after they managed to repeatedly get their machines infected with all sorts of stuff (even with an updated virus scanner, spybot, etc.). Only issue is that I've got so little sysadmin to do for the Mac I keep forgetting how to do stuff.

Lastly, I'd keep the ipod apart from the phone.... at least until Apple provides an additional battery. I'd hate to watch videos all day and then not have enough juice for a call.

You could downgrade to their new Even More Plus 500-minute plan for $30 and add @Home for $10/mo, saving you about $15/mo. If you're a AAA member, you can actually knock off an additional 13% off the $30 plan. Texts cost $0.20 each; otherwise, it's $10/mo for unlimited. The best part of this is that it's month-to-month; the downside is that you don't get cheap phones.

Adding a data plan is $30/mo (pretty standard across all providers). The question is whether you will get $30's worth out of it every month--or, are you that desperate to be connected anytime/anywhere. Otherwise, you can pay $10/mo for T-Mobile HotSpot or Boingo if you need wi-fi while away from your home.

Someone makes an iPhone case that has an extra battery built in to the case itself. It adds surprisingly little bulk. It's not cheap--$85 at my local BestBuy (I haven't checked online), but it's on my wish list.

Personally, I'd recommend the iPhone. The iPhone changed my life. I still (18 months later) consider it the single best purchase I've ever made. If I had to choose between keeping a crappy, half-broken laptop and an iPhone or a new computer and no iPhone, I'd go with the former. Oh, wait, I already do. :p

The Mophie Juice Air is the battery. I have it on my iPhone. I also have two portable batteries I bought before getting the case. And I agree about the iPhone - I'd have no other (at least right now).

OK, I am ashamed to admit it, but I still use AOL. Are you all going to run me off the forum? :cool:

No, not at all. The only reason I asked was that what you used for email, contacts and calendar would have some impact on your phone of choice if you wanted to get mail, contacts and calendar on your phone. Having said that I dont have any idea how to sync a phone with AOL. Do you use Google or anything for your calendar? I think that if you want a real tech makeover, you might consider switching your mail, contacts and calendar to Google. Its free and gives a lot of flexibility to sync to mobile devices.

Actually, I stopped in to a tmo store earlier this week to figure out whether any of the new plans were worthwhile. You cannot add unlimited wifi calling to the new "even less" plans.

Ouch.

AOL offers IMAP access. Actually, with IMAP, AOL's a lot less dumb than it used to be--they offer large mailbox storage (not sure exactly what amount, but I have family members running on IMAP who have never run out of room) and fairly functional service.

However, I still prefer and second GadgetFreak's recommendation to look at switching to Google. So much functionality for free is just hard to pass up.

Actually, using aol imap you can use gmail to manage your aol account while switching (or just keep both).

That's only for the router as an extra line or two. Can't apply it to a cell phone. And with the $15/mo version you're paying $120 for a $30 router :(