The week of December 18th in My Digital Life

Having been a long time T-Mobile (VoiceStream) customer, it was good to see the December edition of Consumer Reports with their annual cell phone survey showing that T-Mobile had made significant strides over last year. T-Mobile's investment in their network is paying off (as a user I can vouch for that) and they need to continue expanding as well as quickly implementing 3G.

I usually take Consumer Reports reviews and surveys with a grain of salt. Many times you need to read between the lines to see if a product will meet your needs because their selection of top picks is most of the time based on subjective input. Surveys being the biggest culprit. The cell phone survey received 42, 921 responses gathered randomly from subscribers. Although the data has statistical faults, I think you can see trends from last year's survey. Survey respondents overall still liked Verizon and kept it at the top, however T-Mobile as a national carrier and Alltel as a regional carrier are going head to head with Verizon in most markets. If you want a cheaper alternative and international roaming T-Mobile is clearly the winner.

They also reviewed Smart Phones and given some of the national pundits reviews of the T-Mobile MDA, I was very pleasantly surprised that they rated the T-Mobile MDA at the top with a score equal to the Treo 700P and above the Treo 700WX. Given the MDA's superior functionality I don't agree that it is equal to the 700P, however having played with the 700WX I agree that the MDA is better even with Palm's special Today plug in. This is especially true with all the tweaks that the community has developed to make the MDA shine.They also gave Windows Mobile excellent marks in usability. The most interesting piece of the ratings was the Blackberry Pearl which found itself towards the bottom of the scores but at the top of a category called "Basic Smart Phones" which included the Motorola Q, Nokia N80, and SideKick 3. The Treos, MDA, and Nokia 9300 where in category of "Advanced Smart Phones".

Last week Ilium Software released eWallet 5.0. The major difference with 4.1 are the many synchronization options and support for Vista, although I am not sure I need to spend the $16.95 for the upgrade, the Vista compatibility will probably force my hand..

Items I am working on this week:

• A review of the latest version of the Bluetooth Hands Free extension by Jetware Mobile which works well with my BMW Bluetooth ULF module.