New phone...

Since I was disappointed that the Google phone was not available yet, I went ahead and got the Sony Ericsson w580i. It's by no means the perfect phone which I was looking for, but the main selling point is that it looks good.

Anyway, in comparison of my old phone:




You can see that the main difference in size is the thickness. It's about 1/2" thick. Also, there's no comparison functionality with my old phone:

• Java-based programs
• Internet
• Not 3G, but "2.5G"...
• 2 megapixel camera plus video
• mp3 files can be used as ringtones

The access to the Internet has already been handy because of being able to look up addresses and phone numbers on the Internet.

This phone does not come with GPS, but thanks to Google Maps, they have a My Location function which utilizes the location of cell towers to which your phone is connected in order to approximate your position. Any approximate position is better than not having any idea where you are... and also when you want to do a Google search for businesses, it can use your "My Location" position to find the businesses near you rather than you having to type in the address of your current location.

Finally, disappointingly, there's no Japanese support for this phone, but I have found websites which describe how to re-flash the software on your phone to use the Asian version... I am looking forward to trying this out!