My Old Smartphone vs The Cool Samsung Instinct!

As a realtor or any field in which you use or need contact management programs and databases, it is evident that your choice of phones is extremely important. Protecting your database and contacts is paramount, especially if you're an independent contractor! If you lose your contacts, you lose credability and ultimately business.

I consider myself a semi-techy guy and try to keep up with at least the necessary changes in technology to hang with my clients and make my business a smoother operation. I know, I know, what did we do before cell phones? Can anyone answer that? Can anyone even remember?

I have owned and effectively operated a Treo 700p for nearly 3 years and it was pretty cool for me and did just about everything I wanted. I was disappointed in the fact I had to purchase a bluetooth gps adapter and pay an additional $9.99 a month because the phone cannot run my provider's navigation system. Then came the advertisements and hype about the Samsung Instinct. It had a pretty good navigation system that came with my mobile plan and I didn't need an adapter! It also had several other cool features that I really liked. One of the features was that when I received my voicemails, I didn't have to call into my voicemail to see who called and left messages, but I just had to look at my messages and even had the ability to pick which one I wanted to listen to by touching the screen no matter how many messages I had.

That was all pretty cool but then I began to notice that occasionally I would try to bring up a contact that I know I put into my phone just to find that it wasn't there. I discovered that the Instinct can only hold 600 contacts and would kick one out each time you input a new one in that exceeded the 600 contact limit. So I was losing contacts without realizing. Thank the Lord I am a backup kind of guy, so I was able to retrieve contact information from my computer. So I began to weigh the options, pros, and cons. So I decided that the coolest phone isn't always the best phone. What's practical and more importantly, contact friendly, is more likely to be the one for the business person. I learned my lesson and went right back to my Treo. Next maybe a blackberry but you better believe I'm going to do my homework before I let go of something that works!