Now that I work at home (and yes, I’ve been incredibly lazy… where are the new posts? ahem… any day now :)), I’ve discovered something about myself: I don’t like to read stuff on my computer.
Sure, I do a lot of that, anyway, but, for instance, there are a lot of blogs that I have subscribed in Bloglines… only I usually skip them. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the content of those blogs - I do. I simply tend, repeatedly, to find excuses, other things I’d rather do at the time, and so on. However, I love to read them in other places - in bed, in a café, and so on. Whenever I’m alone, with nothing to do, and away from a computer.
Reading them in a mobile phone or PDA, then, is the logical answer (a laptop is still much too “PC-like”, with all its myriad distractions; when you can do everything, sometimes it’s hard to focus on just what you need to actually do). I currently use a Nokia 6630, which I’ve had for more than a year. I’ve tried several aggregators, and also the mobile Bloglines, which is accessed through a web browser such as Opera, and, while they work well, they’re too slow and cumbersome for my tastes. Therefore, I used a combination of newspipe (to convert posts from feeds to email messages) and Profimail (to access a mailbox through IMAP). Recently, I’ve dumped newspipe for rss2email, for reasons I’ll mention in a future post, and that’s what I have right now.
I’ve been considering other possibilities, though. As I said, a laptop isn’t a good idea here. I’d mostly like something a little bigger than the 6630, with a larger and better screen, and possibly a QWERTY keyboard (to do annotations and so on). The Nokia E61 seems to fit the bill (and it supports Wi-Fi, which would save me a lot of money in phone bills), though I wouldn’t like to spend too much money (after all, it’s mostly a luxury - I can keep using the 6630, or even battle my distaste for reading on the PC). A PocketPC (are they still called that, these days?) PDA might also do the trick, though the ones I saw recently would cost an arm and a leg (really, 800 euros!? what are they thinking?).
So, any suggestions / tips? 
Related posts:
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Buy a PSP
If you manage to get a few unprotected networks that is… Oh and by the way, the DS Opera Browser was launched on Europe last friday, but I’m buying it next month so for now I can’t recommend it.
I’ve a friend with a Qtek S200 and it’s very cool.. but the browser doesn’t support javascript at all. I think it’s better to wait for new phone decrease their price. They are crazy, pay 600 euros for a simple phone.
Ricardo: hey, I hadn’t thought of that one.
It has a great screen; however, a browser is not enough, I also need a decent IMAP client. There’s probably one for the PSP, too… but without either a keyboard (or even a keypad like a mobile phone) and or a stylus, I don’t think it’ll be easy to enter addresses - much less write notes - on the PSP.
I intend to buy the DS browser, but it won’t satisfy me here, either. No email client, for instance.
Besides, both of those have another problem: no GSM / GPRS / 3G. I’d like to use my Wi-fi network when at home (which I can’t currently do with the 6630), but I’d also like to be able to connect to the mobile network when I’m somewhere else (which the 6630 does, of course).
Marco: the Qtek looks nice; it’s a Windows Mobile phone. It seems to satisfy my requirements, but I also agree with you: 600 euros is way too much. I could buy an E61 for about 430 euros, which would also have (apparently) everything I need.
So, any more thoughts?
I have squirellmail as my IMAP server webmail and it works like a charm with my PSP
And for the rest, it’s simple to enter text on the psp, it’s like a cell phone.
Ricardo: according to Wikipedia, the PSP’s controls are:
The only way I see to type text with it is by selecting letters from a list of them - much like you did in the NES or in the arcades, when typing your name for a high score, for instance.
Normal cell phones, on the other hand, have the numeric keys, and the T9 dictionaries, which makes it much better. PDAs have styluses and character recognition - again, much better.
As to using Squirrelmail and a browser, from my experience it’s much slower, and wastes much more bandwidth, than an IMAP client - not to mention that you have to always be online. With Profimail on my 6630, I can update the mailbox, and then read mail while offline.
Unless I find a PDA with Wi-fi for less than 400 euros, I’m inclined to buy the E61… or simply buy nothing for the time being.
But thanks for the tip…
I use a blackberry and bloglines to read blogs all day. It works great bloglines just pot out some new features to help with mobile reading.
Finalmente já posso falar sobre isto… Acabei de tirar do forno um serviço que permite fazer exactamente isto. Ler feeds em qualquer lado. Tenho um 6630 como o teu e tenho usado isto bastante nos últimos tempos.
Sei que referiste aí o bloglines mobile como sendo lento… mas pode ser que este te agrade. Não sei, de qualquer forma investiga…
http://mobifeeds.net