Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Sprint 3G Indahouse

Since starting this blog last summer, I've had a great time following an industry that is a personal interest of mine and spewing forth a ridiculous amount of posts that track what analysts are saying about the mobile devices, content and services markets.

And during this time, I've been able to build up a small audience of hopefully like-minded readers, who also want to know what the analysts are saying about this fascinating space. So many thanks to all those folks tolerant enough to read Mobile Analyst Watch and listen to my endless babbling about the world of mobility.


Lately, in addition to tracking the analysts, I've branched out to review a couple of mobile devices and services. The series of reviews about my newly purchased Garmin Forerunner 205 was so much fun that I've now got the review jones, and I'm looking around for another project to tackle. Unfortunately, I blew my mobile gadget budget on the Forerunner 205.

In the past, I've always looked on enviously as analysts, such as Michael Gartenberg at JupiterResearch, who got to play and test out the latest devices. Sounded like the gadget geek's dream job. As luck would have it, I too get to live the dream, at least for a short time.

As it turns out, someone at Sprint, in a moment of temporary insanity, deemed I was worthy enough to try out a Samsung A920 3G multimedia handset and the Sprint Power Vision EV-DO network. As part of the Sprint Power Vision Ambassador program, I get to geek out on all the Power Vision mobile services and content for the next several months.

This comes at a great time because I've been thinking of getting a new handset and possibly switching carriers so now I get to try a new network operator. I currently use Cingular and its poky GPRS data network, and have been dying to jump on the whole 3G data thing.


I'll plan to write up several posts that look at the usage model for the services and content instead of focusing on the handset itself, which is my first ever clamshell. I'll also enlist the help of my 10 year-old son, some high schoolers and maybe even a college kid on the block to get a younger person's perspective as well.

Lastly, even though I'm generally a stingy bastard when it comes to paying for mobile services above and beyond unlimited data access, I will try to remain as impartial as possible. And after playing around for a couple of hours with the handset and Power Vision, there are definitely some services and content that I wouldn't mind paying for. Of course, the cost will be critical and with some of the pricing I've seen it really adds up fast. Anyway, I look forward to trying out all these new mobile services from Sprint...

Here are links to other reviews in this series: