Ummmm...About that Phone

Something didn't, well, look right about that picture of Eddy. It simply looked too small.

I looked at the picture, and the resolution was 480x640...same as my old phone. I checked the image on file on the new phone, and it showed the same thing. I confimred that I was at high resolution (1.2 megapixal), and was stumped.

I tried resending it, and I noticed it said "resizing picture" before getting to where you enter the address. Even though it took the picture at a high resolution, it was reducing it to VGA quality. I looked in the manual and throughout the phone for a way to ensure it sent high resolution, but it didn't work.

This phone was something I'd been looking at for a couple of months. I actually explained to a few of their representatives that my goal was to be able to take a high resolution photo, and send it to an e-mail address (Vox) via multimedia messaging. "No problem," they would say.

However, tech support indicated that my carrier's network couldn't handle files of that size (around 500KB). I decided then to return the phone. I could limp along on my old phone until it finally gave up the ghost, and then replace it with something that matched my needs and the limitations of the carrier (or possibly consider other carriers).

I have to say they were actually quite good about the return. I was afraid they would charge a restocking fee, or not refund my "phone switch fee," but I got a full refund. I did have to explain the problem--one guy didn't know about it; the other knew, but admitted it was something you would have to try to encounter.

They did note that I could buy a cable and drivers and download the pictures. I passed--at that point, it is no different than a stand-alone digial camera, and I can get a lot more digital camera for the money.

So, the question now is, will the phone survive until they upgrade the network? Or, will I change carriers? will my wife consider an iPhone (probably not--I'm not a one-dot-uh-oh sort of guy).