Chris Rosenberger said:
1) Besides making calls & accessing the internet, what else will a smart phone do?
I use my Android phone (Samsung Captivate) as an all-around organizer. It integrates extremely well with Google's web apps (Gmail, Google Docs, google calendar, contacts, etc), so I use it as an extension of my desktop. If I enter a contact in my phone, it automatically updates in my Gmail contacts, and vice-versa. If I enter a date in my Google calendar, it shows up on my phone. If you use Picasa for online photo storage, you can easily browse your gallery right on your phone.
I also use apps like Evernote, which is a notebook/note-taking application. It is a must-have app for any smartphone user, IMO, and the great thing is there are clients for Windows and OS X as well as a web interface, and are synchronized and stored on their server, so the notes you take can be available to you anywhere you have net access. I use it as a reference, any useful information I think I might need later on goes in there. Shopping lists go in there, for instance when I think about something I need at the hardware store I put it in my hardware store shopping list. The next time I find myself there, I just open up my list. For me, Evernote works better than the dedicated shopping or task list apps.
There are a number of barcode scanners which are great when you're shopping. Sometimes I see something which I'd like to do some research on. I just scan the barcode, and I can get links to the item and sometimes even reviews. I can do research easily right on the spot, or save the item and do more extensive research at home later.
When we are at the cottage, I tether my phone to my laptop for internet access. With the Android 2.2 Froyo, I can make my phone a Wifi hotspot, so that my wife and I can both work on our laptops at the same time.
We subscribe to XM radio and as such got free XM online, so I can use my phone to listen to satellite radio no matter where I am.
2) Any tips on the type of data plan to get?
You have to ask yourself how much data-intensive use your phone is going to use. When my wife was using the Wifi hotspot of my phone to stream TV shows at our cottage, we used 1GB in a weekend. If you are not tethering a ccomputer and not streaming video or lots of audio, it is pretty hard for many people to exceed 1 GB or even 500MB.
I have a 6GB dataplan, but only because my carrier offered me a sweetheart deal (for Canada) at the time (upgrade to 6GB for $5 more than my old 500 MB Blackberry plan). I plan to do lots of tethering in the future (no longer need to use my wife's Internet stick at the cottage), so I am glad I have it, even if I have only exceeded 1 GB once in the last 5 months.
Final note: if you haven't used a touch-screen smart phone, you should try to borrow one from a friend for a few days and see if you like it. I find the touch-screen keyboards on both iPhones and Android smartphones to be very annoying for more than very short messages. I don't care what anyone says, but text input is severely impaired on touch-screens. If I had it to do over again, I'd buy am Android phone with a real slideout keyboard like the HTC Desire Z. None were available in Canada when I got my phone.
