July 31, 2007

Gadgets for Italy

We are off to Italy for 2 weeks starting Friday. This will serve as my packing list:

  1. AT&T Blackberry 8800. My new fav gadget. First Crackberry and I know why now. Perfect works pays for international roaming for voice and data. Also has built in GPS which worked well for me in London. Got Gmail loaded on it so personal mail is no problem.
  2. Nokia n800 Internet Tablet: Hoping to find a WiFi hotspot to surf the web and post to my blog.
  3. Palm Treo 680 GSM: Borrowing one from my boss since my Sprint Treo 650 won't work in Italy. Need to test an app I'm having some guys in India build for me.
  4. Nokia n80: Unlocked phone using a SIM card I bought on the web. The number is supposed to be from Estonia but should work in Italy.
  5. Samsung Carbon: Slim, unlocked phone for my wife
  6. Motorola TalkAbout 2 way Radio: To use to communicate while sightseeing.
  7. Video iPod: Got it all loaded with all my songs.
  8. iPod mini: Got all my daughter's music loaded. High School Musical and Kidz Bop (thanks to BitTorrent)
  9. Lenovo Thinkpad T65: Best Windows Notebook IMO. It'll serve as a DVD player on the trip
  10. Some clean underwear if I can afford the space.
* update #1: Since the house we were staying at was so remote, there was no broadband connection to connect to. So the Thinkpad and the n800 didn't get used. Never used the 2 way radio, the Carbon, nor the n80. Joyce carried the Treo. I made very good use out of my Blackberry though. Used a lot of Google SMS, browser, and Yahoo!Go app (pretty slick app) to get news, sport scores, local weather forecast, and light web surfing. Even though I was in the countryside, no problem getting decent GSM and GPRS coverage

* update #2: If you are looking to purchase pre-paid SIM before the trip, stay away from Acetele (acetele.com). They ship you SIM card coded with an Estonian number. I never got the card to work correctly in Italy and gave up. SIM cards are readily available in Italy so you should just get one there. I contacted Acetele about returning the unused cards and they never responded.

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