If you shop at Fry's or Best Buy (sure about Fry's, pretty sure about BB) you can just return what doesn't work for you, after having tried it out. If getting back to the store isn't an issue, I'd give that a shot.

I don't think we have Fry's on the East Coast, but I'll check out BB's return policy.

The RAZR is a temporary fix for me, and the V3i is the second generation RAZR so it fixed some of the problems that the V3 had as well as adding a 1.2 MP camera and a Transflash slot, so currently my phone has 512 MB of memory at least. It's also got the mutant motorola version of iTunes on it.

I've been happy with Cingular. I've not noticed that the cost has been all that prohibitive but since mine is my business line and everything else I guess I'm willing to put up with a bit more expense.

What are your standards?

Mostly, it needs to have the capability of installing external software. Apple is only planning on letting a select few companies write software for it, which makes sense from a stability point-of-view, since they can assure quality control. But I'm addicted to my phone being a full-fledged mini-computer, with a huge variety of available programs, free and commercial. I don't really want to combine an iPod and a phone. I want to combine an Apple micro-laptop and a phone.

I don't really want to combine an iPod and a phone. I want to combine an Apple micro-laptop and a phone.

So very much this. The ability to play music on my phone is the least of my concerns. I want a PDA that can make calls and go online.

I want a PDA that can make calls and go online.

Plus look pretty while doing it.

Functionality is always pretty.

truly.

recently I had surgery and I was in the hospital on my RAZR checking email and writing brief email messages. It would have been nice to have a slightly bigger phone with more features - and longer battery life.

FWIW, I bought another battery that I carry around with me and I swap out batteries when one battery gets low.

I do that with my PDA. The Dell Axim v51 is satisfying a lot of needs I had for a micro-laptop. Or as I call it, my portable brain. It plays avis flawlessly, the sound ain't bad, wifi, bluetooth, GPS (that I opted out of), a nice realm of programs both free and not-free. Obviously no keyboard, but the transcription software is pretty sweet. And I have thought idly about getting the roll-up keyboard, which works well and is lightweight from what I've heart. With bluetooth it could connect to a phone and use it as a modem, which is handy.

Of course, as it is I carry around the pda, my 80g iPod, and a phone. But for the moment, I'm happy with having those functions be separate.

Speaking of functionality...or rather, about being driven insane by a LACK of functionality that makes no logical sense...I have a question about communication with an external device.

In addition to my lovely new iPod with Nike+ brain...I call him Podney...I have an old Rio800 mp3 player that has a few songs on that I would really, really like to transfer to the iPod...or at least drag off onto my eMac desktop.

I've plugged everything in...downloaded and upgraded the latest firmware and the Soundjam software required to use the Rio.

I can pull the playlist up in iTunes in osX but cannot play or move the songs. I canNOT see the playlist in Soundjam, nor can I see the device on the desktop in either osX or 9.

How can it be that the devices can communicate enough to upgrade the firmware, and transfer data (title, artist, date modified, file size, etc.) but that's it?

I've looked at the troubleshooting text files on the Rio800 disk, on the Rio site, within Soundjam and on the Mac.

I'm at the end of my tether.

The Rio plays fine, has plenty of battery but I can never switch the music? That just doesn't seem right.

Any ideas on what I can do here?