Sprint’s Touch And Mogul Are Even Better

Sprint has announced a software enhancement that many of you mobile professionals will be happy to hear about. Recently they upgraded their EV-DO network to Rev. A, offering roughly a 50% increase in download speeds, giving users speeds of 600kbps-1.4mbps on average. Pretty good for those download large attachments and browsing the internet. But until earlier this year it was only available on their wireless internet cards. EV-DO is now also available on some of the handsets offered by Sprint. But what about the guy that spent a few hundred on the latest non-Rev A PDA? Well, you may be in luck. If you own a Touch or a Mogul.

The new software upgrade bumps users to Windows Mobile 6.1. With the enhancement you also get Sprint’s Navigation feature, offering turn-by-turn audible directions with on-screen visuals. In addition it includes the mobile Opera browser as an alternative to the usual Internet Explorer. Finally! And I really can’t see the point to this, but, it also has an on screen QWERTY keyboard, just in case you love to type really, really slowly with that stylus. Hey, it’s nice for them to offer.

Also now available on these two devices is Sprint TV. Okay, I get it. You can watch 50 channels of live TV on your phone. But who has time for that? By my best estimations, the target user of the Touch and the Mogul are business professionals. Someone who can’t afford to wait 30 seconds to check their email or the latest market forecasts. So when are they going to watch TV? Well, fact is no longer are PDA’s reserved for the elite group of business professionals. Now we all can stay up on our MySpace profiles and check the score of the game almost anywhere. What on earth did we ever do without this stuff?

One thing that sets Sprint aside from the competition is the price. For $99 per month you get what they call the “Simply Everything” plan. Unlimited talk, text and internet. While other carriers are offering just unlimited talk for that price and all additional features for an additional cost, the value is clear… as long as it works.  Now I can’t say that I’ve ever used Sprint. In fact it’s the one carrier I have never had. I do know of the stories of the reception quality. Then there’s the customer service. I’ll go easy on them and just say I’ve heard it’s subpar. If Sprint could just fix those few problems I think they could give the other guys a run for their money.