I am planning on taking my old (non-telephone) iPaq to Turkey (instead of my precious 8100, which I'd hate to lose, break, or have stolen). It does WiFi and actually has a larger more-readable screen than the SmartPhone.
I loaded a gig of music and my entire address book on it. Then, I read on my favorite Turkey Travel site about using Skype, rather than buying a phone card, to talk to folks back home.
I loaded it up on my iPaq (free download), bought $10 worth of credits (so that I can call any phone) and tried it out. It did work (calling my home phone and talking to Karen, sitting right next to me), but there was a noticeable delay.
For grins, I contacted Joe in Florida and we did a computer-to-computer call, using my home WiFi, and the sound quality and response time was superb. It was uncanny, turning my I-thought-it-was-totally-obsolete iPaq into a phone. I better rewrite that craigslist ad, where I was hoping to dump that device for whatever I could get for it.
If anyone out there has a Skype account, send me your ID, at blavine@usa.net
Karen is at work, trying to finish that last couple of briefs before we leave Monday night. I am playing with my toys, and putting off packing for another few hours.
Ciao!
Hi Barry,
ReplyDeleteYou must be so excited for your upcoming trip! Are you going to be blogging while on the road?
Probably not, unless I can find a real computer at one of the hotels. I don't know if my iPaq is smart enough to run blogspot's Java Editor app.
ReplyDeleteAlso, from what I've heard, the Turkish keyboard is quite different from the US/English keyboard, which could make for some interesting gibberish!