So I recently moved away from the iPhone 3G to a Palm Pre, and as a result from AT&T to Sprint. This is something that I never thought would happen but the more time goes by the better I feel about it. To start with, AT&T’s 3G service is a complete joke unless you’re in the middle of nowhere and that place happens to have 3G service which are usually mutually exclusive. Why you ask? Because AT&T’s network is oversaturated with all the new iPhone users hungry for data.

There were many times when I would have a full 5 bars of 3G but the internet would be ridiculously slow to the point where it was useless. Then there were times where the much touted Visual Voicemail was a complete failure and I would get voicemail notifications hours after people left them.

It seems since I left AT&T, things are getting worse, no doubt because of all the new iPhone 3GS customers jumping on top of the already strained network. As TechCrunch stated in a recent blog post, AT&T sucks big time.

While Sprint has its share of problems, the one thing they do have going for them is that their data network, well, it actually works! The best way to quantify this is the fact that while I had the iPhone 3G on AT&T, the most data I ever used in a month was about 50MB. On Sprint, this month alone (and I still have a week left before the the next cycle), I’m already at 1,650MB. Sure, I could have used that much data on the iPhone but in order to do it, I’d have to have put up with AT&T’s crappy data network and by the time stuff loaded I would have probably poked my eyes out with sharp pencils.

So what’s the solution? From what I’ve heard any other carrier except AT&T including Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile haven’t completely dropped the ball with their data network and there’s actually a possibility you can make use of your fancy 3G smartphone whenever and however you want. While I’m still shocked to some degree I went from the #1 US wireless carrier to #3, the benefits are really starting to pay off.

Some other differences include less dropped calls on Sprint (even in bad coverage) than AT&T. Many times with AT&T I’d be sitting pretty with 5 bars of 3G and have a dropped call for no apparent reason. My wife still has an iPhone 3G and sees this occasionally, as do members of my family. I think it’s blatantly obvious that AT&T’s network needs an upgrade on the backend and not just the towers. They just recently upgraded the towers in my area so there’s always 5 bars of 3G (“most bars in most places”) but what good is that when the damn service is unreliable and doesn’t work half the time?!

Notice I didn’t mention anything about devices per se, and compare the iPhone 3G to the Palm Pre since I think that’s just personal preference. Both are excellent devices depending on what you want. At the end of the day, devices are extremely important in deciding what carrier I use but the reality is…devices can only be as good as the network they are on

I got the HD-A2 pretty quickly and it was very easy to setup via HDMI to my Onkyo TXSR803 receiver. Sadly the Planet Earth HD DVD set was delayed and only shipped late last week. I’m anxiously waiting for it to arrive so I can truly test out the capabilities of the HD DVD format. However the few Netflix HD DVD rentals I’ve tried all came across pretty well, quality varied by film and I’m assuming the transfer of that film to HD.

But if you do the math, the Toshiba HD-A2 can be had on Amazon for around $320 plus you get 5 free HD DVD movies to mail away for. Then the Planet Earth HD DVD set usually $99.99 is for $69 which is a decent deal. So basically for ~$400 you get a competent HD DVD player, an amazing series and HD showpiece and five HD movies of your choice. Not a bad deal at all.

By the way, if you do end up getting a Toshiba HD DVD player (whichever model it is) keep in mind that firmware updates are your friends and these players only come with RJ-45 (ethernet jacks) so make sure you are setup to hook this bad boy into your home network to download firmware updates. I did that as soon as I got mine and the update I downloaded had some pretty major fixes such as “pixelation fix”…no joke.

All in all I’m liking the Toshiba HD-A2 a lot and as soon as I get my Planet Earth HD DVD set I’ll post my impression of that. If you’re thinking of taking a HD disc format for a spin this is not a bad way to go.

P.S. I have an Xbox 360 so the HD DVD accessory was a thought but I wanted Dolby TrueHD and other losless audio codecs which are only possible over HDMI which the Xbox 360′s HD DVD accessory don’t support. Ok, enough rambling now.

In any case, I’ve made myself a promise to try and at least write 2-3 posts a week starting today – my birthday – for the next year and see if I can keep that going.

So to those people that stumble across this blog via Google or by error, welcome and check back for more frequent updates.

Otherwise life is good.

In any case, I’ve been too distracted to really spend much time on here and post anything but once she gets better, I’m looking forward to posting more on here.

I’ve also posted a review of the Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) so check that out.

I figured there had to be someone else out there who loved their Crackberry enough to want to be able to blog via email – send your post to a special email account and like magic, it shows up on the front page!

Just wanted to test the feature out so I wrote this post on my Blackberry, although you can use any email capable device. Recently learnt it was known as “moblogging” – was hoping for something more creative.

Here’s a very good page about how to setup Blog via Email with WordPress 2.0 (what I use).

By the way, in case you were wondering I added the graphic and link after my email was posted – can’t do all that yet from my Blackberry, not yet…

Back a few years ago, I was intent on creating a fantastic website using static HTML – boy is that outdated now.

In any case, I am in the early stages of setting up the site but my goal is to use this as a forum to discuss the thing that really interests me – technology. I intend on posting reviews of items that I own so I can share my experience (positive or negative) with everyone as well as hopefully hear what you all have to say.

One small step for man…ok you get the idea, I’m psyched.