Mobile / Cell Phone Thoughts & Reviews

So I am going away for 3 weeks this winter.  I will  be visiting the beautiful country of Israel.  I am trying to line up my technology in advance for this trip and trying to keep it as light and little as possible.  I will have a handful of phones with me including the Nokia N78, N95, and my trusty yet dated E61i, I have a review netbook at the moment.  It is an Asus Eee PC 901 and I am loving it.  I also have a Proporta battery pack, which will keep my Nokias charged everywhere.  As for connectivity at airports and around the city I have a Boingo account that should keep me connected at the 4 airports I will be visiting and I hope lots of other locations around Israel.  I am concerned though that I will run out of juice on the netbook mid flight.  I am planning on making it a video  player for my daughter and I don’t want her upset the battery died mid Elmo episode.  I wish I could get a tip for my Proporta charger to use with the Asus.  I am considering purchasing a converter for use in cars and on the airplane to plug the Asus into.

I now have to start thinking about my connectivity to the grid.  I already have an Orange Big Talk sim card to use for my voice needs.  I am now looking into data so I can stay connected to email, IM, Jaiku, Twitter, and mobile maps and search.  I count heavily on mobile connectivity and being able to search and look up maps whille I’m mobile.  I am hoping that I can add data onto my Orange sim card but don’t have high expectations.  Last year when I was in Israel I had the sim in a Nokia N95 and it was not able to access the data I paid for.  My contingency plan for data is using United Mobile.  I have to check on the data rates but they usually pretty competitive.

Two of my favorite services I use everyday are GrandCentral and Truphone.  I take all my calls via GrandCentral and forward them to Truphone.  I can either answer the calls via Truphone or forward them to my current GSM #.  When I change sims upon landing in Tel Aviv the Truphone app on my phone will ask me if I want to forward my calls to my Orange sim versus my AT&T sim I use in the US.  This means I can have all my calls forwarded to my Orange sim in  Israel and not pay a penny for the service or to receive calls on the Orange sim.  If this is getting confusing to you imagine how I feel, but it works and it works quite well.  I did the same kind of thing when I was in Barcelona earlier this year using a Yoigo sim card.