As far as openness and utility goes, I think you might be better off either going with a Symbian OS device on AT&T or waiting for an AT&T Android device. (possibly in the form of one designed for other markets which will work with AT&T's 3G bands) The iPhone sucks, but I think you'll also find that Windows Mobile sucks a lot too.

Another option is to switch to T-Mobile and get a G1. It is awesome.

This is just a sign of the behavior to come from Apple as it gains market share in the PC business and makes inroads into other markets such as smart phones. I don't mind closed-source applications so much, but when an entire underlying platform, be it Windows, OSX, iPhone, etc, is controlled by a single corporate entity you are asking for abuse of power. What amazes me however is that Apple is getting so abusive so early in the game. If this is how they behave when they have 10% of the PC market and 2% of the phone market, how will they behave when they come to control a much larger slice of the pie?

We saw this coming with Apple's original bricking of 1G iPhones to punish those who were only trying to improve the platform. Steve Jobs is such a control freak and knows that his fanboys are so freakishly loyal that he can pound them in the ass every so often and they'll just keep taking it. This is why I waited for an Android phone even when it meant putting up with an old treo 650 for 2 years more than I had hoped to.

Sorry.. This comment was intended as a response to SFO Kevin's.

You probably don't need to worry about telling your parents that you are a bigot. It's pretty old news that real men wear pink anyway.

You probably don't need to worry about telling your parents that you are a bigot. It's pretty old news that real men wear pink anyway.

Simon P,

As you say, "we come here to be informed about everything equally and make our own choices." I agree, but in the case of Skype, I don't think Engadget is adequately informing its readers of the serious problems and threats presented. I'm not saying that Engadget should stop talking about Skype altogether, but rather that they should temper the hype with by weighing the pros and cons of that system.

I am confident that the problems with Skype will eventually become known to the general public and that the world will reject Skype in favor of more open, secure, decentralized technologies. In that sense, proprietary hardware products such as this one represent an environmental problem and a misuse of natural resources, because when the world drops Skype, we wont simply be able to make these devices talk Jabber or SIP. Instead we'll throw them in the trash.

Skype is the AIM of VoIP. In other words Skype is the devil. Engadget: you're pretty hip to a lot of cool things like Ubuntu, DRM issues, etc, yet you keep promoting the most awful, proprietary centrally-controlled VoIP there is. Please stop!

Please see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype#Criticisms

This is a step in the right direction, but for mass transit to truly be appealing, straphangers should get the same grade of coverage that motorists get. Why spend all of this money and not go the whole way?

I don't really want to listen to my fellow riders yelling into their phones, but I'd at least like to have data and SMS service with which to pass the time while underground. Perhaps there could just be stiff fines for people who take and place phone calls in the train, or designated cars for yappers.

What's with the lack of ExpressCard in most of HP's business laptops? I'd love to buy one otherwise, especially in that one can buy them sans Windows. They're nice machines, but they need to get with the times in regard to ExpressCard.

Insteon sucks. The world does not need nor want another closed standard for home automation. A fixed, 32-bit address space? Haven't they heard that there are more than 4-billion people on this planet, and certainly more than 4-billion light switches?