What do I expect from a phone?

I've been thinking about the purchase of a new phone for over a year now. My p910a is quite yet still gets me through the day. I developed a long list of must have features and after months of looking, HTC announced the Kaiser. The feature set was literally exactly what I was looking for. It was originally supposed to be released this month so I waited and waited for it. To my dismay, at the end of May, they announced a delay until at least August. Because of the delay, I started to rethink it and started looking at what was already available. I found the Cingular 8525 to be the closest available. Makes sense too since it's just a rebrand of the HTC phone that is being replaced by the Kaiser. The only thing that it's missing that I was looking for is integrated GPS, but I think that I have gotten myself over that considering that I can pick up an 8525 refurb for $99 right now instead of dropping $700 in two months on the Kaiser. This was the biggest selling point for me.

So what am I expecting from this phone? What do I plan on doing with it? A lot. First off, I use my phone to organize my entire life. I keep anything I need to remember in it. Any dates, appointments, parties, birthdays, etc. etc. I kept in the calendar. I keep notes for things that I want to remember and todo lists. I keep shopping lists. I even keep a list of every DVD that I own, movie that I have on my computer and DVDs that I want to purchase. Take out the DVD wish list and there's over 600 movies on the list. Why do I keep this list? Because when I'm not at home, I can't remember what I have on DVD vs. what I only have ripped on the computer. I prefer to have something on DVD so if I'm at a store and I have some money, I'll pick up a DVD or two. With this list, I can quickly double check that I'm not purchasing something I already own...which I've done before. I also have a program that manages all of my passwords, important financial information, combinations to things, etc. I use this daily. It's excellent. Occasionally, I need to work on Excel or Word documents.

That's most of what I use my phone for on a daily basis beyond phone like things like calls and texting. I keep every one's phone number and email addresses in my phone as well.

So in addition to all of that, what do I expect to improve upon by upgrading to a newer phone? I've searched through software available for the PocketPC and based what's out there, there are a ton of new things that I want to be able to do from my phone. First of all, I need internet access. I think that I will be fine with just WIFI since I can't afford to get a data plan for $45/month. Besides, there is WIFI almost everywhere these days.

My biggest use for internet will be to administer ELCRo, the web application that I develop for the radio station that I volunteer at. We run the software 24/7 and completely rely on it so it's important that I am able to quickly respond to any problems. I also plan on marketing this software to other stations soon so having complete access to it as much as possible can help me work out bugs faster. The software uses MySQL, PHP, HTML, javascript, CSS and AJAX. I want to be able to work on all of this from my phone. I don't expect to be writing large amounts of code, but I do expect to be able to make minor edits and fix code via FTP right on my phone. If I'm at a family function and I'm bored out of my mind, I'd like to be able to be productive. If a DJ calls me with something that screwed up in a log, I don't always have an interface created to fix it and sometimes I have to manually fix it in the database so I will also need to be able to execute MySQL queries right from the phone. And being able to log into the application and use it should go without saying.

After that, I want to be able to IM and receive IMs on multiple chat clients. I mainly use AIM and Google chat so that's what I need. I want to be able to keep every bit of contact information I have for everyone I know in one place, my address book. I want to keep this synced with Outlook on my computer at work and at home. I want to sync my tasks, calendars and notes as well. Symbian allows this, but I found it too frustrating to use on the p910 so I've lived without it for two and a half years.

I want to access RSS feeds from a simple and clean RSS aggregator. When WIFI is available, I want my phone to automatically check the sites that I keep up with and let me know of the updates. In turn, I want to be able to post to multiple blogs from an application, not a webapp.

When I'm at home and I have people over, I often open up a playlist in Winamp on my HTPC and let it play on random. I want to be able to control this and make changes to the playlist from my phone. I run speakers to the backyard when it's nice out and I don't want to have to go inside to skip a song that I don't want to hear.

If I have something on my phone that I want printed, I want to be able to print straight from the phone via WIFI. I don't want o have to bring a computer into the mix. However, speaking of PCs, I want remote desktop for all of my home computers as well.

I do plan on purchasing a bluetooth GPS receiver for the car so I turn by turn directions.

Entertainment? Yes, there are a few things that I want. Music playback isn't big for me. I have an iPod for that and until storage capacities for cell phones start to break 60GB, I won't be looking to replace my iPod. I do however want to be able to keep the occasional movie on my phone for when I'm stuck somewhere waiting for something. I also want some games. I'm not a huge gamer, so I don't need much, but a small assortment will be nice. A decent NES and SNES emulator should get me through most of what I would want.

That's what I expect from a smartphone today. Is it a lot to ask? Probably, but after a lot of research I have found software that should cover all of my needs. How well will this software work though? Who knows? That will have to wait until my new phone arrives and I get to play with it a bit.

Look for a review in a few weeks.