Texting while driving – a definite NO NO!!

OK, so cell phones are everywhere, and some voice calls cannot be avoided. But, now texting phones and smartphones are taking over the landscape, and becoming a big part of our mobile lives. While talking is unavoidable sometimes, texting is a temptation that should be avoided 100% of the time - no exceptions. Reading and responding to written material on your phones is adding too much risk to an already risky driving situation. Laws are being implemented, and it looks like people favor these precautions/fines...Surprise! Most Americans Support Texting While Driving Bans. We close this note with a couple of our fav user-tested hands-free products – a lightweight & styling Bluetooth headset; a user-friendly Bluetooth speaker (great for soccer moms!); and a universal, portable phone holder (this one can take a small flip phone all the way up to iPhone & smartphone screen sizes).

New Rules (smartphone edition): Stop naming phones!

To borrow a great title from Bill Maher's HBO comedy routine, we have a NEW RULE for U.S. wireless service providers and vendors.

New Rule: Do not name a mobile phone unless it's something truly special/unique/iconic.

What's up with the sudden onslaught of strange and often irrelevant names for every mobile phone launched in the U.S.? It seems the vendors & carriers are trying too hard to impress, and taking themselves too seriously (imagine that?!) We understand their marketing departments have to do their thing, but they could save a lot of time and money by stopping this ridiculous fad.

It is a fad, and very cyclical when you look at what car manufacturers have been doing for the past few years. Acura Integra & Legend became TL & RL, and Infinity went through their own naming to numbering and lettering thing. For products such as these, which go through annual or even semi-annual revisions with slights improvements, we prefer numbers & letters over names. Letters & numbers, if well-planned and followed up by relevant reinforcement marketing, offer clean and more memorable design or model types. Sticking with the automotive comparison, look at how a couple of the most recognizable luxury car manufacturers have maintained one, clean system for decades. BMW focuses on revisions of its famous 3, 5, & 7 series, just as Audi continuously refines its A4, A6, A8 models.

Now, back to mobile phones. If these companies are (each!) going to churn out 20-30 phones every year then they should get real and not pretend that each model is as special as the next.

Does anyone out there really care if your phone is called the Blue Earth, Rant, or Gravity (Samsung)?

Does anyone out there really care if your phone is called the Xenon, Opera, or Rumor (LG)?

Does anyone out there really care if your phone is called the Clutch, Morrison, or Q (Motorola)?

Does anyone out there really care if your phone is called the Snap, Magic, or Ozone (HTC)?

Ahhh. No. These names do not mean anything to us, are not relevant or correlated with the phones' design or features, and certainly do not help us decide which one to buy.

We have a suggestion - use the first letter of the carrier name (currently A, S, T, V), pick out three levels of numbers to attach, and keep revising as you wish. So, AT&T could have the A201, A401, & A601, followed by A202, A402, & A602. This way, we consumers get what you really want us to know - that you have a good/better/best alignment of your portfolio, and that better (at least newer) versions have higher numbers.

So, carriers, please keep the cool names for the rare iPhone model, Blackberry, or Palm, and for other rare models from OEMs that can actually compete with these big three.