Sublime

It may have come to the attention of my readers that I love consumer electronics, specifically PDAs. I actually have a bit of an issue with barely-tamed phone lust, and the flames of my passion have only been fanned by my recent search for a replacement to my beloved 8125. As I await the arrival of my second replacement phone, I couldn't help but search on eBay for a product that had more of the features I loved about my long-lost PDA than my soon-to-arrive Blackberry Curve.

And lo, what should appear to me, but a phone so sexy that I ever-so-briefly asked myself if I might be willing to pay $700-800 for it: the HTC FUZE, now available at AT&T. The unbearable beauty and stylishness of this phone makes me want to cry. The features are astounding - the large screen with its fabulous resolution, the camera, on-device printing application (yes, to print from the phone!), ability to show PowerPoint presentations from my phone, business card scanner, XM Satellite Radio, Microsoft Office Mobile, expandable memory to 32GB, included mini-USB-to-3.5mm headphone adapter, stylus - I could go on and on, because I'm so enraptured. This is the phone I always wanted, but never knew existed - largely because it didn't, until this fall.

Seriously, the more I read about and look at the phone, the more I consider the utter ridiculousness of purchasing it. (At least, it would be ridiculous from the point of view of my finances; from the point of view of its function, it's almost actually worth it.) AT&T lists on their site a "no commitment price" of $499; I'm not sure if that really means no commitment to their service at all, or just not the typical 2-year contract they make you sign. $500 seems utterly reasonable to me for a phone like this, although I think I'm being swayed by the same magic that came over me when I stood in the Green Monster seats at Fenway and realized that, of course, I would pay hundreds of dollars to be in that section, just once. When you're up there, everything just becomes so clear ...

(Ahem. Sorry to get carried away.)

At any rate, for a glowing review of the phone by an anti-Windows-Mobile iPhone user, you can visit this site; and for a little unboxing porn followed by a demo video, you can click here. I have to stop looking at it now, before I do something rash. But one day: it will be mine ... oh yes, it will be mine.

(A note to my readers: very soon, I promise to go back to posting about something other than my phone. I even have some spiritual news, so it won't be just phones and boys, either!)