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In the past 6 weeks there have been at least two occasions where life would have been better if I had a cellular phone. I’ve resisted jumping on the mobile bandwagon for a while now (see post below this one #), but I’m thinking it may be time to embrace the future, or the past, or something.

I have questions though. Many, many Questions.

If I get a cell phone, is there any reason to keep a landline for my home? (Update: of course I still need a landline. The Sat/Tivo box needs to call out, and if the cable modem ever goes out, I’ll need to dial and ISP, damn - that makes getting a cell phone/calling plan a lot less attractive to me) I make and receive as few calls as possible, so… What is the best service to go with. I’m in the Los Angeles area. As I said, call volume will be very low. Data volume may be higher. I’m not sure what’s available. Is it just SMS, or can you really get a phone that lets you hit web content in a reasonable, cost-effective way? What about one that easily interfaces with my PowerBook G4? Are you still looking at 9.6 k speeds, or can you get something closer to 56k, or even 128k? And what should I expect to pay for that convenience? What is the best phone to get? I’m thinking James Bond cool here. Small, maybe with PDA features built in. From what I’ve seen, those two things Small and PDA seem to be mutually exclusive. Has anybody done a good job of giving you the best of all worlds? What about sound quality and comfort when using the phone. I’ve had to borrow a few phones from time to time, and they feel and sound awkward to me. Do you just get used to that or…?