Question from a fellow geek

[Guest Falstaff]

Hello everyone! I'm new to this community but I've seen lots of cool discussion going on about mobiles so it seemed like a good place to ask :)

I am looking to buy a new headset. Actually I need two. One for my computer, and one for my phone. The thing is I keep ruining my computer ones by rolling over the cord w/ my computer chair.. and I don't like how the corded ones for my (SMT5600) smartphone always seem to get snagged on things if I'm moving around at all.

You can probably see where this is going.. I want wireless headphones! Bluetooth, ideally. I've looked around before and found some motorola ones which look a little too bulky, and have now stumbled across (and practically fallen in love with) the iPhono headphones. It seems like this would be perfect for being able to use the voice comms apps I have on my computer one minute, and then getting up to go for a bike ride the next - w/o needing to detach anything and have nice sounding tunes the whole way along :)

I was a couple of clicks away from ordering them when I notice they sport this fancy 'a2dp' technology.. something I am unfamiliar with. Apparently it's some sort of profile for bluetooth which is designed for streaming audio. After looking some more, it seems that my phone does not support this.. and may still not support it after installing a leaked (and unofficial) ROM which I've seen going around the net before. I don't really want to play around with something like that if I can avoid it - at least without being fairly confident it'll work beforehand - which brings me here.

Now, I realize my phone should be a phone first, and everything else second, but frankly the reason I bought this phone (along with a 2GB memory card) was so that I could finally retire my clunky iPod and iPaq, and have most/all of that functionality in one device. Realistically, I currently use my phone more for music than I do for phone calls, which is why I want it to be strong in that area.

So, I'm looking for help in finding a phone that lives up to these requirements.

I've seen a few topics (like this one) which talk about some sort of HTC Tornado phone, but I get confused when I do searches online which seem to reveal that many phones seem to go under many different names.. Which would I want? What's the difference? Is there anyone else in Canada who has gotten one?

I have also found this page which seems to list A2DP capable phones, but in going through and searching for many of these phones, I seem to find specs page that list them as not being capable at all.. (perhaps they are through other firmware hacks..)

Sorry to make this topic so long.. but I'm hoping that someone here can help me out in my quest to find a way to use these awesome headphones for both my computer and a phone ;)

Thanks in advance!

[Guest mini_man]

Well all of the tornado models need firmware updates but you should look in the tornado section as it has some useful stuff.

I own a C600 and am going to purchase a pair of anycom headphones, with a rom update and a extra cab or 2 i will be able to have A2DP.

If you dont mind internet on a smartphone you could go for a SP5 or SP5m which both have wifi but the SP5m has media keys, (perfect addon for a media guy).

Hope this is helpful

Sam

[Guest Pondrew]

Hmmm. I understood A2DP was rare on Smartphones and certainly don't believe what is stated on that site that all WM5 Smartphones include it. The recent Windows Mobile AKU2 update was expected to deliver A2DP but it was removed for compatibility reasons as I understand it...

If I'm not mistaken the only confirmed A2DP compatible Smartphone is the Samsung i300.

The latest Pocket PC Phone, that is out, the HTC Prophet has it and as the site says Broadcom stack Pocket PC Phones can be patched with it (like the HTC Blue Angel).

Still think it's rare to find a good implementation though so don't get your hopes up too high...