Question About Cingular 2125

[Guest toastersauce]

Hey everyone,

I just recently bought a Cingular 2125 and was excited to find some forums dedicated to Smartphones and can't wait to set up my phone so I can get the most out of it. I was looking through sites and came across some Homescreens that display the weather forecast. I was just wondering how those homescreens programmed the weather to show up. Do they just have some script that takes the info off of some weather website like weather.com? My main question is, I just have a pretty basic cell phone service plan, I don't really use e-mail that much or care to use my cell phone to browse the internet or anything. I got the phone to listen to music, as a agenda/schedule/calendar, and to make calls. So I do not have any data plan or anything like that. If I installed one of these homescreens, how often does it update the weather and what kind of charges should I expect from Cingular? I'm guessing they will charge me for every kilobye of information sent and stuff, correct? If it's only going to be a few cents or a dollar or two a month, I could deal with it...but if it's going to be pretty expensive, I can deal without the cool feature.

Sorry for the lengthy post. Any info or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Matthew

Edited March 2, 2007 by toastersauce

[Guest Snooginsguy]

You're probably looking at a homescreen using the Fizz Traveller or Fizz Weather plugin. Their website is fizzsoftware.com. As far as the weather info, that particular program can download weather updates when it is connected to your PC, it does not have to use OTA updates.

On a related note, why did you opt not to get a data plan? IMO, the beauty and true advantage of the 2125 (and smartphones in general) over a normal cell phone is their Internet capability, and to not get a data plan will really limit the usefulness and, ultimately, your enjoyment of the phone. The Media Max bundles that CIngular offers are not a bad deal, for unlimited Internet and 200-1000 text messages a month. You'll likely accrue that if you use any internet at all on it without a data plan, and will not be happy with the surprise charge. But, that's just my opinion, and we all know what they say about opinions. ;)

[Guest toastersauce]

To be perfectly honest, I haven't really paid much attention to the different data plans that they do have, but I do remember that they start off at around $5-$10 extra a month. I can't really see myself surfing the internet on my phone, even with EDGE and all that other stuff, they still aren't ALL THAT fast and I never need to access some sight while I'm away from a computer that can't wait until I am at a computer. Also, I do not have a job that requires me to receive/respond to e-mail when I am out of the office or anything, so that's pretty moot. All I really do is text message (which I have a package) and call people - after all it is a phone. The only reason I decided to purchase this phone is so I can have entertainment, time management and the ability to call people in my pocket all in one device.

Furthermore, Snooginsguy, I just wanted to make sure I understood you right...the weather will only update when I plug the phone into my PC? It doesn't update on a regular basis using internet over the phone? I just don't want to be hit with some $10 dollar surcharge on my phone for data use because the weather is being updated every hour or so.

[Guest toastersauce]

No one has any information that could help me out with this? I just wanna know if I should expect extra charges if my homescreen has the weather on it. And if so, an estimate of charges would be helpful.

[Guest thingsforjason]

No one has any information that could help me out with this? I just wanna know if I should expect extra charges if my homescreen has the weather on it. And if so, an estimate of charges would be helpful.

If you only set it to download when docked, you shouldn't have any extra charges.

IMHO, i find it useful to have it download every hour over the GPRS/EDGE...then again i have the unlimited data plan.

I suppose if you only want the forecast on the homescreen it might be ok.

[Guest Snooginsguy]

No one has any information that could help me out with this? I just wanna know if I should expect extra charges if my homescreen has the weather on it. And if so, an estimate of charges would be helpful.

Hey, sorry, forgot I posted a reply and didn't recheck to see your response. ThingsforJason is right, if you set it to download when docked, no charges. If you really don't want to have any inadvertent internet charges, you can set a dummy GPRS connection with a fake IP address, then you're guaranteed to never use data. I do it when I travel to Canada. Basically, go to Settings > Connections > GPRS, click Menu > New, and give it a name and an ip address of 00000. Ok out of the GPRS panel, and on the Connections panel click Menu > Advanced, and for the Internet and WAP connections pick the GPRS option you just made. Voila, no more internet!