I’m a member of the Sprint Ambassador program, which means they’ve supplied me with test equipment in the past. A few weeks ago, I received an UpStage in the mail – and couldn’t wait to give ‘er a whirl. I have yet to try downloading any kind of content with the device, although that’s a huge selling point for users who appreciate convenience.

I’ve been too busy futzing with the damn Cingular Blackjack and its lack of charging-by-USB to busy myself with other phones on other mobile networks. The UpStage does not charge by USB, either – which is a tremendous shortcoming and engineering oversight (in my very humble opinion). To add insult to injury, neither one has a mini-USB port.

With the last Ambassador lease, I tethered the Samsung SPH-a920 to my Thinkpad and used it (largely) as a modem, which allowed me to get online without draining the battery for my old “normal” cell phone (the Cingular 2125).

Here’s the message the team just sent to me the other day, regarding connectivity via Bluetooth in OS X:

The Sprint Ambassador Team wants to reach out to you for solutions. Since launching Phase III, we’ve received multiple requests on how to connect your Phone-As-A-Modem with a Mac via Bluetooth. In Phase I, an Ambassador posted a great work-around way of doing this with the Samsung A920.

A few of you have tried this same solution, but have reported to us that you’re unable to make it work with the new Samsung phone. We understand that the Phone-As-Modem feature has been one of the most popular among Ambassadors. Unfortunately, Sprint currently doesn’t have official instructions for how to do this on a Mac, but we greatly valued the publicly shared instructions provided by NoDRM, so we wanted to open this up to you all for help.

If you have a successful solution to pairing your Samsung phone-as-a-modem with a Mac, please email us back your instructions and we’ll be sure to try it out. If it works, we’ll send it out to all the Sprint Ambassadors (of course, crediting you) so that we can build a shared knowledge.

I’m happy thrilled to report that I had no problems getting the UpStage to act as a Bluetooth modem on OS X. Astounded, actually, at how simple it was to set up (per nodrm’s instructions). I didn’t even dare try it in Windows, given the painful Bluetooth experiences I’ve had with XP and Vista in the past. Moreover, I’m starting to take the Macbook with me on trips more and more. Why? It just works (especially power management)!

As a side note, the UpStage’s EVDO is much faster than my ClearWire connection – palpably. ClearWire makes for a great backup Internet service, but I don’t know if I could necessarily recommend ‘em as a primary ISP (no matter how much you may hate the phone or cable company). Still waiting for someone to get back to me on Gnomedex sponsorship, although I’m not holding my breath.

Sprint UpStage EVDO

Before I came down to San Francisco for the Web 2.0 and Podcast Hotel conferences, I stopped by my local Cingular dealer and upgraded my phone and data plan. I had been using the relatively-solid 2125, but craved 3G network speed. Their Windows Mobile selection was paltry, reminding me once again about how corrupt and misdirected the entire wireless carrier ecosystem really is. Why can I only use this phone with that service? Asinine.

Anyway, I decided to get the BlackJack largely because it was thin – and all the other Windows Mobile devices had dumbass keyboard/screen locking mechanisms. I don’t want to put the phone in my pocket unless there’s a serious “simple” sequence for unlocking the phone without necessarily requiring a password. That’s one thing that drove me nuts about my old Pocket PCs.

While I’m complaining, what the hell is up with mobile devices not using mini USB for charging and connecting to anything and everything else? WTF?!

So, I take the BlackJack home – play with it for a bit, try to set it up as a modem for Vista (no workie), etc. Discover that it won’t charge by USB unless it’s set up to connect via ActiveSync (WTF?!). Everything seems to be working fine and fast enough. I take the phone with me to SF, etc.

Last night, it just died. Seriously. I get nothing when I try to turn it on. The battery died – should have been charging by USB like it did before, etc. Now I’m stuck in San Francisco without a cell phone. I’m not going to buy another damn proprietary charger for it because I’m strongly considering taking it back to Cingular when I return to Seattle. I hear the thing doesn’t have a great battery life (even with the extended battery pack), anyway.

Why must every single mobile phone on this planet SUCK?! Don’t tell me the iPhone is going to rescue us from this living hell, either…

Cingular BlackJack Phone Problems

We’re currently Cingular subscribers (though our year-long contract with them is almost up). A few weeks ago, we added an “all you can eat” data plan to our account – to be used in conjuntion with the Sierra Wireless Aircard 860 PC Modem. The PC card, itself, is good enough – although the flimsy antenna can be rather annoying at times.

I threw Windows Vista RC1 on my ThinkPad T43p last week. Though the CPU never seems to relax, the OS has generally been stable for me. I had to do some fancy footwork to get Sierra’s software to work on Vista – but even though the 3G Watcher was operational, I couldn’t get Vista to recognize the card. I submitted a support request to Sierra (avoiding talking to Cingular altogether, for good reason).

A few hours later, I heard back from someone named Sam. He suggested I download a driver that had not yet been uploaded to the new Windows Update. The AC8x0 Windows Vista Driver 2.0.0.21 is available for anybody who needs it right now. But, if your machine is anything all like mine, you won’t be able to get everything to work without another software update. This time, Sam suggested that I “try the new 3G Watcher. Don’t update the firmware.” That did the trick!

I can now use my Cingular Sierra Wireless Aircard in Windows Vista, although once I’m connected – the CPU spikes and stays at 100% for the duration. I sure hope all these CPU performance issues get licked before Vista goes gold.

Sierra Wireless 3G on Vista