After more than a week with my Treo 650, I found this article very interesting.

I can officially say that long use of converged devices has made me a bit of a mobile advocate. I see the benefit of having everything that you need literally at your fingertips. This is not a bad thing for most people that I come in contact with, either. Many people like that they can do a quick Google search for a local restaurant on their mobile phone, or that they can pull up a map of someplace they are going while already on the way.

On the other hand, I have talked to other people about purchasing converged devices and have heard a completely different side of the story. They like devices like Treos and Blackberries, but cannot see paying an additional monthly fee (that is two-thirds of what they pay for broadband at home), cannot deal with the smaller screen size (compared to a notebook) or larger phone size (gotta love that RAZR in comparison to the Treo), or just see a converged device as putting too many eggs into one basket. All of these are valid points.

However, all of them (both positive and negative) speak to the same bottom line in our wallets: do the positive costs of being mobile outweigh the negative ones? In this editorial, I will take an in-depth look at some of the not so positive aspects of converged mobiles and then ask if they are heavier that the positives.

Negative 1: Having a converged PDA or smartphone means that your monthly phone bill will be higher.

In some respects this is true. If you never used the mobile Internet before getting a smartphone, and then use it a lot after getting it, you will have to shell out additional funds.

However, this is not totally a true statement (contrary to what some carriers would have you purchase). In many cases, a smartphone is more than usable without going online one bit. This is because the PDA aspects of the phone can be very useful. Instead of buying a phone to make calls and a PDA to keep track of your schedule, a smartphone can do both for less money.

And depending on what your job is, paying a larger phone bill can be worth it. In some situations, getting that email now, rather than later, can mean a ton of money.

Make sure to read it all.

The answer for me to the question, "Are smartphones worth it," is a resounding yes after a week of using my Treo. I still carry my lifedrive arround, for now. But as I load up the treo with the files I need on a daily basis, I will probably carry it less. There are still some things I dont like doing on the small screen of the Treo... document processing comes to mind. I am going to add to the Treo certain documents I need to carry with me, and the LD will likely stay in it's pouch most of the time.

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