To kick off this blog I thought I’d talk about a real-life dilemma I’m in. My Verizon Wireless cell phone contract is up and it’s time for me to make a decision on a new phone. So here are my options:

Splurge: Go buy an iPhone or a Blackberry and spend the enormous amount of money (upfront and monthly) for many additional perks including great web surfing and/or great email and messaging.

Middle Ground: Get a Treo or Motorola Q9M and have a decent experience with the web and messaging and only be overpaying a little.

Go Cheapo: Get a thin phone like the LG VX 8700 and give up the idea of having the cool web experience on my phone.

So which direction am I going to go? I already know. It’s the cheapo route. I just want a phone that is thin and that gives me a great web experience that won’t cost me $100 a month (or $300 for the phone). Is that too much to ask? Here’s hoping that 2007 gives us cost-conscious consumers a web-focused mobile device that’s affordable. Happy New Years everyone, and welcome to Crastinate.