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My day job is running the Bluestreak product team. It's a mix of business, art, and science. Good product people intuitively know what the market wants, then spend time building a business case to support what they intuitively understand. The best product people understand the technologies behind the scenes and the potential those technologies enable in the end product.

I try to aspire to this highest order (and am often successful). To intuitively understand what the market wants, I need user expertise. This is fine with online advertising, I live and breathe it. One area I've wanted to live and breathe for a long time is wireless. I really need more time in that market.

I've been playing it cool, waiting for my cell phone to die so I could justify upgrading and stepping into the wireless world. Recently, my cell started acting up. I could tell it was living on borrowed time. So, I started the research dance, looking into the market and spending time going through plans and hardware, trying to assess the best platform from which I could start understanding the space. I talked to every provider about available plans and spent dozens of hours researching phones.

My goal was to have a phone I could use as a PDA replacement, with a color screen and good Internet support. I've been feeling stuck in the 20th century. This was my opportunity to jump right to the cutting edge.

I do have time. Wireless marketing is still in its infancy. The next generation must get old enough to bring us forward. In the meantime, I'm seeking wireless convergence, the sweet spot where your cell phone takes over the role of other devices in your life. This seems like the first step toward wireless market maturity. For now, I'm enjoying the first-generation technology.

I'll outline my experiences and tell you what my decisions were. Bear in mind this space changes fast. My choices may well be outmoded by the time you read this. I'm not endorsing any of the products or companies mentioned below. The choices I made fit my personal taste and budget, and I hope they'll give me a look at where the mainstream will be in a year or two.