Thank God for Hiptop!

The Hiptop / Sidekick gets a lot of flack for being a cute, oversized / underpowered device.

Yes, it is slow over GPRS. Yes, it doesn't render CSS properly because it considers itself a "scree device". Yes, the camera is crappy. Yes, you can choice of 3rd-party programs are paltry and dev-cycle is slow.

But, it is one of the few reasonable ways to moblog in Canada. I pay $20 CAD under a special Hiptop data plan from Fido. In Canada, the norm for wireless data is about $0.03 / kb. According to my bill, I used 34Meg of data last month. If I had to pay by the kb, it would work out to $1044.

I'd admit. The number is a little skewed. The hiptop itself is a very data-heavy device. But per kb charges are simply astronmical. I understand that Bell and Telus has introduced the new EDGE network, but I'm unsure what prices would be like.