Learn me Sprint PTT smart phones, which one?

My job requires me to use the phone about 30% of the day. The work phone is a tired old NEXTEL ic502 and I want to upgrade the phone to a smart phone with PTT capabilities. During the day I will do test drives, test Bluetooth functionality, take photos of broken bits and pieces, access GMGlobal, redirect parts and shuttle drivers and more.

Does anyone have a preference in PTT smart phones? Why? Which should I avoid?

Thanks in advance,

JmfnB

I didn't realize ptt existed still.

My last posiion was with a company who had provided blackberry with PTT to the management. The smartphone bit was primarily for email and to run a few web based apps pertaining to the company, but they apparently worked quite well as smartphones go. They all became crackberry addicts in a remarkably short period of time. I never used one so I have no first hand knowledge on the topic, but those guys used them a lot. This was in the vicinity of 4 months ago, so pretty current.

What you have in the ic502 is a single handset that can handle both iden and cdma hence the front letters of both "i" and "c".
This dual capability does not yet exist in a smart phone.
There are iden (slow data) smart phones known as the i1 and its replacement the Titanium but these are slow data (2G) only handsets which makes for an odd smartphone experience because the only way they can do cool smartphone things is if they are hooked up via wifi (like when you are in a building)

There are smartphones on CDMA but they do not have the PTT feature that you want.

I would keep the ic502 a little longer and allow for technology to catch up. In the mean time I would recommend the Virgin Mobile Optimus handset that you can buy for $99 when found on-sale and for $35 per month it will do everything you want a smartphone to do. That $35 includes unlimited data and text but only 300 talk minutes but that is okay because all of your talking will still be done on the ic502 which work pays for.

Grtechguy wrote: I didn't realize ptt existed still.

We use it with the fleet drivers to keep them from texting while driving ;) Since I only use the "Smart" portion of the phone while in the shop the slower IDEN will work fine, and since I would be using the phone as a phone and via bluetooth, texting and PTT off campus it seems that a 2G i1 or Titanium would be fine for what I need. Now let's find one for cheap or get the boss to pay for it ;)

Sprint just rolled out their new PTT CDMA-based service replacing the old Nextel iDEN stuff (being phased out in 2012-13). But looks like no smartphones available for this new service just yet.

http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2051
http://shop.sprint.com/mysprint/shop/phone_wall.jsp?INTNAV=ATG:HE:Phones

Verizon also offers a PTT service. Although their smart devices seem limited to CrapBerries right now.
http://b2b.vzw.com/pushToTalk/pttdevices.html

And I think AT&T even offers some kind of PTT service - yep...
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/ptt/

Sprint will be releasing a smart phone capable of PTT in the next month or so. The phone is made by Motorola and uses Sprint's CDMA network and the CDMA version of PTT. This phone has a full key board and looks similar to a typical Blackberry device.