Still not getting email or internet yet. I think everything is in place on T-mobile's end, but I need to set-up my email account and the T-mobile internet account info in my browser. I don't have documentation on it, so I'll need to call T-mobile to get the settings. These weren't issues with the Sidekick - it came set-up with its own email account and just worked once they set-up my email and internet accounts.
My regular ISP account gives me lots of email addresses, so I set a new one up just for my P800. Similar to what I was doing with my Sidekick, I forward all new emails that are from people in my address book to the email account I've designated for my P800.
I bought an unlocked P800 GSM phone. Sounded better than locked. But now I know what it means, thanks to Dan Gillmor in today's post:
Advice to Cory and anyone else who's planning to buy a mobile phone that runs on the GSM networks (the P800 does). Get a model that is unlocked -- that is, not tied to a particular carrier. This means you should not buy a model as part of a service plan; carriers subsidize the phones in those circumstances but then lock them down so you can't use them with other carriers' SIM cards.
Glad I got that one right (thanks for the comment, Randy Delucchi). In the same post, Gillmor points out a drawback of the Sidekick. You have to get T-mobile's permission to add any software to it, since it is such a server-integrated device. Another reason to feel good about getting the P800 instead... That helps assuage my bouts with buyer's remorse!
Thanks, also, to Christian Hauck who commented on my last post and pointed me to a 5-star, in depth, hands-on review of the P800 (lots of pics) by Nicholas Triano at Geek.com.