Dithering about phones and tablets

Those who know me know that I’ve been dithering about mobile phones and internet tablets for some months now. I’d like a larger screen than my iPhone 3G has, but I consider the iPad a bit large. And it doesn’t make calls.

I was rather hoping for an ideal Android tablet to come out with a screen size around 7 inches and that had phone functionality. (The size of the phone doesn’t matter as much when you carry a bag and have a headset.)

I was hoping that the Dell Streak at 5″ or its announced sibling, the Looking Glass at 7″ would be the solution, but it seems that Dell has crapped up Android in ways that I don’t care for.

Since I’m a developer, I want both an iPhone type device and an Android device in the house, and I had pretty much decided that it would either be an iPhone 4 and some as yet unreleased Android tablet, or an Android phone and an iPad.

I just tried the Samsung Captivate from AT&T, a Galaxy-S phone. (I’m rather locked to AT&T because of family plans. I hate Sprint and would not use it if it were the only cell carrier in North America. I have no anger towards Verizon or T-Mobile, though. I might switch if it weren’t for carrying my mother’s phone on my plan.)

I really like the Captivate, and I’m sure I’d like its siblings at the other carriers, too. Unless I change my mind in the next month or so, I’m going with a Captivate for my phone and an iPad, probably without a data plan. (When traveling, I can use my GF’s wifi hotspot. She has a CradlePoint.)