An extremely frugal, geeky friend of mine bought 4 of these Palm Pixi Plus phones from Amazon (≤$40) so I knew they had to be really special. I got one, and it certainly is.
How to get a poor man's iPhone or iPod Touch
1. Purchase a Verizon Palm Pixi Plus phone on amazon ($40 or less).
2. Follow the instructions available plain version here or scarier version here to activate it on PagePlusCellular.com (which uses the Verizon network and is therefore compatible with the phone). Buying prepaid minutes on page plus, I spend only $10 every 3 months (their minimum requirement).
3. Update the operating system (OS). I used webOS doctor, but it may be possible to download the upgrade via the phone's wifi connection.
Do not activate it or talk to Verizon about setting up the phone. It's a waist of time. They are required to sell you a data plan and will not let you do pay-as-you-go or prepaid or simply activate it to use the phone like an iPod Touch.
4. Don't forget to deactivate the data (see the instructions link above) and frequently check to make sure the phone doesn't say 3G. It shouldn't. At least mine hasn't except for right after I upgraded the OS.
Enjoy it for
email, calendar, contacts (via Google, microsoft exchange, and others)
music, movies (which can be downloaded to the phone via the USB connection)
snapping pictures or recording movies
playing games
phone calls, texting,
Mormon Channel app (free from the app store)
The above 2 apps come as .ipk files and can be installed with the webOS quick install, wosqi.
1. Download wosqi onto your computer.
2. In the app launcher of the Pixi type in "upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart", this will reveal the developer mode app. Open it then enable developer mode.
3. Run the wosqi on your desktop or laptop computer, connect the Pixi via USB and select "Just Charge"
4. Install the .ipk files using wosqi
5. Repeat step 2 and disable developer mode if you feel concerned about your security.
For greater detail see here
If something goes dreadfully wrong, don't worry they've made webOS doctor to restore the phone to functionality. It's also a good way to update the OS on the Pixi before setting it up with apps, email accounts, and such.
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