One of the first questions I had about Bluetooth connections was whether that meant I could surf the web on the train commute to and from work.

So this morning I tested it. Hopping on the train in Montclair, NJ, my borrowed Nokia 6682 Bluetooth cellphone in my hip bag (never took it out), I immediately connected and began surfing 770-interest and general news sites. The experience of surfing while traveling was so engrossing that I got off at the wrong station (and got right back on of course).

Part of my commute this morning involved changing trains at Newark Broad Street Station — never a glitch in the connection. In fact the only “problem” I encountered was when the train entered the tunnel under the Hudson River: no reception there and hence I couldn’t connect to receive my page (above, from the New York Times). There are dead spots on the commuting lines, distinctly noticeable when engaged in conversation, but either these occurred while I was reading a page and not connecting to a site, or I attributed it to the slower speed of Bluetooth and thought nothing of it.

I kept the connection active on the twenty-minute walk to my office. New York being heavily cellularized, I wasn’t expecting any connection difficulties. My first concern was holding onto the 770. Holding a PocketPC or Palm firmly while walking is no problem. But the horizontal orientation of the 770 meant I was gripping it from top and bottom, not left and right. I was very conscious of not dropping the device the whole way down Seventh Avenue.

After a few blocks of stopping here and there to click on a link or scroll, I tried using the 770 one-handed. I pressed the down side of the scroll key. On the link-heavy front page of the Washington Post (above), I discovered this didn’t take me down the page one screen’s worth, but instead highlighted the next link on the page each time I pressed it. Pressing the scroll key’s center button activated the link and brought me to the news story.

The layout of the Post’s jump page, however, had the column of text more or less centered on the page, and I could read only the left-side of the column of type. Scrolling right with the Scroll key, however, brought me the full width over, as you can see in the screenshot below. Ultimately, I gave up on the one-handed approach and went back to using two hands. Added: Of course this is because I had to have the display at 150% — I couldn’t read the small size of type walking on the street. On the train, OTOH, I could just bring the screen closer to my face.

I did manage to navigate between two windows in full-screen mode one-handed. The Menu key brought up the Web menu, and scrolling down and right let me choose which window I wanted to view. That was slightly less trouble than going in and out of normal view to switch windows, so I will be using that in future, as well as pressing the Escape key to go back to the previous webpage. Just wish there were an easier way to cycle through mutliple windows in full-screen mode. (For that matter, I wish the browser provided an easy way to go back to the browser’s recent history list. Web menu > Navigation > History list > Today’s folder > choose the web page is way useless.)

The phone’s log for packet data reported that the sent data totaled 1.75 mb and received data 8.46 mb. I’m trying to recollect whether a little testing prior to today involved sending emails with photo attachments and if that shows up in the total here; the log lacks any further detail. I’m not sure how the sent data could be that high, and the received data consisted solely of web pages.

Cingular’s overage and pay-as-you-go MediaNet charges are one cent per kilobyte, or ten dollars per megabyte, so my morning’s surfing on the go (or morning plus weekend exploration) could have rung up more than one hundred dollars in charges. But the fifteen-dollars-for-ten-megabyte package, or a twenty-dollars-for-unlimited-usage package would definitely be required if I wanted to keep my internet access this available.

(This isn’t intended to be an evaluation of different providers’ plans, but on closer examination it’s unclear how Cingular classifies Bluetooth connectibility — as suitable for MediaNet [which is how I connected], described only as surfing on the phone itself; or as requiring one of the pricier “laptop” plans, all of which specify using “a PC card as your modem” or a phone/PDA purchased from Cingular.)