Interested in SPH-A500 anyone have opinions?

[e7c]

I'm looking at picking up a Samsung SPH-A500 from the local provider (MTS Telecom) and had a few questions about it first...

Is there any way to upload new ringtones, images, screensavers, etc with a cheap datacable from ebay, rather than paying $100 for the data kit from my provider?

Also, is it possible to install software such as a telnet client, messenger client, irc, etc etc onto this phone?

Has anyone had particularly good or bad experiences with this phone? It's one of the top phones offered by my provider (they're always way behind US carriers in terms of hardware) but I am very picky about my phones and want to make sure this one will work for me.