OK, Since we are on this topic?. I picked up a Samsung BlackJack about a
week ago, and to this point, I have some very mixed emotions?. I used to
have an old Palm PDA and I carried my cell phone, so You can understand
that trying to go to one device was a no brainer?. I love the look and
feel of the phone, as it is a LOT slimmer than a Treo or Blackberry and
the bluetooth headset and built in speaker phone makes it a breeze to
talk and work, drive etc. while on the phone. The screen is nice and
bright, and since it runs Windows mobile 5, it is fairly familiar when
You look at the screen and the way it interacts with the user. The on
board camera works great and takes wonderful photos after You get the
settings right(1.4 MegaPixel). Now for the bad stuff!. It EATS
batteries. Samsung must be aware of this?, as they shipped it out with 2
batt. in the box. If You leave the house with a fresh batt. installed,
You can bet that it will almost be out of juice by the time You walk in
the door at night?, so if You are a true road warrior?, You may be
screwed without a spot to plug in the charger during the day?.. It also
comes with a data/modem cable that allows You to sync. the phone with
Outlook on Your desktop. It even ships with a registered copy of Outlook
and the key so You can do a fresh install. All of that would be great if
I could just get the [EMAIL PROTECTED]& phone to sync with the Outlook program!.To
this point?, it is a no-go!. Another negative is that You can only edit
Your appointment settings on the desk top computer. If You are on the
road and want to edit or add a new event or appointment?, FORGET IT!.
You will have to write it on a piece of paper and enter it when You get
back to the PC. THAT IS STUPID!!!!! Even though it touts being an MP3
player, You still need to install a microSD card for storage(extra
expense) AND there is no 1/8 phone jack for head phones???. If You want
head phones?, You have to buy a proprietary setup from Samsung and it
plugs into the same port as the data cable. What this means is that if
You are on the plane and You want to listen to music, thats great?, but
don't forget, You will also need to charge the batt. at some point, and
You CAN NOT do both, unless You pack the spare batt. along to every
place You go AND the portable charger that uses a 110AC outlet and a
small black charger box.
Patrick Leary wrote:
Nice OT thread guys; I am learning and hope others chime in.
Patrick Leary
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Travis Johnson
Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 10:50 AM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: Re: [WISPA] SmartPhone Happiness...
Matt,
It's funny you posted this message today.... I just picked up a new
"test" phone I am trying to replace my Treo 650. I grabbed an HP iPaq
6945 from Cingular for $189 (with two year contract) and have been
playing with it on an off for the last couple of days.
The biggest advantage to this phone is the built-in GPS, along with WiFi
and Bluetooth. There are some neat functions that are already built-in
to the main OS... such as the camera showing GPS coordinates on the
picture when you take it (if you enable that option). Also, many
commercial map programs (TomTom 6, etc.) work on this phone with the
GPS. With a simple car mount and car adapter, you have a full-fledged
GPS device built into your phone. There are also programs that will
connect to WiFi and update GPS coordinates to a website... so you could
have real-time locations for your installers with no monthly fee. ;)
It's running Windows Mobile 5, which is better than any other Windows
phone OS I have used, but still not as easy to navigate as the Palm OS.
The biggest feature on the Treo 650 for me is the SMS messaging. It's
easy to access (single button) and it keeps a chat dialog going with
each person you have talked to. I send and receive over 100 messages per
day, sometimes 200-300. It's quick, easy, and can be done with one hand.
If there was just a simple program that would function the same, the
iPaq could be a great phone for me.
I should also mention I purchased a Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. This is a
pretty cool device as well.... built in WiFi and Bluetooth, running
Linux with a nice GUI. Nice wide, bright screen too. It just doesn't
have a phone or GPS, just WiFi. Still pretty cool for that type of a
device.
Travis
Microserv
Matt Larsen - Lists wrote:
It was finally time to replace my Nokia 6800 with 600 hours and a
broken screen from being dropped too many times, so I decided to get a
Nokia E70 phone.
It has been a little bit of a challenge, but it is pretty close to
cell phone nirvana. It has been able to do I have wanted to
accomplish with a PDA or cell phone combined.
The first main issue was getting the phone contacts/calendar/notes
synchronized with my PC. My previous phone was extremely flaky when
used with the Nokia PC Suite software, and only connected about one in
every 10 times. I had to install, reinstall, run a registry cleaner
and then reinstall the software but I was finally able to get a
reliable connection between my PC and phone. Once accomplished, I was
able to get all of my items synced up in a repeatable, reliable
fashion. With all their available resources, I am amazed that Nokia
was not able to this process worked out better.
The second item was seeing how Internet access worked on the phone.
GPRS seems to work fine, but I was more interested in the wifi
connectivity feature of the phone. The E70 will browse for an
available access point and the process for connecting is pretty
straightforward. I have to pass on huge props for the Internet
browser on the E70. I would prefer using the smaller screen E70
browser than the browser on all of the PocketPCs that I have used. It
is that good. It was reliable, viewable, easy to navigate and there
have been no weird format surprises. All told - the Internet access
components work very well. I have not gotten the instant messaging to
work yet, but it looks like other have, so I will still have that to
work on.
The last and most interesting piece was the struggle to get VOIP
working on a cell phone. My cell coverage at my house and many other
places in my service area is very spotty, so I have been looking
forward to having a phone that could roam to wifi and keep my roaming
minutes down to a minimum. I was able to find a couple of links to
guides on how to set the phone up with an asterisk voip server and was
finally able to get it to connect to my office voip phone system.
After all the hassles and reported problems on user forums, I was very
pleasantly surprised by the performance of the voip part of the E70.
It is actually clearer than regular cell calls, with just a little bit
of breakup when the wifi signal gets low. Best of all, my outgoing
calls all go through my office system when I am in range of a wifi
access point, meaning less minutes on my cell phone plan. I should
also be able to use the voip when I go to remote tower sites that used
to not work at all on the regular cell network or incurred roaming
charges.
All in all, I am very impressed with the E70. I am going to
officially retire my iPaqs to other tasks and use this as my primary
PIM/phone/voip phone.
Matt Larsen
vistabeam.com
PS - I purchased my E70 from Tiger Direct for about $435, but they are
also available at voip-supply.com for $385.
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