Crew_Chief
06-03-2007, 10:29 PM
I've had sprint for a very long time, my list of phones though is very short. I orginally started my plan down in Texas with the Sanyo 8100. I moved to North Dakota, broke my 8100 and spent alot of money on (what was at the time) the coolest phone on the planet the Sanyo 5600. Around this time last year I got ESRP'ed (insurance replacement for you kids) into one of the best phones ever, the Sanyo 9000. Since then, I've played with every Sprint phone that's come out for sale, litterally. The Fusic, the Samsung A920/M620/A940/960, every phone out there; even phones we haven't released for this year yet, (keep that in mind...) but nothing was close to my 9000 (except the A940, of course).
My Sanyo started acting up on me about two weeks ago, my battery was dead quicker than usual (I have to chage this thing daily now?!?), it power cycled on me a couple times, and I really didn't have the organizier that I need at this point in my life. I knew a new battery was out of the question, where could one even find one now a days? Ebay? And even if I did find one, my phone was getting old and was starting to show it's age from wear and tear.
Having been spoiled with the rich features of the 5600 and 9000, I wanted a phone that did all the same things, plus more. Of course nessecity played a big role too; I now needed to check my email on the go, I now needed to keep a tight schedual and balance my time, I now needed a smart phone.
When it comes to Smart Phones and Sprint, there's few options: Treo, Blackberry, PPC, and now the Moto Q. I want to talk about each of these for a moment.
The Blackberry is an awesome phone, but I wanted something I can listen to music and browse the web with (efficently!), the Blackberry offered neither. Nor did it offer a camera, something that still confuses me. If Treo can come out with a 650 with camera, and without, why can't Blackberry?
The Moto Q is new to Sprint, and if you think this is a good PDA, you're simply foolish. The Moto Q is probably the worst PDA Sprint offers, it has no single advantage over any other PDA other than it's size; and realistically it's not smaller in size than a Treo or Blackberry, it's just style. Girls that buy this phone are like girls who sleep with a guy because he has a nice car, guys who buy this phone are the guys who buy that car. Sure, it's sexy, but it's got no brains! Who wants a commitment with someone like that? Maybe a one night stand, for sure, but a 2 year relationship?!? You've got to be kidding me. I at least want a phone that I can spend all day with, without having to put on the charger, and then can pull an all night druken-text-athon with.
The PPC was another one to consider. Having played a little bit with the PPC-6800 I can tell you it's a cool phone, but I really don't want to wait until the end of summer to get my hands on one. And believe me, if you're foolish enough to believe you'll be able to get your hands on one of these come July, I've got some property in Flordia I can sell you. A cool phone? Yes. Does it have everything a treo has? Yes, plus a few. Can I get my hands on one now? No. Don't even think that I'm foolish enough to upgrade into a PPC 6700 this late in the game. Most retail stores don't even carry them anymore.
So it comes down to the Treo. Of course, there's the two Treos to consider. Sort of like twin sexy twin sisters; both are great and have a few perks over the other, but I'm going to snag the easier of the two, the Palm. Especially since that super sexy 755 came in, seeing how she lost some weight, showed some curves, and came dressed in RED! I had to have one. I'd be silly not to. Sure, her sister is still pretty cute, but with that PPC comming out, if I'd really hate to be the one showing up to the party with yesterday's girl, especially with that new brunette in the neighborhood.
I heard alot of feed back about the 700 series Treo's. Terrible blue tooth, freezing, lack of technical support from Sprint or Palm; it sounded horrible. I was very hesidant to pick up a Treo until I talked to a Palm Treo rep about it. My first question was, "Is blue tooth fixed?" To which he responded, "Yes, we fixed alot." I had no more questions.
My Treo, my love, my hate:
So I ordered one online, waited a couple days, and AMAZING! It showed up in real life. It's so funny to think that a couple clicks of my mouse could actually change something in my life, but look at the guys on Dateline, believe them, it can change your whole life! I grabbed my OIF Gerber 600 Multi-tool (I'm also an avid knife fan), pulled the blade open, and started opening the box carefully. My eyes glazzed over the nice square box, I opened it and fell in love at first sight with my pretty red wonder.
It, of course, functions the same way as the Treo 700p did, there's been no changes to the software from what I've read online. It's physically very similiar, except no antenna, and the sides are curved inwards to make it easier to hold. If you haven't seen a picture of this phone, and you're reading this review, you're ****ing nuts, and so I won't go into button layouts or anything. This phone features the MiniSD card instead of the regular SD card, so I just pulled my SD card out of my 9000 and popped it in my Treo. I don't like the IR port on the side, I always wanted my Treo to be my remote control, but that's something I can live without, because in the day of Blue tooth, what is the point of IR? Anyways, it turned on like a breeze, and I felt my pants move slightly when I heard that all too fimiliar sound of a Treo powering on.
Software, the expectations, the let downs:
Since I primarly use my phone for music, I first wanted to test out the speakerphone on the Treo. Since my 9000 very well likely had the loudest speaker ever put into a flip phone in the United States, I wanted to see how a Treo compaired. The Ptunes application found my Mp3 music files quickly and I listened to them. It wasn't too bad, I suppose, the speaker certianly worked loud and clear. Then I wanted to listen to my Music Store downloads, and I came to a quick and dirty realisation: no sprint music store. Blast this damned phone! All my 2.50 cent downloads, and recently 1 dollar downloads, WASTED AWAY! Except for the ones I have on my computer, of course. Why a Treo dosn't have music store on it blows my mind, it's just another way Sprint could increase revenu on these devices. At least make it a download. This phone does come packed with all the same software as on the Treo 700p, for the most part, plus some.
My next step was web browsing. I've used a Treo's web browser "Blazer" before, with no complaints, but since I was going from Mini-Opera on my 9000 to Blazer on a Treo, things were very different. First off, Blazer is slow, but that's not new news by any means, Blazer has always sort of sucked, and real Palm people use a 3rd party one. No problem, I'll just download one. Since then, I have experimented with a few, but still nothing compairs to Mini-opera on my 9000, it was so much faster, and I never got webpage errors.
My next peice of software to test was Voice Control, after downloading, it was easy to figure out. And I have to say, Voice Control is probably the single coolest peice of software I've ever seen on a mobile phone. Let me repeat that for those who didn't catch the bold, it's THE COOLEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN ON A PHONE, AND I'VE USED EVER SPRINT PHONE THAT'S COME OUT IN THE LAST 2 YEARS. The reason? The Voice Command is accurate every single time. It's not a Sanyo's flismy Voice Tags, nor Samsung's Voice Control (which even on the Upstage isn't that impressive nor useful), this is true VoiceControl. Not only does it do text messages, appointments, email, and looking up contacts, it does it all without training the phone. The only draw back? VoiceControl takes a very long time to connect to the server. VoiceControl is a lot more powerful then I could explain, it even recognizes foreign languages (I speak 4 latin-baised languages, all of which it said, "VoiceCommand only works for English" when I speak in giberish, it says, "VoiceCommand did not understand what you ment". Amazing.
My favorite application on my Sanyo 9000 was TeleNAV, and I knew switching to a non-TeleNAV phone would be seriously difficult, but I counted on the Treo's Google Map feature to get me through. Unfortunitly, Google Maps is pretty useless unless you know an exact address of where you're going and where you are. It's great if you know you're comming from where you work (point A) to you're potential client's office (to point B), but if you get lost along the way, you're screwed! Plus, it's very hard to keep up with turns when you have to read them on your Treo Screen and then hit a button each time you make a turn. It's not nearly as practical as TeleNAV. It would have been great if you could just hit a button for "Forward" and it would verbally say "Turn Left at Doug Street, 3.5 miles, and then, take a Right on Foster Street in 2.4 miles" every time you wanted it to. Maybe in later editions. I don't even know why they included this software on the phone, it really isn't a huge selling point on it, it feels like it was rushed in there.
The built in Instant Messager is certainly cool, but fairly pointless as many 3rd party alternatives were avaliable. It was easy to use, but I still have problems setting my Yahoo! account up for some reason. Again, this feels rushed. It works like a charm for AIM (at least for me, I've read different problems for different people) and the message service is nice to have.
[cont'd]
My Sanyo started acting up on me about two weeks ago, my battery was dead quicker than usual (I have to chage this thing daily now?!?), it power cycled on me a couple times, and I really didn't have the organizier that I need at this point in my life. I knew a new battery was out of the question, where could one even find one now a days? Ebay? And even if I did find one, my phone was getting old and was starting to show it's age from wear and tear.
Having been spoiled with the rich features of the 5600 and 9000, I wanted a phone that did all the same things, plus more. Of course nessecity played a big role too; I now needed to check my email on the go, I now needed to keep a tight schedual and balance my time, I now needed a smart phone.
When it comes to Smart Phones and Sprint, there's few options: Treo, Blackberry, PPC, and now the Moto Q. I want to talk about each of these for a moment.
The Blackberry is an awesome phone, but I wanted something I can listen to music and browse the web with (efficently!), the Blackberry offered neither. Nor did it offer a camera, something that still confuses me. If Treo can come out with a 650 with camera, and without, why can't Blackberry?
The Moto Q is new to Sprint, and if you think this is a good PDA, you're simply foolish. The Moto Q is probably the worst PDA Sprint offers, it has no single advantage over any other PDA other than it's size; and realistically it's not smaller in size than a Treo or Blackberry, it's just style. Girls that buy this phone are like girls who sleep with a guy because he has a nice car, guys who buy this phone are the guys who buy that car. Sure, it's sexy, but it's got no brains! Who wants a commitment with someone like that? Maybe a one night stand, for sure, but a 2 year relationship?!? You've got to be kidding me. I at least want a phone that I can spend all day with, without having to put on the charger, and then can pull an all night druken-text-athon with.
The PPC was another one to consider. Having played a little bit with the PPC-6800 I can tell you it's a cool phone, but I really don't want to wait until the end of summer to get my hands on one. And believe me, if you're foolish enough to believe you'll be able to get your hands on one of these come July, I've got some property in Flordia I can sell you. A cool phone? Yes. Does it have everything a treo has? Yes, plus a few. Can I get my hands on one now? No. Don't even think that I'm foolish enough to upgrade into a PPC 6700 this late in the game. Most retail stores don't even carry them anymore.
So it comes down to the Treo. Of course, there's the two Treos to consider. Sort of like twin sexy twin sisters; both are great and have a few perks over the other, but I'm going to snag the easier of the two, the Palm. Especially since that super sexy 755 came in, seeing how she lost some weight, showed some curves, and came dressed in RED! I had to have one. I'd be silly not to. Sure, her sister is still pretty cute, but with that PPC comming out, if I'd really hate to be the one showing up to the party with yesterday's girl, especially with that new brunette in the neighborhood.
I heard alot of feed back about the 700 series Treo's. Terrible blue tooth, freezing, lack of technical support from Sprint or Palm; it sounded horrible. I was very hesidant to pick up a Treo until I talked to a Palm Treo rep about it. My first question was, "Is blue tooth fixed?" To which he responded, "Yes, we fixed alot." I had no more questions.
My Treo, my love, my hate:
So I ordered one online, waited a couple days, and AMAZING! It showed up in real life. It's so funny to think that a couple clicks of my mouse could actually change something in my life, but look at the guys on Dateline, believe them, it can change your whole life! I grabbed my OIF Gerber 600 Multi-tool (I'm also an avid knife fan), pulled the blade open, and started opening the box carefully. My eyes glazzed over the nice square box, I opened it and fell in love at first sight with my pretty red wonder.
It, of course, functions the same way as the Treo 700p did, there's been no changes to the software from what I've read online. It's physically very similiar, except no antenna, and the sides are curved inwards to make it easier to hold. If you haven't seen a picture of this phone, and you're reading this review, you're ****ing nuts, and so I won't go into button layouts or anything. This phone features the MiniSD card instead of the regular SD card, so I just pulled my SD card out of my 9000 and popped it in my Treo. I don't like the IR port on the side, I always wanted my Treo to be my remote control, but that's something I can live without, because in the day of Blue tooth, what is the point of IR? Anyways, it turned on like a breeze, and I felt my pants move slightly when I heard that all too fimiliar sound of a Treo powering on.
Software, the expectations, the let downs:
Since I primarly use my phone for music, I first wanted to test out the speakerphone on the Treo. Since my 9000 very well likely had the loudest speaker ever put into a flip phone in the United States, I wanted to see how a Treo compaired. The Ptunes application found my Mp3 music files quickly and I listened to them. It wasn't too bad, I suppose, the speaker certianly worked loud and clear. Then I wanted to listen to my Music Store downloads, and I came to a quick and dirty realisation: no sprint music store. Blast this damned phone! All my 2.50 cent downloads, and recently 1 dollar downloads, WASTED AWAY! Except for the ones I have on my computer, of course. Why a Treo dosn't have music store on it blows my mind, it's just another way Sprint could increase revenu on these devices. At least make it a download. This phone does come packed with all the same software as on the Treo 700p, for the most part, plus some.
My next step was web browsing. I've used a Treo's web browser "Blazer" before, with no complaints, but since I was going from Mini-Opera on my 9000 to Blazer on a Treo, things were very different. First off, Blazer is slow, but that's not new news by any means, Blazer has always sort of sucked, and real Palm people use a 3rd party one. No problem, I'll just download one. Since then, I have experimented with a few, but still nothing compairs to Mini-opera on my 9000, it was so much faster, and I never got webpage errors.
My next peice of software to test was Voice Control, after downloading, it was easy to figure out. And I have to say, Voice Control is probably the single coolest peice of software I've ever seen on a mobile phone. Let me repeat that for those who didn't catch the bold, it's THE COOLEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN ON A PHONE, AND I'VE USED EVER SPRINT PHONE THAT'S COME OUT IN THE LAST 2 YEARS. The reason? The Voice Command is accurate every single time. It's not a Sanyo's flismy Voice Tags, nor Samsung's Voice Control (which even on the Upstage isn't that impressive nor useful), this is true VoiceControl. Not only does it do text messages, appointments, email, and looking up contacts, it does it all without training the phone. The only draw back? VoiceControl takes a very long time to connect to the server. VoiceControl is a lot more powerful then I could explain, it even recognizes foreign languages (I speak 4 latin-baised languages, all of which it said, "VoiceCommand only works for English" when I speak in giberish, it says, "VoiceCommand did not understand what you ment". Amazing.
My favorite application on my Sanyo 9000 was TeleNAV, and I knew switching to a non-TeleNAV phone would be seriously difficult, but I counted on the Treo's Google Map feature to get me through. Unfortunitly, Google Maps is pretty useless unless you know an exact address of where you're going and where you are. It's great if you know you're comming from where you work (point A) to you're potential client's office (to point B), but if you get lost along the way, you're screwed! Plus, it's very hard to keep up with turns when you have to read them on your Treo Screen and then hit a button each time you make a turn. It's not nearly as practical as TeleNAV. It would have been great if you could just hit a button for "Forward" and it would verbally say "Turn Left at Doug Street, 3.5 miles, and then, take a Right on Foster Street in 2.4 miles" every time you wanted it to. Maybe in later editions. I don't even know why they included this software on the phone, it really isn't a huge selling point on it, it feels like it was rushed in there.
The built in Instant Messager is certainly cool, but fairly pointless as many 3rd party alternatives were avaliable. It was easy to use, but I still have problems setting my Yahoo! account up for some reason. Again, this feels rushed. It works like a charm for AIM (at least for me, I've read different problems for different people) and the message service is nice to have.
[cont'd]