Quill
06-28-2007, 12:13 AM
First, off, I'd like to thank an HTC employee -who shall remain nameless lest all you wonder SU members would track him down and harass him - for providing me with this phone. I've been wanting to try out Windows Mobile, but, have been hesitant because of my initial experiences playing with the Cingular 8125 in stores and trying to help my sister get over the learning curve that came with purchasing her first WM phone last year -- a PPC 6700 on the Qwest network.
I have been using BlackBerry for about a year. I recently had a Nokia N73 series 60 smartphone for about six weeks. I've also used the Palm OS on a Tungsten C and decided after that it wasn't the best smartphone choice for me.
Now then. While this is a pocket PC phone, I always feel that with a cell phone, the device's ability to make and receive calls should always be the most important thing it can do.
It's been a while since I've had Sprint (about 2 1/2 years) but I was not disappointed with call quality on the network. That was good because it allowed me to focus on the phone's reception. I could make calls in my office, though, I did encounter a problem trying to dial out from my desk once ... but to be honest with you, the metal fortress of doom corner that I sit in makes it pretty much impossible for any phone to work right. Pretty much everywhere else the reception was good, just as I remember the Sprint network being, and the phone didn't drop out calls anywhere in the South King County area where I live in work. Did fine in Bellevue and Seattle, too, as expected.
The audio out of the box is a wee bit quiet, but, I'm finding that to be the norm with phones now (my theory is that manufacturers are trying to avoid destroying people's hearing immediately). Turning it up just a bit and phone calls are loud and clear, if just a tiny bit hollow, but it's nothing I couldn't adjust to. In fact, I wasn't expecting this to be a very good phone given all the features it offers and the reputation WM phones have for being so-so in this area (a rep BlackBerry had for years, until I'd say the 87xx series). In short, I liked using the Mogul to make phone calls, and thankfully my husband was willing to take calls and call me on the Sprint number. He says I sounded fine, that it was really clear on his end, and that he didn't have any trouble hearing me. A note on the speakerphone. Other reviewers have said it's weak. I would say it's a bit disappointing to have to turn it up to max volume every time I make a call. Were I to keep this phone long term, I would be sure to find a way to keep the speakerphone at full volume, which makes it usable while driving (a fairly noisy environment) and very usable while in a less noisy environment like my family room.
Ah, battery life. OK, so, I'm a newb to WM phones. I turned on Bluetooth to try and push my phonebook to the Mogul after I got frustrated with ActiveSync (I figured it out later). I then left it on for 24 hours, understandably killing the battery in that time period. I think I've charged it just about every day, even with Bluetooth off now, ha ha. The past two days I've gotten the best battery life thus far. It was at 40 percent this morning and it's 20 percent right now, about 12 hours later. I texted, did a little EV DO Internet surfing and made about a half dozen calls on the phone today. Still, were I to keep this in the long term, I would buy an extended battery. For anyone who has this phone and doesn't have a car charger, I would recommend getting one. I would hope, though, that anyone getting this phone would understand that this phone consumes power in a very different way because of feature set and capabilities of its hardware and software.
Now, on to features, usability and design. I am not going to list every single feature and every single little thing this phone can do in excruciating detail. That kind of thing annoys the hell out of me. I just plan to hit the highlights, the things I use the most.
As far as usability goes, if you're new to smart phones, this one will require a little bit of patience. There's a learning curve here. I've been using the phone for a week and I think I'd need a month to totally get the hang of how to use it. It's not so dramatically different from a BlackBerry in terms of smartphone functions, it's just that it does so much more, and it takes far more steps to do things sometimes. And it's organized a bit differently. For me, WM seems a little complicated and counterintuitive, but I maintain that's a user deficiency not necessarily the OS. I know plenty of people who say the same about BB so thankfully there's the variety of options available for all kinds of users.
Anyway, I cracked open the manual a couple times, asked questions of WM users, referenced threads here and ppcgeeks.com to get a feel for how to switch my mindset in order to do the things I want to accomplish.
First off, doing basic tasks like making a call, taking a picture or sending a text message are pretty easy to figure out for me. I suspect my mom would take one look at this phone and hand it right back to me without even trying to use it. This thing is pretty intimidating for someone like her.
Setting up e-mail was a snap. I've got it polling my Yahoo and Gmail to pull e-mail. I really like this aspect of the device. And I was very surprised at how simple it was to set up my e-mail. Sending and receiving e-mail is easy, too.
I've used the calendar function for a few appointments and it's pretty similar to the BlackBerry so that was nice. It worked just as I expected it to. The theme I have on my BB keeps the home screen pretty simple, so I don't have upcoming appointments on the homescreen, but I did like that the Mogul had a line on its homescreen that displayed my appointments for the day all day. It was good to look at my phone first thing and go, "Oh, I have that meeting at 11 a.m. and that meeting at 4 p.m." I'm forgetful, that's why I have a smartphone in the first place.
I downloaded a picmail program from another site, but, I gave up trying to use that to send an MMS when I couldn't pull a number from the contacts stored on the phone.
Downloading themes was easy. I was appalled at the price of apps on handmark.com or the Sprint store, which you can access directly from the Sprint homepage that loads by default when you start IE. I still am not sure what I would use aside from a weather bug and it'd be nice to have a couple games (Bejeweled, ooh, but oh the price! Rawr!) and the dictionary caught my eye -- I'm a journalist, what can I say? :D
I tried to download a weather app from another site, but the one that successfully loaded didn't actually work right after I thought I got it set up, and the other one wouldn't load. That's what I get for cheaping out, I suppose.
Oh, and I thought I successfully downloaded and installed the new Opera mini, but it's nowhere to be found from what I can tell. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I would need a few more weeks to get the Mogul set up the way I like, but, no surprise as it took me three or four weeks to get my last couple BlackBerries just so.
I've had questions from folks and noticed quite a few comments about lag ... is it bad on the Mogul? How fast does the phone switch orientations going to the horizontal view? What about menus? Compared to my sister's PPC 6700, I'd say it's quite a bit faster, and honestly runs has a little bit less lag than my Curve. As far as switching screen orientations, it literally takes two seconds. That doesn't try my patience. It only takes two or three seconds for the camera to start up. That's good, too. I can't complain about lag, but, I've also figured out that it's good to close apps when you're done with them to help the thing run better, so while it multi-tasks fine it's better not to push it too much. It certainly multi-tasks a hell of a lot better than my POS first-gen iMac at work ... but I digress. By the way, it hasn't crashed on me yet. People often complain about stability issues, particularly with WM5, but I am finding it's actually pretty stable so far.
Bluetooth is easy to use, too, once you find it. I had very little trouble pairing the Nokia, the Curve and a Samsung WEP 200 with the Mogul. I only made one call using the headset but it was a lengthy one while driving and it worked pretty well. I can't say I was disappointed. I pushed my phonebook from the Nokia to the PPC. That was also pretty cool.
The screen! How could I forget the screen. One of the reasons I went to BB is that after busting the touchscreen on my Palm Tungsten C a couple years ago, I've been deathly afraid of the carnage I'd wreak on an expensive smartphone, which living without would be much harder than the stand alone PDA. The screen is very nice. Yesterday I got a comment that the very big, very bright screen was very nice because it was viewable at a number of angles. My friend liked the screen quite a bit. As far as the touchscreen, this one seems a fair amount more durable than the one on my old PDA, and I dropped the thing screen down yesterday on pavement. Not a problem. It's also pretty responsive. I suspect that if I removed the screen protector that was on it when I unpacked it and used the included screen protector (nice move, HTC, only Nokia has done this with the N73 in my experience) that is thinner and probably provides a better viewing and tactile experience it would be better for me. It's pretty responsive, though sometimes, it's too responsive. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works, but, I still am not convinced that the touchscreen is the best way to go for me. I really don't like using the stylus and my fingertip isn't always the best alternative. I like it, but, I don't love it. That's good, though, because I honestly expected to loathe it.
I have been using BlackBerry for about a year. I recently had a Nokia N73 series 60 smartphone for about six weeks. I've also used the Palm OS on a Tungsten C and decided after that it wasn't the best smartphone choice for me.
Now then. While this is a pocket PC phone, I always feel that with a cell phone, the device's ability to make and receive calls should always be the most important thing it can do.
It's been a while since I've had Sprint (about 2 1/2 years) but I was not disappointed with call quality on the network. That was good because it allowed me to focus on the phone's reception. I could make calls in my office, though, I did encounter a problem trying to dial out from my desk once ... but to be honest with you, the metal fortress of doom corner that I sit in makes it pretty much impossible for any phone to work right. Pretty much everywhere else the reception was good, just as I remember the Sprint network being, and the phone didn't drop out calls anywhere in the South King County area where I live in work. Did fine in Bellevue and Seattle, too, as expected.
The audio out of the box is a wee bit quiet, but, I'm finding that to be the norm with phones now (my theory is that manufacturers are trying to avoid destroying people's hearing immediately). Turning it up just a bit and phone calls are loud and clear, if just a tiny bit hollow, but it's nothing I couldn't adjust to. In fact, I wasn't expecting this to be a very good phone given all the features it offers and the reputation WM phones have for being so-so in this area (a rep BlackBerry had for years, until I'd say the 87xx series). In short, I liked using the Mogul to make phone calls, and thankfully my husband was willing to take calls and call me on the Sprint number. He says I sounded fine, that it was really clear on his end, and that he didn't have any trouble hearing me. A note on the speakerphone. Other reviewers have said it's weak. I would say it's a bit disappointing to have to turn it up to max volume every time I make a call. Were I to keep this phone long term, I would be sure to find a way to keep the speakerphone at full volume, which makes it usable while driving (a fairly noisy environment) and very usable while in a less noisy environment like my family room.
Ah, battery life. OK, so, I'm a newb to WM phones. I turned on Bluetooth to try and push my phonebook to the Mogul after I got frustrated with ActiveSync (I figured it out later). I then left it on for 24 hours, understandably killing the battery in that time period. I think I've charged it just about every day, even with Bluetooth off now, ha ha. The past two days I've gotten the best battery life thus far. It was at 40 percent this morning and it's 20 percent right now, about 12 hours later. I texted, did a little EV DO Internet surfing and made about a half dozen calls on the phone today. Still, were I to keep this in the long term, I would buy an extended battery. For anyone who has this phone and doesn't have a car charger, I would recommend getting one. I would hope, though, that anyone getting this phone would understand that this phone consumes power in a very different way because of feature set and capabilities of its hardware and software.
Now, on to features, usability and design. I am not going to list every single feature and every single little thing this phone can do in excruciating detail. That kind of thing annoys the hell out of me. I just plan to hit the highlights, the things I use the most.
As far as usability goes, if you're new to smart phones, this one will require a little bit of patience. There's a learning curve here. I've been using the phone for a week and I think I'd need a month to totally get the hang of how to use it. It's not so dramatically different from a BlackBerry in terms of smartphone functions, it's just that it does so much more, and it takes far more steps to do things sometimes. And it's organized a bit differently. For me, WM seems a little complicated and counterintuitive, but I maintain that's a user deficiency not necessarily the OS. I know plenty of people who say the same about BB so thankfully there's the variety of options available for all kinds of users.
Anyway, I cracked open the manual a couple times, asked questions of WM users, referenced threads here and ppcgeeks.com to get a feel for how to switch my mindset in order to do the things I want to accomplish.
First off, doing basic tasks like making a call, taking a picture or sending a text message are pretty easy to figure out for me. I suspect my mom would take one look at this phone and hand it right back to me without even trying to use it. This thing is pretty intimidating for someone like her.
Setting up e-mail was a snap. I've got it polling my Yahoo and Gmail to pull e-mail. I really like this aspect of the device. And I was very surprised at how simple it was to set up my e-mail. Sending and receiving e-mail is easy, too.
I've used the calendar function for a few appointments and it's pretty similar to the BlackBerry so that was nice. It worked just as I expected it to. The theme I have on my BB keeps the home screen pretty simple, so I don't have upcoming appointments on the homescreen, but I did like that the Mogul had a line on its homescreen that displayed my appointments for the day all day. It was good to look at my phone first thing and go, "Oh, I have that meeting at 11 a.m. and that meeting at 4 p.m." I'm forgetful, that's why I have a smartphone in the first place.
I downloaded a picmail program from another site, but, I gave up trying to use that to send an MMS when I couldn't pull a number from the contacts stored on the phone.
Downloading themes was easy. I was appalled at the price of apps on handmark.com or the Sprint store, which you can access directly from the Sprint homepage that loads by default when you start IE. I still am not sure what I would use aside from a weather bug and it'd be nice to have a couple games (Bejeweled, ooh, but oh the price! Rawr!) and the dictionary caught my eye -- I'm a journalist, what can I say? :D
I tried to download a weather app from another site, but the one that successfully loaded didn't actually work right after I thought I got it set up, and the other one wouldn't load. That's what I get for cheaping out, I suppose.
Oh, and I thought I successfully downloaded and installed the new Opera mini, but it's nowhere to be found from what I can tell. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I would need a few more weeks to get the Mogul set up the way I like, but, no surprise as it took me three or four weeks to get my last couple BlackBerries just so.
I've had questions from folks and noticed quite a few comments about lag ... is it bad on the Mogul? How fast does the phone switch orientations going to the horizontal view? What about menus? Compared to my sister's PPC 6700, I'd say it's quite a bit faster, and honestly runs has a little bit less lag than my Curve. As far as switching screen orientations, it literally takes two seconds. That doesn't try my patience. It only takes two or three seconds for the camera to start up. That's good, too. I can't complain about lag, but, I've also figured out that it's good to close apps when you're done with them to help the thing run better, so while it multi-tasks fine it's better not to push it too much. It certainly multi-tasks a hell of a lot better than my POS first-gen iMac at work ... but I digress. By the way, it hasn't crashed on me yet. People often complain about stability issues, particularly with WM5, but I am finding it's actually pretty stable so far.
Bluetooth is easy to use, too, once you find it. I had very little trouble pairing the Nokia, the Curve and a Samsung WEP 200 with the Mogul. I only made one call using the headset but it was a lengthy one while driving and it worked pretty well. I can't say I was disappointed. I pushed my phonebook from the Nokia to the PPC. That was also pretty cool.
The screen! How could I forget the screen. One of the reasons I went to BB is that after busting the touchscreen on my Palm Tungsten C a couple years ago, I've been deathly afraid of the carnage I'd wreak on an expensive smartphone, which living without would be much harder than the stand alone PDA. The screen is very nice. Yesterday I got a comment that the very big, very bright screen was very nice because it was viewable at a number of angles. My friend liked the screen quite a bit. As far as the touchscreen, this one seems a fair amount more durable than the one on my old PDA, and I dropped the thing screen down yesterday on pavement. Not a problem. It's also pretty responsive. I suspect that if I removed the screen protector that was on it when I unpacked it and used the included screen protector (nice move, HTC, only Nokia has done this with the N73 in my experience) that is thinner and probably provides a better viewing and tactile experience it would be better for me. It's pretty responsive, though sometimes, it's too responsive. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it works, but, I still am not convinced that the touchscreen is the best way to go for me. I really don't like using the stylus and my fingertip isn't always the best alternative. I like it, but, I don't love it. That's good, though, because I honestly expected to loathe it.