Related
Use an XDA II at the moment, still stuggling to get it to upgrade to SE at the moment. Sort of an intrim measure, untill I decide what to uprade to next. However because I use it with a WiFi card & pocket Skype, my upgrade options are limited.
Have always loved the I-Mate Jam, since its launch, especially its looks & size. However here in Great Britain O2 in all there wisdow decided not to launch the XDA mini so ended up sticking with my XDA II.
Now O2 tell me they will not be providing the XDA mini at all & instead they will be launching the I-Mate Wizard instead late in October or early November.
My thoughts on this go like this, don't really need the keyboard but I can take it or leave it, as long as it is well made & does not make the whole unit excessively fragile.
Built in WiFi, brilliant as I now don't have to have a half inch of my SD card hanging out of the top of my phone, great.
The CPU speed, this is the killer for me, Pocket Skype requires 400mhz or more according to the Skype website, & life without pocket Skype would be unbearable & needlesly expensive .
Does anyone else like me think tbere is a conspiracy going on with the providers strategicly selecting hardware to in one way or another stop us using Pocket Skype. Either the unit is to big to be comfortable & fashionable (the XDA IIi), No WiFi & two littfe memory (the I-Mate Jam), or worst of all not enough CPU speed to run pocket Skype (the HTC Wizard.
All this has firmly made me believe that the Holy Grail of PDA/Phones that I believe we are looking for is:
The Current I-Mate Jam with the following updatey:
128 Megs Ram
Built in WiFi
Windows Mobile 2005.
Wlth two added small hot keys
Slightly faster CPU.
No added keyboard to keep slze as small as is possible.
I am sure I am not the only one wbo feels this & I am sure I would just be one of the many tbousands in the stampede to get hold of this mythical but oh so wanted Devices.
So what is what is left for me to do, keep using my XDA II, hopefully managing to upgrade it to WM2003SE, in the meantime.
And if there really are no CPU upgrades when the Wizard is finally released, hock & sell all I can find to buy a. sim free 128 Meg I-Mate Jam, begrudgingly.
Love to hear other peoples comments on this matter jost to assure myself that I am not the only one who feels this way, or who can give me the dowload address of the combined WM2003SE ROM.
Kind Regards all, Ash'e
PocketPCItalia reviewed the Wizard on their site and were able to use Skype on it, they said they had no problems running it. I don't know the link to the article, but you can find the link on HowardForums somewhere in the Wizard/Qtek9100 threads.
Even someone on the WIKI has reported Skype works (though you need to turn off echo cancellation since this takes a lot of processing power).
ShALLaX said:
Even someone on the WIKI has reported Skype works (though you need to turn off echo cancellation since this takes a lot of processing power).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Linky ?
Terran
Is this our Holy Grail.
Thanks guys it gives me some hope, but when push comes to I still feel we are all being asked to compromise, the XDA mini was an awsome bit of kit, in many ways far superior to the wizard, in size & processing power, I now have to take a cut in CPU power on my new upgrade phone instead of getting more power, which you would expect with the march of technology & all that.
So I ask the question again, I really do feel we nearly had our holy grail in the XDA Mini, & where left short in the last furlong, when a well thought out upgrade as descríbed in my previous posting was all it would have taken to produce what I feel would have been a benchmark style icon & a runaway sales success even more than it is anyway,
I really do feel that the HTC are trading of with the air time providers to delay Skype becoming the runaway cost saving mobile call preventing success it is going to be.
Kind Regards
Ash'e
My god someone with my same thoughts. I want a SPV M500 (XDA mini, jam etc) for the size but a slower processor ? and Orange want £180 to upgrade!!!!
Don't start me with that treating exsisting customers like new ones come on i've been with Orange for 10 yrs. But take a new contract and you get the phone for £80 or free! depending what traffic you choose. Stinks !!!!!!
WIKI: http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=HTC_Wizard
Also... someone posted on a forum about how much more efficient the OMAP processor is compared to the Intel series: http://www.smartdevicesdirect.com/forum/showpost.php?p=127&postcount=3
Very encouraging!
I've found my Holy Grail!
Well what a difference in I.T. life a couple of days makes, Two days ago I was panicking about having to upgrade to a HTC Wizard with all it's underlying, associated buíld/development problems, and now I am sat here with my own & what I feel is many other people's PDA Holy Grail in my hand.
In my hand I have a I-Mate Jam, but with a couple or three big differences:
One it has 128 Megs of Ram.
Two it has built in WiFi
Three it has a 2 GIG SD Card plugged in that works.
Now I might add that this is not my Jam, However the little known about UK based company that has produced it are quite willing to customise one for me if I can lay my hands on one in the next week or so.
They will also be offering it as a commercial service over the net as of November this year.
So my dear friends, fellow bookworms, frustrated burglers, affronted policemen or city gents with titly furled umbrella's, I am glad I have joined & listened to you all so many times but I am afraid I won't be joining you just yet in your wizardly new worlds now that I have found my own personal PDA Val-Hala. Long live the 128 Meg WiFi enabled Jam, who knows we may even be able to get WM2005 on it yet, that really would be something, & a right kick up the hind quarters for HTC.
Kind Regards Ash'e
Re: I've found my Holy Grail!
sion said:
Well what a difference in I.T. life a couple of days makes, Two days ago I was panicking about having to upgrade to a HTC Wizard with all it's underlying, associated buíld/development problems, and now I am sat here with my own & what I feel is many other people's PDA Holy Grail in my hand.
In my hand I have a I-Mate Jam, but with a couple or three big differences:
One it has 128 Megs of Ram.
Two it has built in WiFi
Three it has a 2 GIG SD Card plugged in that works.
Now I might add that this is not my Jam, However the little known about UK based company that has produced it are quite willing to customise one for me if I can lay my hands on one in the next week or so.
They will also be offering it as a commercial service over the net as of November this year.
So my dear friends, fellow bookworms, frustrated burglers, affronted policemen or city gents with titly furled umbrella's, I am glad I have joined & listened to you all so many times but I am afraid I won't be joining you just yet in your wizardly new worlds now that I have found my own personal PDA Val-Hala. Long live the 128 Meg WiFi enabled Jam, who knows we may even be able to get WM2005 on it yet, that really would be something, & a right kick up the hind quarters for HTC.
Kind Regards Ash'e
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As per the other thred, contact details, pics, website ?
Terran
I've found my Holy Grail!
Well what a difference in I.T. life a couple of days makes, Two days ago I was panicking about having to upgrade to a HTC Wizard with all it's underlying, associated buíld/development problems, and now I am sat here with my own & what I feel is many other people's PDA Holy Grail in my hand.
In my hand I have a I-Mate Jam, but with a couple or three big differences:
One it has 128 Megs of Ram.
Two it has built in WiFi
Three it has a 2 GIG SD Card plugged in that works.
Now I might add that this is not my Jam, However the little known about UK based company that has produced it are quite willing to customise one for me if I can lay my hands on one in the next week or so.
They will also be offering it as a commercial service over the net as of November this year.
So my dear friends, fellow bookworms, frustrated burglers, affronted policemen or city gents with titly furled umbrella's, I am glad I have joined & listened to you all so many times but I am afraid I won't be joining you just yet in your wizardly new worlds now that I have found my own personal PDA Val-Hala. Long live the 128 Meg WiFi enabled Jam, who knows we may even be able to get WM2005 on it yet, that really would be something, & a right kick up the hind quarters for HTC.
Kind Regards Ash'e
I'm torn. Really torn.... anyone else facing this dilemma?
1) Do you want a keyboard? Yes->Question 2, No->Athena.
2) Can you wait until sometime in 2006? Yes->Hermes, No->Wizard.
That would be my logic.
I haven't heard about the Hermes......
I do want a keyboard. I bought my BlueAngel for that reason. However with the advent of the I-Tap input thing I would prob be ok without one.
Suppose I now have a third option to contemplate.
Hermes?
Lewis
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=730935
Some information for you:
Athena: XScale processor at 400Mz, EDGE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM Radio, and a 2.1MP camera. No keyboard, just like the Magician, but it will be slimmer than it.
Hermes: just like Wizard, but has UMTS, front-facing camera, and a 2.1MP rear camera.
Not sure if they're dropping EDGE to put in UMTS, or if it will be a USA-friendly UMTS (unlikely, since we don't have our act together yet).
So, the Hermes is the Wizard's answer to the Universal, and the Athena is the sequel to the JAM.
I am unfamiliar with what EDGE and UMTS are..
However i gather they are some kind of 3G based technology, which I am not all that interested in.
I gather the Hermes will be a sort of 3G version of the Wizard. As I said i am not interested in 3G yet as i can't really see a use for it. As for an FM radio thats outdated now anyway! Surely it should have been a Digial Radio!!
In light of this I'll probably end up buying a Wizard. it suites my needs (because its basially a new Blue Angel) and I could do with a phone soon as my BA has almost toally packed up. But theres still nagging part of me that says may-be hold on for the Hermes.
Slightly off topic but I also breiefly considered the Universal. Until I realised it was THE single most ugly thing on the planet... seriously.
Lewis
Its not ugly, just huge!
I think it's both!
Especially when it's closed. Theres too much blank space around the screen....eww.
But anyway tis only my personal opinion ;-)
Lewis
Is there any hope Athena will be released before the end of the year?
O2 Said the Athena would be realeased about the 30th of October
O2 Said the Athena would be realeased about the 30th of October
BigDamHero said:
O2 Said the Athena would be realeased about the 30th of October
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean O2 Asia? This is good news, but I was rather referring to the release of a US or Europe model (SIM-unlocked). Any announced release date?
Decions,.Decisions.
The release of the news about the Athena, or XDA Atom, has completely confused me to.
However I have managed to rationalized it this way.
With intellipad, quickwiting, software, (especially quick writing, once you get used to it) and my think outside blue tooth fold out keyboard. don't really need keyboard.
Besides which it looks pretty fragile and it is just another thing that can go wrong or brake.
Without the keyboard I also get a smaller slimmer far more pocketable device to boot with a much stronger all metal case to boot (shame they did not keep the silver brushed aluminium).
What else do I gain, well a much faster CPU, a far superior camera and a proper SD card slot over the wizard, ard 128 Megs of ram, the long awaited in built WiFI, a built in radio and of course WM2005 over the Magacian,
So the choice for me will be to hang onto my XDA II for now and hang on for the XDA Atom to arrive in the UK, I just hope it does and I can get one on 02 contract to save myself a few pennies.
Thank for the chat guys
Regards Ash'e.
arg0 said:
You mean O2 Asia?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope this what what I got from O2 UK. They said it was the tennative release date.
Lewis
Re: Decions,.Decisions.
Hey Sion
sion said:
The release of the news about the Athena, or XDA Atom, has completely confused me to.
However I have managed to rationalized it this way.
With intellipad, quickwiting, software, (especially quick writing, once you get used to it) and my think outside blue tooth fold out keyboard. don't really need keyboard.
Besides which it looks pretty fragile and it is just another thing that can go wrong or brake.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I completely disagree. I have had my Blue Angel for a year and the keyboard is invaluable. I can type rediclously fast on it ;-)
Intelipad and Quickwriting etc. will never compare to an actual hardware keyboard. I use my phone to send 100s of SMSs a day (no really). Could NEVER do that without a proper hardware keyboard.
sion said:
What else do I gain, well a much faster CPU, a far superior camera and a proper SD card slot over the wizard, ard 128 Megs of ram, the long awaited in built WiFI, a built in radio and of course WM2005 over the Magacian,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The processor in the Wizard has actually been benchmarked to be quite good. As someone else said in this forumn one day people will realise you cant just measure processing speeds in clock cycles. Take it from an Athlon 64 owner!
As for the camera they tend to be sh*t on all pocket pc devices becuse of the lense they put on them. Resolution doesnt come into it most of the time.
For me wanting a keyboard I think I'll probably get a wizard because it's a smaller version of my Blue Angel. Though it'll probably be on ebay when the Hermes comes out
Lewis
Have you tried Quickwriting Yet!
It may seem strange but I can beat most people on a slide out keyboard using quickwriting, it takes quite a lot of getting used to but once you get the knack it is unbelievabley quick.
You never take your stylus of the pad and it very quickly forms a highly efficient shorthand as you start to use it properly.
give it a try, don't try to rush & practice a litte bit each day and I guarantee that you will be pleasantly surprised within a couple of weeks plus because you don't take you're stylus of the pad you can use it on moviny London buses, whilst you are stood up in rush hour traffic between stops like I am now..
Regard Ash'e
BigDamHero said:
Nope this what what I got from O2 UK. They said it was the tennative release date.
Lewis
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has not even been announced yet by O2 UK: will they really release a phone less than one month after announcement?
Are O2 phones sim-locked?
They Want it, just can't get it.
Just finished having supper with an O2 UK director (not marketing Dept), it appears that they do feel that that the XDA Atom, is going to be the ultimate lifestyle device & accessory, and a little more robust & a tadge more pocket friendly than the wizard & they are going to eventually add it to there UK product portfolio.
However with the device not even released yet & no real UK release dates truthfully on the horizon, & in there words: "our current XDA range is becoming slightly dated & cumbersome", they need to do something, and the Exec & Mini Pro appear to be the temporary solutions, until the Atom is released that is.
So I will forgoe the Mini Pro for now & stick to my dated XDA IIs in the hope that they secure some Atom stock and release dates soon, also have spoken to people who already have their Wizards and the general concensus is that the slide out keyboard is very fragile, so I think it is time to start investigating when & how to lay my hands on an XDA Atom. I still want that holy grail of smartphones & I think the Atom is going to be pretty damn close to it so.
It always taken more courage to dare to be right, than fear to be wrong.
So by hook or by crook Atom it is then.
Regards Ash'e
Hmmm.
I remain unconvinced by the Atom/Athena.
If I wait for anything I'll wait for the Hermes. It actually brings something new to the table.
Decisions Decisions!
Lewis
ATHENA
THE GODDESS OF WISDOM WHO WILL REIGN OVER ALL.
BLESS-UP.
Things look clearer now
After reading the reviews other people have given about there Recently purchased Wizards on the other forum I passed this comment:
Fantastic reviews chaps, everything I wanted to here, so in light of all that when and how can we all get our hands on HTC Athenas or XDA Atoms, it would appear every gripe here would be answered quite easily by purchasing an Atom, better size, lack of keyboard, faster CPU, more robust and ergonomic build and feel, 2.0 camera, these are you're thoughts not mine, all we all really wanted anyway was a HTC Magician with Built in WiFi, 128 megs of ram and WM2005 and in the Atom were getting it and a few extra bits all in that Magician size we new & loved.
As I said in a previous post: It always takes more courage to dare to be right, than fear to be wrong.
Regards Ash'e
I am considering selling my XDA IIs for this device, I can probably get a good $700 for it on eBay with all my accessories, and I would just buy XDA EXEC from o2, total 368 pounds after 1 year, equal to $650USD. How good is the Exec though. I hear people making so many complaints already!
The way I see it, there are three options:
1. Keep the XDA IIs
2. Get a regular (size) 'phone and either a Dell X50v or an HP Hx4700 or something
3. HTC Universal
1. is cheapest
2. Most powerful but more hassle carrying two devices
The need for VGA and being unable to go back to two devices after years of XDA usage meant that the MDA Pro was close to perfect for me.
It IS about twice as thick as an XDA, but that's not really a problem for me. The keyboard means that I no longer use handwriting recognition, and that suprises me. Some things could be better (web browser, terminal services client) but it's still all a damned site better than the alternatives.
HTH
Yeah but with a regular phone you cannot run GPRS programs on it, and I use a PDA w/ GPRS for the following -
IRC/AIM/Internet Explorer, and more applications. If I had a regular phone and a PDA, the PDA would be most likely pointless .
My 2 cents.... Take a look at the K-Jam (wizard) If you can live with the smaller screen size, the Wizard does all the things right out of the box that the XDA2s promised to but didn't.
I have used the Wizard for about 3weeks an no soft resets yet! Has been really stable for me. Bluetooth is near perfect. No problems with out of memory or launching wi fi. It has EDGE support. The slide out keyboard is much better to use than the XDA2s. It's a much smaller form factor too Over the past 2.5 years I have had the xda xda2 and xda2s. IMHO the Wizard is the first of all of these to do what was promised without softresets reflashing ROMs, and cooking extended ROMS. With Blackberry software (hopefully soon) it will be a pretty near perfect device for me. And the price is a good deal less than the jasjar.
If you can live with the smaller form factor, take a serious look at...
Hope this doesn't make your decision more complicated ;-)
Best of luck whatever you decide!
Chris
Hmm I'm not sure if this is just my experience or not but I have never had a contract mobile before ..
Always suspected they were a bit of a con/rip off/customer service black hole.
So anyway, I finally decided I need a personal organizer/pda for work and since my employer gets a 50% discount on o2 I figured why not splurge.
Ordered my XDA Exec yesterday on 400 mins cross network tarrif (£15 p/m) and the handset was £149.
It arrived 48 hours later!
Only it came by DHL in an obviously re-sealed box. The unit was inside, no cellaphane in sight. The battery was charged already and despite the courier listing a simcard in the box inventory there wasnt one in there anywhere.
I am pretty deflated by this rather awful service so far .. is this normal?
Anyway I figured, this does not prevent me from firing it up and playing around on the WIFI networks at work.
I have played with this thing for a good 6 hrs today at work and here's my first impressions...
1. Asthetically its lovely but the buttons are easy to press while getting it out of the leather wallet. Camera is always on when I open it up .. grr.
2. My screen has a yellow tint to it. Is this normal? Seems kind of like a crap TFT panel used to look on earlier laptop units.
3. Anything network related seems to frequently cause the unit to hang. Checking my mail .. downloading 500 mails from IMAP took 15 mins and eventually crashed it.
MSM seems to crash a lot.
IE on this thing is quite simply poor. This may be biased by the fact I am a firefox developer .. but it is clunky, slow to respond, PHP sends it into a catatonic state and secure websites just plain confuse the thing.
Lots of crashing. No flash support??
Not impressed.
4. Software. Like, where is it? WM5 has next to nothing useful thats free. I don't believe in shareware at all .. where's the OS stuff? Where's the PDA port of this and that? Very dissapointed that all the stuff I found was win 2003 se only and that was that.
This alone renders the thing a waste of time .. sadly ..
5. Keypad is just useable but I hate the feel. Keys are flat and the rebound is so firm you frequently have to go back and press it down harder to get the right chracter to appear. Its hard work tbh.
Oh and the most annoying 'bug' of all ..
When the thing turns the backlight off to power save, it doesnt seem to come back on at the same level it was at before going into standby.
It comes on so dark you have to tilt it to the light to get through the menus to turn it up.
Annoying .. but fixable I'm sure ..
Anyway, some thoughts.
Generally I think this has potential but it clearly hasnt got enough memory to run smoothly .. 49mb of useable memory? Pah! It reminds me of the kind of things you see on ebay where someone is selling a p4 laptop with 64 mb of ram installed. Waste of time.
The cpu is either crap or scaled so far back to save power it crawls. Jury is out on that for now ..
Summarizing, I DO like this .. but the lack of good free software and the diddy memory and seemingly bloated and clunky wm5 + bugs ruins it totally.
I will probably be trading this in for an XDA IIi next week.
That is if O2 sort me out. As it is, I am frankly disgusted with their approach to new customers! "Lets send em a refurb and see if they notice ..". I even told the guy I was a customer relations rep for a large corp. Like I know how it works .. bah.
That said, am getting 50% discount over Mr. Public. So can't complain TOO loudly ..
- Deleted -
This is the most useful review I have read. Thankyou.
TBH, its windows. It's gonna be buggy. I think they just send these out untested, safe in the knowledge that:
a) Buzz or Mamaich will inevitably patch, repair or find awkward ways around 90% of the bugs.
b) The average XDA user is a nerd and will probably follow those instructions/patches and *happily* put up with the buggy features.
c) Joe public isn't clever enough to operate a PDA properly. The average person is too stupid to realise that their PDA crashes itself. They think they're making it crash and are too proud to ask for help/consult the internet. They want a PDA 'cos all their work buddies have them and it makes them look important, using it for little more than checking emails occasionally.
d) Microsoft/HTC know that the kind of person who buys these PDA/phones is the kind of person who will always want the newest gadget, and so will forget about the bugs/issues as soon as the new XDA is released (with its own host of problems). Why bother fixing it when in a few months it will be old news and people will have something new to complain about.
PS, 02 gave me a refurb XDA2s when the insurance replacement they sent me was faulty. It works fine which only around 25% do so I'd rther put up with a refurb than complain and have a 75% chance of the brand new one they send me being faulty.
Sending this on the exec ..
I kinda figured o2 would be light on customer consideration. Hehe.
The phone I got appears to be alright now tbh. I have hard reset to corporate and it is light years smoother. In fact it hasn't crashed once in the last 4 hours!
Performance is fine now too. Still not as fast as you'dd like but it certainly feels more responsive.
I AM A DUMB ASS. The sim was in the box, it had been tossed in loose and was wedged between the user manual compartment lid and the inner structure of that fruity pandora's box.
I'm VERY impressed with the battery life so far.. Talking hours. Neato.
Of course the complete lack of developer interest/support in this version of winblows means i'll still not be keeping it unfortunately. Only Microsoft would release a next gen pda os and NOT include binary compatibility either natively or virtually.
So far haven't found a good free irc client that works. All either pay-for-fun or 2003se only. Bummer.
I have now decided the keyboard is useless. That + the wm5 software absentism means I might either trade for a 2003 xda or buy an IPAQ. Since they seem to have a vast quantity of stuff available: Including a LINUX distro.
With regards the keyboard.. Why the f00 they didn't consider half the number of keys correctly aligned and reasonably proportioned ... who knows. Maybe its like you say, this technology is just blingware and nobody seriously expected people to sit down and type a post like this one. Which, incidentally I am doing with the stylus!
Anyway my hand/neck/wrists hurt already.
Must decist for now.
gubbs said:
Hmm I'm not sure if this is just my experience or not but
3. Anything network related seems to frequently cause the unit to hang. Checking my mail .. downloading 500 mails from IMAP took 15 mins and eventually crashed it.
That said, am getting 50% discount over Mr. Public. So can't complain TOO loudly ..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
500 mails.. Wow!
Huib
My JJ crahes when downloading POP email, usually when I am using 3G.
I have to say the ergonmics of the JJ/Exec are mixed. But for me the keyboard is fantastic; typed for 2 x 30 minutes on the train.
for it is great
I have had mine three weeks and it is excellent.
The screen is clear and all functions work great.
I did not load the standard settings as this gives all the o2 stuff that slows it down.
Loaded spb pockect plus which gives as many features as i need.
i believe you have a returned unit.
I have purchased three phones from o2, the XDA, XDA11s and now the Exec and i have always had everything boxed and sealed the battery is normally partialy charged which is standard these days.
Your comments are the same as a friend of mine who ordered the T mobile option and his arrived like yours i told him to return it that day.
He contacted T mobile and his replacement arrived today boxed correctly and perfectly happy with it.
You have a 14 day return policy which some people seem to find a good way of ordering the phone playing around with it and then sending it back under the policy. This then will go back out to a new purchaser as O2 believe it is just a return as the customer did not find it to be what they wanted.
My advice would be return it now, tell o2 you are not happy as the box was resealed they will send yoiu a replacement probable overnight.
clive
How on earth did you get that Tarrif??
'Ordered my XDA Exec yesterday on 400 mins cross network tarrif (£15 p/m) and the handset was £149.'
I have not seen this anywhere and iot sounds great?
Hmm ok, well I'll get on to o2 in a few mins. Have a cup of tea first - has been a long morning.
Reg. the tarrif it's o2 200 + free double minutes for six months.
It would normally be £30 a month but my employer staff contracts afford a (generous) 50% discount.
The handset is marked the same on the public o2 website ... £149? I don't think I got any reductions on that.
BTW I am typing this on the keyboard today and would like to admit as long as the surface you have it on is very level and very firm (ie not your knee or briefcase lid) then its not so bad.
I also need to google and find out what spb pocket plus is ..
Also you know, I am a pda n00b. I'm sure a lot of what I have said is entirely because I haven't sufficient experience with this technology. I don't pretend to be giving anything more than as-is impressions.
Ok. Spoke to a nice lady at O2 - I think we had chemistry or something - cos she called me 'hun' and arranged for a replacement (new) handset straight away and bunged me £10 off my first bill.
Sweet.
I took it to my manager at work today who I know owns an XDAii and who is a SUPER Geek (tm). He informed me I am not using the keyboard right .. you have to hold it in your hands and type using your thumbs.
Doing this, with autocomplete by tapping the screen with a thumbnail produces some pretty impressive and speedy typing.
I also compared the screen to the one on his XDAii and frankly, it is noticeably smoother. Also in comparrisson the unit weighs in it's case practically the SAME amount as an XDAii (in real world tests not on paper I'm sure). It also found more networks on wifi, quicker than his XDAii and he has announced he wants one. Which would suggest, from a long term XDAii user, that these are a step up from that model. Well either that or he's viciously insecure, competative and fickle. I did say manager didn't I?
All in all, its OK. I seem to get it very grimey tho. Must get some wipes.
I'll be posting a proper, intelligent, considered, non-reflex review on here next week when I get it up and running. I'll also be taking the pictures with the camera and what not ..
Thanks, helpful opinions and info. Ordered mine from O2 on Friday, just watiting for it to arrive
M.
I've had mine about 2 weeks now and at first I wasn't that impressed. It was mainly that speed that annoyed me, but that's sorted now.
I did a basic install and removed all the O2 crap, well, I tried but it failed on the remove, so I deleted the relevant program from the startup and it's all good now. I went back to the Windows default theme as well.
I've got Resco File Explorer, MagicButton running and GSPocketMagic++, though all the features for GSPocketMagic++ are turned off (just having it installed makes it quicker, which is odd).
Screen flips are now down to under 2 seconds, which I think is reasonable. It now responds instantly to screen taps, whereas before it would have a delay of a second or so.
I installed spb pocketplus for a while but found it really slowed my system down. I think it was the battery monitor on the today screen that did it. It's now uninstalled and the thing flies.
All I need to do now is get some kind of navigation sorted and I'm fully happy. I think it's way better than my old XDA2.
So, which install should I do then, basic or corporate?
Thanks
M.
lol gubbs @ your thoughts and experiences.
The sad truth is that many of us get so much pleasure out of just owning a machine like the Exec that we're prepared to overlook its flaws, of which there are (to be honest) many. I love mine, but you're right: there's sod-all software available yet that is 100% compatible (and I mean properly compatible, not just "well, we think it works but it might slow your machine down a bit: try it and let us know how you get on"), and WM5 is horribly crippled by a lack of feature-rich functionality.
There is a halo effect on the Exec caused by its position at the cutting edge of Windows-based phone/PDA models. We think we have the best machines available.
IMHO there are three groups of Exec users:
- technologically ignorant users who use it exactly as O2 intended. Will be either happy or ambivalent about it
- geeks who love to tweak. (I'm in this group.) We, with this website, will work on the damn thing until we're happy with it, and this is part of the satisfaction and pleasure of ownership. Are already happy with their Exec because it's the best money can buy, and we overlook its little faults.
- newcomers who've previously owned a Palm/Treo/whatever. Will generally be disappointed with the Exec because it's different from what they're used to and will seem slow/crippled/buggy. Might become happy in time, but more likely to return unit and swear they'll never touch Windows Mobile again.
gubbs, I'd guess you were in the third group when you first posted here, but now you're moving towards the second group. I reckon you'll be a-tweakin' and a-moddin' with the rest of 'em within weeks! Then (and only then) will you love your Exec.
I agree.
After spending 10 months with the XDA 2s I couldn't go back to a "normal" phone. I've had PDAs since before they were called PDAs - this was my first one - http://tinyurl.com/cyhjo
Yes, I have to reboot it most days, and yes it does some odd stuff, but in general it's been an amazing device.
It's in for repair (lose keyboard) and I'm using an old Nokia 6600 while I wait for my Exec to arrive. I've only been without of for 3 days and it's been like losing my right arm!
M.
Hi,
I'm planning to buy a T-Mobile MDA Pro in the near future, but I am somewhat doubting wether I should.
Toi me, the 640x480 screen made me decide to go for the MDA Pro instead of the MDA Vario (Wizard).
I currently own a Nokia 9500 device, but it doesn't quite cut it:
- It's fairly slow, starting up the calendar takes 2 to 5 seconds, even if I keep it loaded it will take at least 2 seconds to redraw the GUI.
- Symbian (esp S80) is very incompatible, most symbian progs are for the S60 series, and there isn't a lot to find for Symbian S80
- Programming on it sucks, Symbian C++ seems to date from pre-ansi, and it's a pain to work with. I have tried it but gave up, and a lot of people I spoke to said Symbian programming is hell.
- Then Java is incredibly slow. This is my only programming language available atm on this device, and a program, even just "hello world" will take at least 10 seconds to boot, during which the device will be completely locked.
- The camera quality is horrific.
- No jackplug for normal headphones, and no pre-made converter available. Also the Nokia pop-port headphones tend to get off very easily after which it keeps playing at the same volume, but trough the system speakers. (which will result in the whole bus looking at you! )
Anyway, this kind of summarizes what I pay attention to.
If I buy an MDA Pro, I will be using it to phone, games (emulators & OpenTTD), internet (loads of MSN too), and some programming. I will mostly use the calendar and notepad for School.
What I've heard from the MDA Pro that I don't quite like but can't confirm
- Supposedly slow
- No way to attach mass-storage (like USB) with a converter.
Now I would very much appreciate if you as owners of the HTC Universal could give me some advice on this. I really don't know if this device is as good as it sounds, or not. and if I buy it, it's too late because I will have to sell my old N9500 and I would have to sign for 1 year t-mobile :/
Thank you in advance,
TB
First: don't buy MDA Pro!!! Buy XDA Exec, even if it has all the same annoying bugs, at least it looks good! :wink:
Second: Answers to your questions can be EASILY found on this forum, even in posts from last week so please, take a time and respect other's time and read it through.
1) yes, it's not a speed demon, but there are some ways to make it acceptable
2) No, (at least not yet) you can't attach any external drives to the Universal.
But it's definitely much better than Nokia 9500!
rottie said:
First: don't buy MDA Pro!!! Buy XDA Exec, even if it has all the same annoying bugs, at least it looks good! :wink:
Second: Answers to your questions can be EASILY found on this forum, even in posts from last week so please, take a time and respect other's time and read it through.
1) yes, it's not a speed demon, but there are some ways to make it acceptable
2) No, (at least not yet) you can't attach any external drives to the Universal.
But it's definitely much better than Nokia 9500!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the info, I kinda got both of those answers before, but in some forum topics I didn't quite trust (they seemed very biased).
I was actually looking for other things that I might have overlooked, or something that I didn't like about my nokia that wouldn't be solved on a Universal...
XDA Exec is more appealing to look at, I admit, but can you get the tariff to match your needs? I found web n walk from T-mob to be the best all round tariff. Might be different for you and your needs, but please look beyond the colour of the phone case.
HIH
Joe
joebongo said:
XDA Exec is more appealing to look at, I admit, but can you get the tariff to match your needs? I found web n walk from T-mob to be the best all round tariff. Might be different for you and your needs, but please look beyond the colour of the phone case.
HIH
Joe
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the reason I'm sticking to T-Mobile: It has "Pocket Internet Totaal" in the Netherlands for 10E a month, unlimited internet access capped to 64kbps
(While my current operator charges 3E per MB)
Universal/Jasjar/Qtek 9000 - too slow and heavy
I've had in the past the original XDA, then the II then the IIi.
I recently gave away my IIi and bought a Qtek 9000.
The Qtek 9000, after a few days trial, is going back!
In my humble opinion it's way too slow, and the size and weight are too much too carry it casually. As a mobile office for a patient touch-typist with tiny fingers it might be the business but it's not really a pocket creature.
The XDAIIi was perfect and I miss it! I'm going to order the Atom instead but would have no qualms about buying another XDA IIi if needs be.
Just my tuppence worth! No offence meant to Jasjar fans!
Best regards to all!
I would suggest to review again the installed applications.
From the beggining of this week I replaced Pocket Breeze with Calendar Plus and SPB Pocket Plus with VijayOKButt and VijayTrayLaunch and hey - now you can finally see that 520Mhz!!! What an improvement!! It's so much faster, especially the screen rotation. And you save about 4MB of memory not mentioning that these applications that I installed are free.
I still have my XDA IIi together with EXEC and sorry, but I just couldn't come back to QVGA :wink: .
I've just received an extra battery for my Exec bought of Ebay, now I'm just waiting for Vijay to find out the way to enable the keys while the lid is closed and then I'll be one happy Exec user! (oh well, until the summer when I'll have to think how to carry it wearing shorts :lol: )