Database Users

Ny regrets?

I am about to order MDA JAM myself and wondering if I am doing the right thing. I currently own XDA 2 imate, which I am trying to sell right now with no apparent luck. New JAM cost about 518 Euro's. 64 megs of RAM...
It's small, nice looking and what I've heard, very stable and very well build. But I still can't justify this upgade...
Please, point a lost soul to the right direction

Is size a major issue for you right now? Do you get alot of strange looks from holding the very PDA-like XDA2 to your ear?
If size is enough of a justification to you, then go for it. Otherwise, you're getting a unit with pretty much the same capabilities. Yes, there is also a 1.3 megapixel camera, but the quality of the pics don't look any better than that of the pics taken with the XDA2.

Go for it !
Hi
I had similar concerns when I considered the upgrade, but I have absolutely no regrets now. I have a Pocket PC that is so unobtrusive, I feel so much better. If you travel a lot or move about a lot, keeping track of various things does turn out to be a bother, particularly if you have the rather large xda with you. I feel like I've been freed, somehow.
Just a feeling, but worth the upgrade. BTW, I got a good price for my XDA2 hence the upgrade.
Sands

No regrets here. It's a feather-weight and feels tons smaller compared to my old XDA...
I doubt you will have any regrets either! Just fetch the most possible for your XDA2...

Kai920 said:
No regrets here. It's a feather-weight and feels tons smaller compared to my old XDA...
I doubt you will have any regrets either! Just fetch the most possible for your XDA2...
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Thanks
Already sold my XDA 2

It's a nice little unit. Seems pretty solidly built, and I've only had one crash so far when I was trying to run a game.
However, there are definitely downsides. I just switched from a SE Z600 to the Magician, and for one thing the bluetooth is not as stable as the SE. I transfered about 200 contacts yesterday, and the Magician completely stopped receiving about three or four times. I had to turn it off and then back on again to get it working.
The second shortcoming is the phone sound quality. Seriously, this is a major issue that has been discussed on almost all forums dealing with the Magician. It sounds horrible compared to the Z600. We can only hope this will be adressed in a future software upgrade.
Thirdly, the battery could last a little longer. I get about a day and a night's usage out of it before the thing runs dry. Then again, I am a heavy user. My trusty old Z600 lasted about 72 hours before I switched.
Finally, the camera is a massive waste of space on the device. The pictures are dark, grainy, very blurry and almost completly lack color. The only sensible thing to do is to reprogram the camera button to do something useful, and forget that there even is a camera.
Those are my major criticisms towards the Magician. Overall, it is a pretty sweet device that I would definitely recommend to anyone wanting to buy a smartphone.
Skip

This sounds insane!!!!! :roll:
Are you trying to compare a powerful smartphone to a Z600 in terms of battery life??? Jam is one of the most impressive pocketpc phones in terms of battery life!!!
Anyway as for the stability problems I guess we have to wait till they iron all the ROM problems and that is the case with most SE or Nokia phones too! And if you think how much more complex is a pocketpc phone then you can understand that its still too early.
What I have to say is that the English T-Mobile ROM is by far the most stable ROM compared to iMate's and Qtek's ROMS. I also never had any problems with the sound quality and it seems the sound problems are not there in T-Mobile's phones. I guess its a fawlty hardware component in imate's and Qtek's banch of phones! Then again only time will tell if its a software or a hardware problem after all.
As for the camera its really bad at the moment but I guess its a software problem and not just low quality lens! Other people with good knowledge of photoshop filters are saying that the pics are ok but the auto settings of the camera's software are crappy.

Katsj, I noticed your preference for the t-mob rom. Is it available and can I put it on an i-mate device? Thanks, A.

I agree that comparing a smartphone with a 400 MHz processor to the Z600 is slightly unfair, but that doesn't mean I am perfectly happy with the battery life of the Magician.
It is decent, since I can go for more than a day without recharging, and I might be able to squeeze some more out by shutting of Bluetooth and lowering the screen brightness.
As for the sound there appears to be two unrelated problems, one of them having to do with poorly constructed legs for the speaker, the other being poor speaker software. I seem to be suffering from the latter.
I have seen the photos that some people claim to be decent after improving them in Photoshop. I am far from impressed. Then again, I have yet to see a camera that produces good quality photos.
Releasing a device with inferior firmware seems like poor business practice to me. I know it has become quite commonplace, but it's still a nuisance. Additionally, as this is not the first Pocket PC Phone from HTC, one would think that they would have ironed out the major faults
My bottom line is: The Magician is far from perfect, but it's a neat and sweet little device. Prior to it I would have never considered buying a Pocket PC phone.
Skip

apap said:
Katsj, I noticed your preference for the t-mob rom. Is it available and can I put it on an i-mate device? Thanks, A.
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Click to collapse
Of course you can! You have to follow my instructions! You will need an SD card 128MB or bigger and a card reader! But remember flashing your phone with T-Mobile's ROM and then getting it to a service for any reason with a different provider's ROM will void your warranty! I would recommend you should wait for a newer iMate ROM where they will iron the bugs so you ll be fine without loosing your warranty.
I was the one that fixed a friend's iMate JAM speaker and as far as I understood the problem in iMate JAM is most probably both hardware and software! If I were to buy an iMate JAM I would wait till they fix all those problems in their production line first and I would make sure I would get a JAM not from the first ones! I am so happy I bought a T-Mobile MDA Compact and not an iMate JAM.
As for the camera YES they should use a better camera. Sometimes I think they only got a 0.3MPixel in JAM and they use an interpolation routine that makes it look like a 1.3MPixel one only in resolution! In my opinion HTC has to think of a CCD camera and not a CMOS in the next models! SonyEricsson S700 is a very good example of a nice cameraphone.
I love my MDA Compact and at the moment there is no other gadget that would keep more happy than it! :wink:

To get better results from the camera, make sure that the sharpness is around 10. The default 5 is horrible and was fixed in some imate extended ROM version.
Regarding colours, make sure you adjust the brightness and contrast. Avoid the default settings, they're horrible. When playing with the brightness or contrast, focus on something red in a light background. The red will help you balance the contrast while the light background will help you balance the brightness.
Changing the above settings will give you some VERY DECENT results for a camera phone. Certainly better than most Nokia and SE phones. Maybe not as good as Sharp's though! :wink:

Herald: Is it as good as it looks?

Hello Everyone with a Herald,
My JasJar just died (RIP) and i'm looking for something to replace it (and possibly my Ubiquio 501)...
I love the look of the Herald and it's slim form factor (but still with a great size keyboard). The OMAP 850 seems to be quite snappy too...?
I also think it might sit quite nicely between my old JasJar and the Ubiquio 501 that i have. I have tended to carry them both around most of the time...
But i have just one question... (and probably others out there would like to know the same).
Are you happy with it?
Thanks for your thoughts in advance.

That good eh?

I have a treo 750v which i think is the best phone ever built. My gf bought me a Hearld for Christmas. I've used it 3 times as my main phone. While it is a great phone size wise it's really nice, the kb is roomy and has a great feel to it. The screen is just breath taking. It's a GREAT upgrade to the wizard, if you don;t need 3G then it's probably the best PPC out there with a big screen and wifi. To me it's the second best PPC out there compared to my treo. Hope this helps? Let me know if you have any questions.
P.S. the soft touch paint is really nice also. The only downside to the phone is it's weight, it's pretty heavy. 174g compared to my treo which is 154, and my P990 which is 150g

Wow, you have a lot of devices!
Thanks for the tips... Bizarrely, my Universal has just resurrected itself, so will keep on with it for the time being... was seriously tempted with the Herald though, it's really nice! As you say, the black paint finish is amazing!

Dont know mine just turned up in the post now, dont know how good it is but it looks damm fine!

I have recently bought a new Herald, since my Prophet has passed over (RIP) and my wife wouldn't land me hers.
I had to take a decision in a few minutes: I had both a TyTN and a P4350 on my hands... I went for the latter.
PROS:
Keyboard. No other device compares to the Herald's keyboard. In terms of touch and opening mechanism.
The form factor is pretty close to the Prophet's. It's just a little bit thinner, but a little bit longer... you wouldn't notice the difference anyway.
Screen luminosity is tremendous: you can read it even under the sunlight.
Battery lasts long enough to forget you have to recharge it, from time to time.
AKU 3.2 put a new life into this device. I'm not using OmapClock anymore... To my experience, only Skype still suffer from CPU slowness.
With that black finishing, the 4350 is... beautiful. Simply.
CONS:
Mini USB and Headphones share the same plug. Thus either you charge it or you listen to your music. So bad.
It's a little bit heavier than the Prophet, but still below 180gr.
MicroSD. To me that is the real shame. I have a 4GB SD that has now became useless. Also the cost is higher: ~30EUR for a 1GB MicroSD vs ~19 for a 1GB SD.
My 2 cents.

I've had my P4350 for the past week and I love it. My previous PPC edition was a Jam, and the P4350 seems smaller. The keyboard is great and the operating system seems a lot faster than the Jam, despite having half the clock speed. The D-Pad is fantastic for one-handed use.
I got mine from egadgetdepot and I highly recommend them. They shipped it same day and threw in an additional Charger, Car Charger and a decent screen protector.

Herald Or G900

Hello Everyone!
I ordered Herald yesterday. Probably at the end of this week I am gonna be holding it in my hands. Even though; I can not stop thinking about Toshiba Protege G900. It has got pretty good pros compared to Herald. Should I cancel my order and buy a G900? My hesitation comes from:
1- Obviously Cpu Speed. 201 vs. 520 Mhz. (Well. Some say G900 is slow and laggy due to high resolution)
2- Price. G900 is 50 bucks cheaper in my country.(I do not mind that a lot actually)
3- Htc has 16 Kb of level 1 cache, G900 has 32 kb (I do not know what does that effect)
4-Htc has 64 Mb of ram when G900 has 128 mb
5-Bigger, better screen with higher resolution on G900
6-G900 has 2.5mm audio jack
7-G900 has 3G
8-Well, as you can see G900 looks like a newer better technology but, Some people on the review sites say that G900 has a poor battery and overall performance even when overclocked, due to high resolution. Plus It it not compitable with a lot of software because of high resolution issues.
So what do you say? Should I get "the better but untrustworthy one" or "good old slow reliable one"?
Thanks!..

I would stick to HTC just b/c of a community such as this...its that simple for me

Just because of community? Yes it is important but what do you think about pdas. If you were unaware of such community which one would you buy?

Let me tell you something, you'll probably throw the G900 into the wall after a week of use. Even the latest firmware has not fully cured the its very popular SOD(sleep of death) in which the device does not comes out of standby. This happens even more if you put your device in standby with data connections running. Couple this with the instability it posses and no support from Toshiba(they say that they wont be rolling out any new firmwares for G900), I would say, why buy something so expensive which is just so unreliable and whose specs only look good on paper and not in reality.
I'm using herald(dopod C800) from the past 1month and perfectly happy with it. I jumped to it from O2 Atom Life(which has 624Mhz processor & still feel, it was slower than Herald). I'm happy with my decision. I m a happy customer and have even ordered a Black Armor(metal) case for it from Boxwave.com since this is going to be a keeper for sure
edit: Herald is not slow at all if you overclock it(which is harmless and does not effect the battery life much). Also, the ROMs here will make your device much more reliable, stable and faster.

kdskamal said:
Let me tell you something, you'll probably throw the G900 into the wall after a week of use. Even the latest firmware has not fully cured the its very popular SOD(sleep of death) in which the device does not comes out of standbuy. This happens even more if you put your device in standby with data connections running. Couple this with the instability it posses and no support from Toshiba(they say that they wont be rolling out any new firmwares for G900), I would say, why buy something so expensive which is just so unreliable and whose specs only look good on paper and not in reality.
I'm using herald(dopod C800) from the past 1month and perfectly happy with it. I jumped to it from O2 Atom Life(which has 624Mhz processor & still feels slower than Herald). I'm happy with my decision. I m a happy customer and have even ordered a Black Armor(metal) case for it from Boxwave.com since this is going to be a keeper for sure
edit: Herald is not slow at all if you overclock it(which is harmless and does not effect the battery life much). Also, the ROMs here will make your device much more reliable, stable and faster.
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Thanks a lot man. You totally cleaned my suspicions about Herald. I am keeping my order and will be around about my questions on Herald.

Where to go after Hermes?

I've been happy with my Vario 2 this last year, but my upgrade is coming up at the end of August.
Problem is, where to go next? For all the Hermes' faults (average battery life, the inherent flaws of WinMo) there really isn't a big leap forward out there as far as I can see. Considered the Vario 4, iPhone 3G, Omnia, X1, even the n96 but nothing has really grabbed me.
The Touch Pro / Vario 4 has an improved display, but that seems about it - and I'll lose all the buttons. Similarly the Xperia (if it ever surfaces). Underrated things, buttons - oh, touchscreens are all fine, but I'd hate to rely on just that. Every single button on my Vario is programmed and regularly used.
Seriously thinking of holding off for a while. Wondering what other folks' thoughts on Life After Hermes is.

Well, so much of that decision is personal preference. Just a quick thought though - If your Hermes is set up sweetly and does not have any of the screen issues and need for soft resets on a regular basis then in a sense why change.
Personally I find my Kaiser TyTn II achieves little more than my Hermes except in the memory department (lots better) and in the reliability department (never crashes or needs soft resets). And although there are those that say the Kaiser is slow, believe me when you change from Hermes to Kaiser you feel the increase in speed. If you are an avid video watcher then TyTn II probably not for you, although I find it performs identically to my Hermes in that regard.
However as you have the chance to skip a generation, then yes the Touch Pro should offer yet another small progression - except it's too soon to identify any problems that one may have. (Do you know, I have really gotten used to the Tilting screen on the Kaiser - can't imagine going back to the flat slide - now touch pro with tilt, that would be nice if only from a very practical point of view.
Mike

I've only just recently got a Hermes lol but have been enjoying it so much that I already have been giving thought to this same question. The only answer I've come up with so far is just to keep using the Hermes. If and when it dies I'll look at what else there is but at this stage I imagine I'll just buy another Hermes, they are getting better value all the time as they are getting cheaper.

I was also contemplating my next device, after the iPhone 3G announcement I thought my decision was made. The pricing was just right, but I found out that you had to take a 24/36 month contract that was the end of that. I am going to keep my phone until a third Hermes generation comes out as I feel the major push to the TyTn II would be the GPS, but I don't really need a GPS at the moment.

If there's any new phone without camera, please tell me (no, not Nokia E51). My 8500 is getting a bit old

If you can wait a couple of months then the Touch Pro is the way to go.

googles android platform

nqina dlamini said:
I am going to keep my phone until a third Hermes generation comes out as I feel the major push to the TyTn II would be the GPS, but I don't really need a GPS at the moment.
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I'm also waiting on a TyTn III someday!

galaxys said:
I'm also waiting on a TyTn III someday!
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I'm waiting to see what T-Mo US does with a WinMo device that'll play nice with their AWS roll-out.
It's sort of a shame that they had no choice but to go the 1700/2100 route....the Xperia was mentioned as being 1700 friendly, but I've seen different reports that says, uh, no 1700 for you!

TheBrit said:
If you can wait a couple of months then the Touch Pro is the way to go.
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That's my point though. It's not. Better res, FM Radio, apart from that the Kaiser does it all and has all the buttons too.
I want a phone that keeps all the features I currently have and adds to them, not one that throws some of the best away.
Right now if I had to upgrade this year, it would be to the Vario 4. But it's not the leap forward I'd hoped for after 18 months of the Hermes.

I Dream of a new Phone

You know, at some point you almost have to wonder how much more do we really "need" in software.
Things we needed were GPS, wifi tether and better audio. We have all that now in hacks, workarounds. While we didn't need to OC that's just a nice bonus along with apps2sd but the fact still remains, it's a phone.
The sad thing about the G1 is the hardware and particularly the camera/video functions among others.
Thank goodness for android and google. They really got it right and are really pushing the technology, which makes it exciting. One day we'll have hardware that's as good as android and the development going on at this forum but even today we have so much more functionality than the typical phones out there.
I was a blackberry user for many years. I liked blackberry for one reason. They just did what they were supposed to do.
My son and I were out of town the other day and we had this discussion. (he works for T-mo.) I asked him if you were stranded and had only one phone call to make, would he pick his BB or his MT3g. He said without hesitation, the BB and I concurred. It's not that we could not count on Android, but if we were betting our survival on it, the BB hardware would get the call.
I like the g1 better than any other phone out there right now. The virtual keyboards lacks a lot to be desired. Having the best android phone and the work that Enom, Cyan and others have made a pretty lame hardware phone better obviously but we still have a ways to go on hardware.
I've looked at all of the newer offerings out there but always come back to the G1. Fact is, as lame as it is, it's still better than all of them.
Who will make a really fine android phone is anyone's guess. If you have not followed some of the pocket video cameras that technology is really moving along. We can already do 1080p/30fps and 720p/60 in the Kodak zi8. Panasonic and Canon both have optical image stabilizers that actually work and shoot still images at 5mp and up. Some are using Zeiss and Leica lenses. Get some of that technology inside an android phone along with a flash and you really have a "camera phone".
I never understood why HTC and others put the speaker on the back away from your ears. As small as the speakers are, it only makes sense to put them where you can hear them. If your phone is to be used for an mp3 player, video player, GPS device, speaker phone why not put the sound where you ears are?
It also boggles my mind why something with all these capabilities, like gps wifi, email, web surfing and such a large screen has such pathetic battery life. The stock battery is about 900mah usable as we know, and that's a battle we fight every single day.
One of these days it's going to dawn on manufactures what we actually need in a all in one device. The OS is solid and getting better everyday, but the hardware is lagging waaay behind from current state of the art and some of these designs for android are only incremental and cosmetic upgrades at best and some of the makers are STILL missing the point entirely.
If it's going to be a phone that does multimedia, surf the web and has a camera, let's bring up the hardware changes up to the rest of the technology and I suspect many of us will leave the G1 far behind. Until then, my G1 has to stay.
Oh yeah, one more thing, if it's going to be a camera phone, add a tripod mount to the bottom of the phone. How hard could that be?

IMO they leave all the high tech junk out to keep the cost down. Before android, I always wanted the TP2, or the htc fuze. The high sticker price is what kept it out of reach for me. These htc android phones retail for a steep amount already, if the add high-def cameras, state of the art processors, big RAM and screens the cost will be out of the "average consumer price range". I've seen a couple smartphones that cost well over a grand, I think that's what your looking for
Remember 10 years back, phone screens were monocrome, ringers were just beeps, and motorola was king. Give it some time, maybe in another ten years all that you described will be standard in a smartphone.

Even Nokia in the N series has a much better camera for a camera phone. While it's still SD it does an excellent job for video and the "N" price is about the same as a G1.
You can buy one of the Panny Lumix P&S cameras for about $200.00 at costco that does 720p/30 that have both optical zoom and optical IS and very sharp lenses and that's a full fledged camera. I just can't see it costing that much more for something similar and even if we didn't have HD, we still should have something usable for our G1 which we don't right now.
Look at the Creative Vado, that thing is 99.00 and while it's not state of the art, it does a surprisingly good job at video.
The G1 was $599.00 when it first came out. That's pretty steep for the hardware we actually received. HTC didn't even give us a headphone jack. Who's bright idea was that one for a "multimedia device"? Yes we can add one with some drilling and soldering, but why should we for $600.00?
The "upgrade" if you can call it that, to the MT3g was ram and styling. HTC still didn't see the need for a headphone jack. FINALLY, they heard us and gave us a headphone jack in the Touch Pro 2. Like I said, I think we get incremental upgrades in these HTC phones for whatever reason. I'm not shelling out for another phone unless I see some real improvements which I haven't seen in the last year.
The virtual keyboards are hard to use, I'm much faster with the hardware keyboard. Great idea, but not ready for prime time IMO. If HTC is going to mandate I use one like the MT3g, better make it really work well, which let's face it, it does not.
I'm not telling you anything you don't know, we all have the g1 on here. I just wish someone would do better and I'm hoping one day they will because I believe in Android but I'm not happy with the HTC hardware or their design flaws. I think we all could agree on that point.
I just ordered an extended battery for my G1 because I don't see anything coming soon worth replacing it. I wish it wasn't so, but appears to be the case from my viewpoint at least.

I don't see me changing from a G1/Dream for a long time, especially with the new Tmo contract set up. I am no longer on a contract, so that means the next time I want a phone, I have to pay for the phone in installments for 20 months or up front. That alone will make me think harder about an upgrade in phones. The "minor" improvements for me have not been worth the pricetags they have been asking, so If and when my G1 dies or I feel the need for a new phone, I will just use my insurance to get a new one for 100 dollars. Maybe by then the g1 will be phased out and I will get a g2

I was pretty happy with the g1 when i got it. the hardware is pretty decent though the camera is a let down.
The stock battery is actually 1150 which is the same as what my old mda vario had and that is a smaller battery aswell. Ive toyed with the idea of getting an extended battery but i dunno if i could deal with the extra bulk it adds to the phone.
what baffles me is that the g2/hero is practicaly the same phone, without a hardware keyboard. the only difference i have found is more ram. i would have expected a cpu upgrade atleast.
there is 1 android device that catches my eye and thats the verizon. it looks to have a much larger screen.
im hanging off until another droid phone comes out that has a full upgrade, cpu mem, camera and screen.
the screen was a disapointment being actually smaller than it looks in pictures, and very noticably smaller than the iphone. and thats what makes the virtual keyboard a little difficult, is that hhalf inch of less csreen width comapred to the iphone

veda_sticks said:
The stock battery is actually 1150
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Well, all of 1150 is not usable because it cuts off at 900 to save settings. Ever notice when the phone won't start you still have a little battery life left? That's the 15% you cannot use. Yes, it's 1150, but only 900 until your phone does not work.
There is a thread on here about the Yoobao battery where someone came up with these numbers. Bottom line is it's 900 usable.

jlacy76 said:
Well, all of 1150 is not usable because it cuts off at 900 to save settings. Ever notice when the phone won't start you still have a little battery life left? That's the 15% you cannot use. Yes, it's 1150, but only 900 until your phone does not work.
There is a thread on here about the Yoobao battery where someone came up with these numbers. Bottom line is it's 900 usable.
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The phone shuts off and refuses to turn on when it cannot operate with stability with the voltage that the battery is currently providing. Phones don't save a few mah to save settings because they mostly use non volatile memory to store data nowadays (taking out the battery won't erase your settings)...

You are right and I was wrong but still it's 900 usable.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=522146&page=2