Database Users

Does universal works as a phone nicely ?

Is it true that you have to do the flip-and-rotate dance everytime, when you have to receive the call(or make the call) & when you dont want to use the speakerphone ??

I leave my phone in the closed clam position, got Microsoft Voice which tells me who's calling, so all I have to do is push the red or green on the side to ignore/answer the call...

jmdrizen said:
I leave my phone in the closed clam position, got Microsoft Voice which tells me who's calling, so all I have to do is push the red or green on the side to ignore/answer the call...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but what if you are in laptop/clamshell mode?
then do u have to do the flip and rotate dance?

If you are laptop/clamshell mode, you can just answer with the buttons on the hinge, and answer the call with it shut. You probably wouldn't want it unnecessarily rotated, since you'll get face grease on your screen.
If you want to see who's calling, a quick lift and shut is all you need.
Cheers,
Steve.

imate blows
I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you that my experience thus far has been really ****ty as far as using this unit as a phone. the reason I say this, is that despite having updated my unit to the latest ROM upgrade , I'm still experiencing missed calls!
This despite my repeated attempts at contacting the clowns at the live online service at imate. Their email service has been better, but has yet to offer resolution to this immense problem. I say immense b/c I have paid around a grand for a pda with a phone which is completely unreliable as a phone.
Bear in mind, this is my imate experience.
hope this helps.

Re: imate blows
edved said:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you that my experience thus far has been really ****ty as far as using this unit as a phone. the reason I say this, is that despite having updated my unit to the latest ROM upgrade , I'm still experiencing missed calls!
This despite my repeated attempts at contacting the clowns at the live online service at imate. Their email service has been better, but has yet to offer resolution to this immense problem. I say immense b/c I have paid around a grand for a pda with a phone which is completely unreliable as a phone.
Bear in mind, this is my imate experience.
hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL you paid how much? you must be one of the unlucky ones. since I got my device, I've not really had a problem with the phone part, just the camera at the moment, which seems to be rom related.

Re: imate blows
edved said:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you that my experience thus far has been really ****ty as far as using this unit as a phone. the reason I say this, is that despite having updated my unit to the latest ROM upgrade , I'm still experiencing missed calls!
This despite my repeated attempts at contacting the clowns at the live online service at imate. Their email service has been better, but has yet to offer resolution to this immense problem. I say immense b/c I have paid around a grand for a pda with a phone which is completely unreliable as a phone.
Bear in mind, this is my imate experience.
hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL you paid how much? you must be one of the unlucky ones. since I got my device, I've not really had a problem with the phone part, just the camera at the moment, which seems to be rom related.

Re: imate blows
edved said:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I can tell you that my experience thus far has been really ****ty as far as using this unit as a phone. the reason I say this, is that despite having updated my unit to the latest ROM upgrade , I'm still experiencing missed calls!
This despite my repeated attempts at contacting the clowns at the live online service at imate. Their email service has been better, but has yet to offer resolution to this immense problem. I say immense b/c I have paid around a grand for a pda with a phone which is completely unreliable as a phone.
Bear in mind, this is my imate experience.
hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL you paid how much? you must be one of the unlucky ones. since I got my device, I've not really had a problem with the phone part, just the camera at the moment, which seems to be rom related.

I have never had any problem with the phone. But I have taken a couple of actions:
1. Disable the video phone component, it is bloaty and if you dont use video phones saves 3mb of operating RAM
2. I extended the time it takes to go through to voice mail from 10 seconds to 30 seconds
3. I dont vet any calls, if available, I just answer from the hinge whilst close, so I dont do any flipping to see first
4. My phone always answers at the beginning of the second ring, that with a 30 seconds to voice mail works fine
5. I never let my phone go below 15mb of available ram so it doesnt slow down.
So as a phone, its fine, as a pda its brilliant.

how d'ya do that
1. Disable the video phone component, it is bloaty and if you dont use video phones saves 3mb of operating RAM
is this an easy thing o do?
cheers.

very easy, its posted on WIKI.
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Universal_Registry
States
To set or remove the operator phone skin
The setting is at 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security\Phone\Skin'
The 'Enabled' DWORD value can be set to '1' to show the operator skin or '0' to show the default skin
For example, to show the default skin
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security\Phone\Skin\Enabled = 0
You should try the link to view many of the registry hacks for the universal.
There is also a maintained forum on hacks with downloadable cabs here
http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Universal_Registry

Re: imate blows
LOL you paid how much? you must be one of the unlucky ones. since I got my device, I've not really had a problem with the phone part, just the camera at the moment, which seems to be rom related.[/quote]
Can't say I use the camera much, except perhaps for the strange or abnormal chest xray I may see at work. Otherwise useless.
Yes, I ended up paying a grand for this thing. Impulse purchase. What did you pay jojo?

I paid $1500 AUD, about $1100 USD.
I have always bought my phone outright for an unlocked phone that is not dependent or tied into a phone network.
Plus there are extended taxation benefits....

I love mine as a phone, best reception on both ends I have ever found with a phone.
Like everyones said, you can essentially answer a call 4 ways.
1. Default (clamshell shut)
2. Open it and flip it to portrait mode
3. Open it and use it in laptop mode w/speaker phone
4. Bluetooth headset.
personally the idea of Microsoft Voice Command sounds good cos I like to know whos calling, have it tell me would be pleasent
In any case, despite the ringtone not kicking in till the end of the second ring, I have scarecely missed a call. Actually short of not having the phone in an audible radius of me I dont think I have missed a call.
Its always good to have system memory but I dont notice a change in the phone service when my ram dips below 15mb.

Re: imate blows
edved said:
LOL you paid how much? you must be one of the unlucky ones. since I got my device, I've not really had a problem with the phone part, just the camera at the moment, which seems to be rom related.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't say I use the camera much, except perhaps for the strange or abnormal chest xray I may see at work. Otherwise useless.
Yes, I ended up paying a grand for this thing. Impulse purchase. What did you pay jojo?[/quote]
I paid £150.00 for mine

so u mean i can answer a call with clamshell shut ??
is that true?

The answer to your question is yes. You can answer the phone with the clamshell shut.
Cons:
You will not be able to see who is calling.
You will need bluetooth or wired headset to answer the phone.
Caller ID numbers are available but not the caller name on Bluetooth devices like the BT800.
Personally, I use my Qtek 9000 more as a PDA than a phone.
It's a much better PDA than it is a phone. The keyboard and the screen on the Universal are the main reason why I bought it.
My advise, if you're planning on using it more as a phone than a PDA, then consider other devices. As a phone, it's heavy and bulky. As a PDA, I can only sing praises (except for the occasional soft resets that I have to do).
FYI, here are the main uses that I use the Universal for:
1). Streaming music while I'm driving
2). Watching avi files while I'm on break
3). Daily planner
4). Going online to check on info
5). GPS device with software and an external bluetooth GPS receiver
6). MSN messenger while I'm on road trips
Hope that helps in your decision.
I don't know how much you'll be paying for the Universal. I did pay a lot for it (since it's not available in the US with any cellular companies) but I consider one of the best investments I've made in a PDA/Phone.

modem_man said:
The answer to your question is yes. You can answer the phone with the clamshell shut.
Cons:
You will not be able to see who is calling.
You will need bluetooth or wired headset to answer the phone.
Caller ID numbers are available but not the caller name on Bluetooth devices like the BT800.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Incorrect, the phone will answer perfectly well if you just pick it up and press the green button on the hinge. The three holes on the right of the case are for the sound to come through and the mic is at the bottom on the left of the keyboard.
This is a well thought out device.
If you have personalised ringtones for most of your contacts you should have a pretty good idea of who is calling anyway.

thanks everyone for blurring away the doubts

PReDiToR said:
modem_man said:
The answer to your question is yes. You can answer the phone with the clamshell shut.
Cons:
You will not be able to see who is calling.
You will need bluetooth or wired headset to answer the phone.
Caller ID numbers are available but not the caller name on Bluetooth devices like the BT800.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Incorrect, the phone will answer perfectly well if you just pick it up and press the green button on the hinge. The three holes on the right of the case are for the sound to come through and the mic is at the bottom on the left of the keyboard.
This is a well thought out device.
If you have personalised ringtones for most of your contacts you should have a pretty good idea of who is calling anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or... Get Microsoft Voice 1.5, and the fantastic patch by R. Works A1 on mine, I keep the phone clam shut in a zip case. And get a "Call from X" loud and clear telling me who's calling... no need to open or owt, just red/green on the hinge... fantastic...

FBI Listening in?

Does anybody know if the roms we are putting on our phones allow for this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G1fNjK9SXg
I'm not really paranoid so much as I am curious. Okay... maybe a little paranoid... but it's not paranoia if they really are out to get me

Not surprising. I am fairly certain the cell carriers have to give access to the datastream, and its not OS dependent. Any phone authorized on the carriers network is a potential microphone.

doesn't it have to be a modified handset or something? i thought I saw this story getting debunked on one of the other forums here a while ago. Somewhere in "general" maybe? anyone remember?
TBH when I hear something on fox news without even any squeak of an indication of a source; I tend to take it with an even bigger pinch of salt than I take the mainstream corporate media in general (that's a lot of salt.)

Phone needs to have gps equipped in the phone..But it can...why i know this.. i know someone and not a friend of a friend that was tapped by local atf agents thru his cellphone... Luckily for him he lived out of service. Usually when they say gps enabled phone... They're triangulating between three towers hence triang... Anyway from what i thought the mda doesnt not have a gps chip in it so were safe.. Unless im retarted and then i was right about everything until the last statement...
Ask me how i know?? Google it damn it

Actually, they don't need to triangulate on a gps-equipped phone. If they have your cell number, they can work with your provider and you can be triangulated based upon your signal strength and proximity between 3 cell towers. GPS has nothing to do with that.

Yep, my brothers a cop and they tracked a murder suspect through his cell phone and it was just a regualar cell phone. It's the same way that if you dial 911 they can track you to within like 10 feet of your location if I remember right, it might be even closer than that. If you have a cell phone, then they can track you if they need to. The only way to get around it is to not have any service at all or to turn your phone completely off.
By the way, they have to get a court order to do that, well that is unless you work for Bush's homeland security and then I guess you can do whatever you want whenever you want.

all cell phones sold in the US as of 1/1/06 have to be equiped with a gps chip that can be activated by your service provider or emergency services. i worked in cell phone sales when this law took effect.

i think that you are all little bit paranoid and would actually love that this can be true but it can't.
It's easy ...how the f can they locate a turned off phone when the network can't find it..cos it's turned off, right ?
In order to activate the microphone and send pretty big amounts of data, that would be impossible if you have no network coverage....remember, the phone is off. Maybe they can radio control the remote mic in order to turn on ...but still...really really hard to swallow.
And one more thing...why the hell would the us gov would spend that kind of cash to listen to your calls ? Stupid is one thing but this is totally a waste of money...so don't worry guys. The mob phones that they were talking...they can exist but only if made custom.

UK Listening
A technician i met from BT ages ago mentioned this wasy possible and used quite often even more so now.

Triangulating on your phone location, that very well possible. Getting a normal phone to send signal when it is off, is rather.. technological impossible. From what it seems, the only way these FBI is able to do that is to swap your phone with a modified version (e.g. like the movie 'Enemy of the State').
However, if you are REALLY paranoid, you can do a simple test. For a mobile phone to send any major signal out, it will causes big interference. Example, putting it next to a speaker, a TV, and it will give your speaker / TV some form of distortion. If your phone where to be sending out any form of signal, you ought to able to detect it in such way.
As how to activate the microphone when the phone is off, that's another story. The best possible way to do this, without being very obvious, is to act passively, like an old fashion pager, that sits and receive instructions. However, to do this, one will need a hardware that is switch on, on this *modified* phone. If your phone is authentic, then it needs to be done if on any exploitable bug within the phone firmware, and that ought to be phone specific.
Conclusion, it will be safe for most of us. Anyway, I would wish this technology is real, and if that's case, all those terrorist will have been caught very easy.

My question is if the phone is really completely off when it's powered down. Has anyone measured to see if there is any battery drain while the phone is powered off? If there's none, then there wouldn't really be a way that I can think of for this to be possible. If there is a drain, then it gets closer to the realm of possibility.
I think I'd be a bit careful with the idea of giving up freedoms and liberties for the illusion of security. It's a good idea to be critical of any Government asking their citizens to give them up for any reason. In a perfect world, only terrorists and "bad guys" would be negatively affected, unfortunately innocent people always end up being caught in the crossfire.

That would be easy to track unless you use Cingular...
THEY cannot even get a connection to you phone sometimes (J/K)

You could easily tell though because you think what happens when you turn wifi on your battery goes down so fast its the same when there listening in cause your phone is sending and recieving data all the time. The tracking technology has been around for quite a bit theres a public version for parents to track the kids and stuff but they cant track them when the phone is off.

Uhm ... News like this can see in Austria too ... but its more like Hacked Blue Tooth Headsets they use for Spying. If FBI switch you Phone to any Spymode ... the Batterie Drain is very high!

spying with your phone
i know there is software available which NEED TO BE INSTALLED on your phone.
after installation you can call the phone and use the mic to listen what is said in the neighbourhood.
this piece of software is often used by woman or man who wants to catch their cheeting partner

Is my phone being tapped?

Very strange occurrence the other day...
I'm in a meeting with my Director and Deputy Director. My Director gestures to my 8525 and tells me to call one of my co-workers who's across the country so we can include him in the dialogue. I phone his cell, hit Speakerphone, and hand my device to him.
After a few mnutes of conversation, his blackberry starts to ring. He hands my phone back to me to take the other call, and disappears into his adjacent office. The Deputy Director asks for my phone so he can continue the conversation with the other guy.
Two minutes later, my Director emerges from his office with an astonished look on his face. He says " I can hear THAT conversation " (pointing to my phone) "on my line."
I tried to find out if the call he received on the blackberry was actually a call, or if the only thing he heard when he answered was my cellphone's conversation, but the only thing he said was "it came up as a private number". FWIW, my own number is not blocked. He's not an easy man to speak with, so I dropped the questioning there.
Anyway ... has such a thing ever happened to anyone else here? Can anyone provide any explanation? This one has me baffled ... and obviously somewhat concerned about the security of the calls I make/receive.
Thanks to anyone who can provide an explanation,
-pvs

That is really strange. The only thing somewhat close to that, that has happened to me was many years ago on a wireless landline and my neighbors wireless landline. Whenever I'd be on the phone speaking with someone, he could pick up his phone next door and hear the whole conversation. I know it's not exactly what you experienced, but it's true that any kind of wireless signal can get crossed pretty easily.

I can't say this is what's going on with you specifically, but i do know that there is software that can be sent remotely to any cell phone without the owner knowing about it. This software can then be used by the person who sent it to the phone and they can listen to any and all calls you make, read and record all emails, text messages, and even utilize the microphone on your device to pick up conversations you're having when you're not on your phone. For example, you have your phone charging across the room and you & your spouse/friend/etc... are having a conversation across the room well the "hacker" can activate the microphone and pick up the conversation. There is even an ability to activate the built in camera's etc....
I know all of this sounds totally bogus and i thought it was as well until there was a somewhat recent national news story on it. It was on the msnbc website as a major story not to long ago and even had a video segment you could watch. Apparently this software is marketed as a way to "catch your cheating spouse" and it's from what they said very expensive to use. The story they were covering specifically was about a teenage girl who constantly recevied phone calls that were threatening her and the caller would be able to play back converations that she had when sshe wasn't even on the phone. Very Very Very CRAZY stuff! I'll see if i can find the link to the news article and i'll post it. It still blows my mind.
Also, blackberry's are a specifically easy phone to deploy the software on as well.....
i'll post the article if i can find it

One thing it happened to me is that a guy phoned a friend with my number. Is it possible? I was not in the town, and of couse i had my mobile in my pocket in the whole process...
Is this hack possible?
Do you guys know cases like this? poeple getting black mailed or listeners in companies head quarters... hehe Xfiles!

ok i found a the specific video i was referring to. it was on nbc. here's the link
http://video.nbc10.com/player/?id=122710
for some reason the video seems to load slow but be patient it will load....
I also found this new's article http://www.clickpress.com/releases/Detailed/40926005cp.shtml
and in this article it refers to a news broadcast of a family on the morning show and provides you with a link to a youtube video http://www.clickpress.com/releases/Detailed/40926005cp.shtml
some crazy sh*t......

cesardeluxe said:
One thing it happened to me is that a guy phoned a friend with my number. Is it possible? I was not in the town, and of couse i had my mobile in my pocket in the whole process...
Is this hack possible?
Do you guys know cases like this? poeple getting black mailed or listeners in companies head quarters... hehe Xfiles!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes i know that this is possible for a fact. I've actually had someone do it to me as well and finally convinced them to show me how. Basically it's called caller id spoofing and some websites will show you how to do it for free. other's like www.spoofcard.com charge a small fee but allow you to do it as well. i've actually seen a news story on this as well.... I'll see if i can find it. here's link to an article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11624504/

heres a link to the first video i could find....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d8gIQZWUEM

pvs said:
Very strange occurrence the other day...
I'm in a meeting with my Director and Deputy Director. My Director gestures to my 8525 and tells me to call one of my co-workers who's across the country so we can include him in the dialogue. I phone his cell, hit Speakerphone, and hand my device to him.
After a few mnutes of conversation, his blackberry starts to ring. He hands my phone back to me to take the other call, and disappears into his adjacent office. The Deputy Director asks for my phone so he can continue the conversation with the other guy.
Two minutes later, my Director emerges from his office with an astonished look on his face. He says " I can hear THAT conversation " (pointing to my phone) "on my line."
I tried to find out if the call he received on the blackberry was actually a call, or if the only thing he heard when he answered was my cellphone's conversation, but the only thing he said was "it came up as a private number". FWIW, my own number is not blocked. He's not an easy man to speak with, so I dropped the questioning there.
Anyway ... has such a thing ever happened to anyone else here? Can anyone provide any explanation? This one has me baffled ... and obviously somewhat concerned about the security of the calls I make/receive.
Thanks to anyone who can provide an explanation,
-pvs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
two options:
1. the person you called added him to the conversations (confrence).
2. a very rare networking problem - got 2 complaints about it it at work(in 4 years)

WOW! This is a real eye-opener! Thank you utexascg (and others), for the very infomative articles.
I guess it's time for the AV companies to cash-in on the new tech-treachery that's available. And I guess ... if the common joe can pull this stuff off nowadays, imagine what the NSA and other governmental departments could do.
Now we'll need 800MHz processors to do the work while we have firewalls running in the background.
This is pretty scary stuff.
-pvs

elivne said:
two options:
1. the person you called added him to the conversations (confrence).
2. a very rare networking problem - got 2 complaints about it it at work(in 4 years)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmmm, the first COULD be possible, except HIS number would not have been blocked (private).
That leaves #2. Can you provide some details about how it happens?
-pvs

pvs said:
Hmmm, the first COULD be possible, except HIS number would not have been blocked (private).
That leaves #2. Can you provide some details about how it happens?
-pvs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
about the first - you did say he was out of the country - caller Id isn't relayed abroad most of the times.
about two - I don't know how or why(and I have no proof only the complaint).

elivne said:
about the first - you did say he was out of the country - caller Id isn't relayed abroad most of the times.
about two - I don't know how or why(and I have no proof only the complaint).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No... not out of the country ... we are in Jersey, he's in SanDiego. His Caller ID SHOULD show up ... unless he's using that spoofing stuff
Hmmm ... OK. I hope somebody else can chime in with some ideas.
FWIW ... doubt it makes any difference, but the blackberries and my 8525 are on two different carriers. BB's are on t-mob, 8525 is on Cing/AT&T
Thanks for the input, elivne,
-pvs

wow! this is some very interesting and scary stuff never knew these things existed! i had one experience when i was on a phone with a classmate and all of sudden i can hear 2 girls talking and i asked if my classmate can hear it too but she said she didnt and thought i was crazy hahah. i was on a cordless phone so i bet the phone line crossed some how. but its nothing compared to 2 cellphones crossing tho

I'm part of the club!

Haha sorry guys for posting an essentially pointless thread but I've been ALWAYS wanting an Advantage and I finally got one coming for a good deal. I'm pretty geeked. I also have a Touch as a backup so I may only use this during certain situtations. My main and ONLY concern was that it doesn't have an earpiece but I'll figure something out. I think I may take a BT headset apart and flatten it to the back or something. I'm sure I'll post my efforts here so look out.
Does anyone have a suggestion to what the "best" ROM is available? I'm looking for speed and stability and one that works with GSEN on an x7500.
Cheers

no clue since i own the 7510
but GSEN works perfectly for me.
Coolest thing is when watching videos in CorePlayer, with GSEN, it rotates on the fly, and it doesn;t matter how you have the thing aligned, it'll always show it correctly

AllGamer said:
no clue since i own the 7510
but GSEN works perfectly for me.
Coolest thing is when watching videos in CorePlayer, with GSEN, it rotates on the fly, and it doesn;t matter how you have the thing aligned, it'll always show it correctly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sweet can't wait. My luck it won't work on the 7500...

if you want gsen to work with your 7500, you would have to download roms made by irus or sogarth. i've installed these on my 7500 and gsen works just fine. if you don't install these roms, most likely you will come up with a message saying "cannot locate gsen 3" or something like that. so far these roms that they've released are the best for the 7500 (if you want to have the autorotate feature). although gsen will work, there are many applications / games (ported out from the htc diamond) that work for some and at the same don't work at all for others.
however, roms by michy are also fantastic...though they don't support gsen....but i think he's working on that =)

congrats, juice. Its definitely not intuitive/easy-to-use in the phone department, not like most dedicated phones on the market. I recently went back to using an old flip phone for a week (trip to Disney, didn't want to loose or damage my Athena) and it definitely made me yearn for ease-of-use for simple phone calls. But, with a device that can almost literally do everything you have to accept some trade-off.
Many of us use the Jabra BT8010. It somewhat makes up for the shortfalls since its has vibrate, caller ID, and gives you a private earpiece. Also gives you stereo of you want that.
I've been thinking about trying to find a cheap flip or candybar phone that supports bluetooth HFP with Athena as host, or HSP, or PBAP and SAP, or maybe CTP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile ). Bottom line, the ability to use the dedicated phone as a phone without having its own SIM. But, it would be a larger solution than just sticking with my 8010 and would probably need charging every other day so I stick with my 8010. The battery on the 8010 lasts forever.

techntrek said:
congrats, juice. Its definitely not intuitive/easy-to-use in the phone department, not like most dedicated phones on the market. I recently went back to using an old flip phone for a week (trip to Disney, didn't want to loose or damage my Athena) and it definitely made me yearn for ease-of-use for simple phone calls. But, with a device that can almost literally do everything you have to accept some trade-off.
Many of us use the Jabra BT8010. It somewhat makes up for the shortfalls since its has vibrate, caller ID, and gives you a private earpiece. Also gives you stereo of you want that.
I've been thinking about trying to find a cheap flip or candybar phone that supports bluetooth HFP with Athena as host, or HSP, or PBAP and SAP, or maybe CTP ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile ). Bottom line, the ability to use the dedicated phone as a phone without having its own SIM. But, it would be a larger solution than just sticking with my 8010 and would probably need charging every other day so I stick with my 8010. The battery on the 8010 lasts forever.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good info thanks alot. Yeah I sometimes take a bunch of calls and sometimes hardly ever. I'm thinking I'm just going to ignore calls that I can call back later in private over speaker. I'm also going to try and stick my ear up to the speaker(probably not possible since the speakers look located on the side). Holy $hi4 would that be hilarious looking. But my main prob will be the calls that I have to take in public... I'm serious about flattening out a BT headset to the back or side.
Have you seen the guy who put a BT headset in a glove? Same concept. Take apart a BT headset it ends up being mostly wires and/or a little chip(s). Maybe put a slight mold/cover over it so there might be a minimum hump. But at the size it already is wouldn't be a deal breaker in any shape or form. It however would need to be charged separately. I'm going to be carrying it without keyboard or case so I'm trying to minimalize it's "footprint" all around. Having to carry another piece of tech like a BT headset I think would get very annoying. I will probably keep one in the car though.
Speaking of the car, thats another reason I'm getting this. My commute to work just doubled and I always wanted a "car computer". IMHO mounting an Advantage(or a UMPC for that matter) is the quickest easiest way to do that. I can watch the news on my way home from work via Sling(not that I would ever do that because it's very dangerous and probably illegal). Check realtime weather not to mention big screen GPS. Oh can't wait to test Live Search with the Satellite view. I also got some webcams set around my house that now I can watch in VGA!
This is going to be interesting.

not sure what you find so hard about the Athena as a phone.
but using any BT headset, specially the Jabra BT8010, you can do a simple 1 click, and say who you want to dial, and it dials it for you.
sooooo easy to use.
my Palm Treo never worked so well, even with th same features.
techntrek said:
and it definitely made me yearn for ease-of-use for simple phone calls. But, with a device that can almost literally do everything you have to accept some trade-off.
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Click to collapse

Dedicated phones are 1-hand friendly, with all my other phones (since 1993) I've been able to use memory dialing or even dial a new number without even looking at the phone while going down the road.
With my BT in my pocket where I can't get it when I'm driving, its a multi-step process to make an outgoing phone call right from the Athena... turn off BT takes 3 button presses, then dialing can take from 2 to many more... then turn BT back on when I'm done... and most if it also can't be done with one hand.
Nothing as easy as using a dedicated phone, even with my old Motorola Star-Tac.

hey juiceppc - also make sure you upgrade your phone to radio 1.58 if you are often in 3G coverage. Otherwise I recommend 1.57.

How to make device automatically visible with bluetooth

When I go into the Comms. Manager and turn on Bluetooth I have noticed that the device isnt automatically visible, you have to go to settings, bluetooth, then select the box to make device visible.
Is there anyway to make this happen when you turn bluetooth on.
Thanks

If there is then also be careful. If you are walking down the street at night alone anyone passing by is going to know you have an expensive phone.
I used to think leaving discoverable on was a good idea but now I only have it on when needed in case some techno-savvy mugger is nearby.

Alex Atkin UK said:
If there is then also be careful. If you are walking down the street at night alone anyone passing by is going to know you have an expensive phone.
I used to think leaving discoverable on was a good idea but now I only have it on when needed in case some techno-savvy mugger is nearby.
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I know what you mean.
But Im after a tweak for when you turn bluetooth on to receive a file or something you dont have to manually select the make my device visible option

Alex Atkin UK said:
If there is then also be careful. If you are walking down the street at night alone anyone passing by is going to know you have an expensive phone.
I used to think leaving discoverable on was a good idea but now I only have it on when needed in case some techno-savvy mugger is nearby.
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Click to collapse
lol, isn't that being a little too much paranoid? I mean, what muggler would actually stand and update his bluetooth to show nearby users everytime someone walked by him at night?! Sounds kinda silly to me, if someone actually took his time to do that I would give him my X1 just for the trouble, lol!!!

Could have sworn i read about it haapppeinng to someone.

You don't need a phone, but a bluetooth laptop and some snooping software. Work in a team of two with one in a car and one down the road on the street and it's dooable.

Bluejacking is real and I've been a victim of it before. It is especially prevalent in places with lots of people (airports, subways, buses, cafes etc.). And all it takes is a minute or two.... that's why I keep my bluetooth invisible until when I need to do some file transfers.