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Farewell

by Volker Weber

I am retiring a few of the smartphones that I have used over the last couple of weeks. This turns out to be quite easy. I won't miss them at all. For a simple reason: A smartphone needs either a touchscreen or a qwerty keyboard. Series 60 and Windows smartphones have neither.

Why does a smartphone need a keyboard and/or a touchscreen? Many of the applications you want to use require text input such as URLs or emails. If you have a touchscreen you can either write on the screen or bring up a virtual keyboard. With a Series 60 or Windows smartphone you have to peck on the 12 keys of a standard phone keypad and hope for some T9 magic. This pretty much rules out all standard smartphones for me. I'd rather get a less capable but small phone instead.

So what about the P910i? It isn't as bad as my initial impression suggested. The camera needs a lot of light to take any decent pictures like this one. However, the device is very slow and sometimes very weird to handle when the jog dial fails you and you have to peck on the screen. Besides, there simply is no point using a P910i when you also have a Treo. Since I had to switch chips between the phones all the time I found it kind of weird that the P910i won't start up, not even into flight mode, when you don't have a GSM chip inside. Why is that?

Did you notice that I never mentioned a particular Windows smartphone? That should tell you to stay away from them. :-)

Comments

So, is a Treo 650 the ultimate smartphone?

What's wrong with the Qtek 9090 / iMate PDA2k ? It's got a thumbkeyboard, WiFi, Bluetooth and it's even got a touch screen ;)

Yes, the P910i is a little sluggish sometimes and the camera is crap - but I wouldn't call it very slow. No problems with handling, either. Both business and entertainment value are extremely high - for me, that is.

From my cold dead hands :-)

Jan-Piet, yes, the Treo is the best smartphone I have tested so far. However, I have not used the Communicator so far.

Kay, the Qtek did not play in this contest. It is not a smartphone but rather a PocketPC with phone. See Microsoft Mobile for the difference. What's wrong with the Qtek? First of all, it is very big. Which means it won't fit in a shirt pocket. Second, it is not built for one-hand operation. But it certainly is an interesting device.

Volker, next time you are checking out PocketPC Phone units, be sure to look at the HTC Magician aswell. Smaller then the Qtek(XDA2s) but no keyboard. Personally, I like my XDA2s but as a phone, battery life is limiting.
http://www.pmooney.net/blogsphe.nsf/d6plinks/PMOY-69EU9M

Volker, you're right, there is a difference between an ordinary WM Smartphone and a PPCPE - the features.

Phone Edition just has it all; yes, it's not the smallest - but you're using a headset anyways while driving, right?

By the way, I've been successfully able to operate it with one hand, don't see the problem

Ceci n'est pas un blog

vowe.net is a personal website published by Volker Weber a.k.a. vowe. I am an author, consultant and systems architect based in Darmstadt, Germany.

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