Jan 04, 2006 11:35 PM
4607 Views
(Updated Jan 04, 2006 11:42 PM)
Prelude
Pull out this phone at the mall... and people gasp... they look at you in awe and whisper... some bow to you, others clear the way and let you pass.
That's the effect this phone has on the riff-raff.
...meanwhile, you are cursing the phone and the person at the other end of the line is giving you his choicest. What price the vanity...
===
The above may be a bit too dramatic, but it sums-up my feelings about this phone after using it for a month or so.
The Looks
This is it's biggest plus point... it is too cute, has the right curves and the best looking antenna in the business (oh well, if you have read my other reviews, you will know that I am an ''antenna man''). It's ''fiddlability quotient'' (if there is such a thing) is too high...
Operation
The PDA-Phone integration is ok, sort of... and I will not go into the whole shebang as you soon get used to its idiosyncracies.
But you never get to a point where you can operate the phone ''smoothly'' as you end-up ''fiddling'' with menus, buttons, touch screen, the idiotic stylus and the keyboard. Something about it just does not click.
I can now understand, right from the time this phone was launched, there have been criticism about this phone; the screen resolution is very poor, the camera is bad, there is no removable battery, the screen is not centered on the phone, requires occasional to frequent rebooting... the list is endless.
My guess is, HandSpring/ PalmOne focused on integration of features rather than the features themselves. You end up feeling that everything could have been so much better, if only...
But there are good bits as well, the full keyboard is surprisingly useful and usable, the backlight is good too. The voice quality and speakerphone are good, but the volume could be higher... I'm not the kind of person who is enamoured by ring tones, but there are some pleasing ring tones preloaded in this phone. The appointments and to-do applications are well integrated and quiet useful if you are into that kind of thing.
One thing that bugged me is, you need to actually purchase some software from IBM to run Java programs on this phone... You also don't get bluetooth (who can live without that one!)... There is no alarm clock...
In the final analysis, it is great to hold in your hand and to be seen with. You could even use it as a phone...
