Well, if all goes well I'll be receiving my PPC-6700 today. I hemmed and hawed about it. It's expensive and it's far from perfect. But in the end it looked like it had a lot of what I wanted and I haven't heard of anything that meets my needs better on the horizon, so I took the plunge.
A long while back (I think before the Treo 600 came out), I created a mockup of what I envisioned my perfect Palm OS smartphone might look like. This is what I came up with.
I'd probably change a few things, and I'm less enamored with the Palm OS platform these days, but if you look at that you'll see a couple of features that its design offers that are better than the PPC-6700. Specifically:
- Looks and acts just like a regular phone when closed.
- Good one-handed functionality when closed (not just for phone calls, but for PIM lookup, etc.)
- Gaming-friendly controls (note D-Pad left of keyboard).
But rather than complain that my particular dream device hasn't been built, I guess I should focus specifically on the PPC-6700 and the good, bad, and the ugly of it...
Good:
- Wi-Fi
- BT 1.2
- Multitasking OS
- More comfortable thumbboard than my Treo 650 (it better be, because that's probably my number one reason for buying it)
- The promise of developing some neat apps optimized for this device with VS.NET.
- Voice command software sounds cool. Looking forward to playing with that, though I guess I'll have to shell out another $40 to get it.
- EV-DO. Please let me have coverage and please let them not charge extra for it (or at least not more than $10-15 extra).
Bad:
- Phony silver plastic paint job. Reminds me of my Treo 300 (and, to a lesser extent, a Nintendo DS). This is a $600 phone for goodness sakes! Hopefully it will look better in person.
- All of the things I've always hated about the Pocket PC GUI that still haven't been improved upon.
- Mini-SD. I just bought a 2GB SD card recently. They couldn't fit a regular SD card in this thing?!?
Unknown:
- Will I be able to move around from field to field and widget to widget (e.g., buttons, drop-down lists) with just the keyboard and D-Pad as well as I can with my Treo 650?
- Will the physically larger, but lower-res 320x240 screen (as compared to my Treo 650's square 320x320 screen) give me more, less, or about the same info as my Treo's screen provides?
- Camera. Sounds like it's got some neat features that my Treo 650's camera lacks, but picture quality of some sample shots I've seen so far still look bad compared to even sub-$150 standalone digital cameras. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised, but I doubt it.
Overall, I must say that I'm a bit jealous of the GSM Wizard design, which looks nicer to me and may have some improved features (802.11g, BT 2.0?). But if I can get EV-DO coverage at an affordable price, I think the trade-off will be worth it.
I didn't realize it had a mini SD slot, that really stinks.
The more I read about this device the more I wonder if I'll actually like it, compared to my Treo 650.
I have become quite used to the one handed use of the Treo, threaded SMS chat & abilitly to use both the NAV everywhere in addition to hitting letters on the keyboard to quickly access apps and contacts.
I will also miss Verichat & TakePhone very much.
I have a second line on my account so luckily I will have a few weeks to decide for sure, without interrupting things too much.
Thanks Shadowmite... To be fair I did email Verichat on Saturday and asked about support for the 6600. Their response was that it was not supported but a release was under development and would be made available soon.
It would have been nice if it camed stocked like the i730 with a regular and extended battery.
Also I just bought a $130 BT GPS receiver - it came with an AC and a car charger. Am I the only person who uses my mobile phone in the car 50% of the time? A charger for the car really seems like it should be included.
The last item is the carrying case - what a POS!!! I don't necessarily expect something at the level of Piel or Coach leather products but a case that might actually be used would be nice - hell it could be nylon or a plastic holster for all I care as long as it was actually truly functional - not the fanny pack purse they included.
The one gripe about the chasis I forgot to mention in previous threads is the battery cover looks and feels like something from the dollar store not for a 600+ dollar device but I assume its all to keep the weight down.
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luv2chill - you are right - I didn't mention the positives - I am stoked about the new phone although dealing with Sprint has sucked the life out of it (I'm sure I'll feel different once I get my own phone in my hands).
I do like the smaller form factor, I like have BT 1.2, I like generating new business as my clients now want to have the latest gadget phones!
I point out things that aren't difficult for them to improve. Yes I'd prefer 640 x 480 res but I realize they may not be mass producing 640 x 480 screens this small yet so I'll wait for next year.
There really aren't any issues that prevented them from including a decent case, a spare battery or a car charger. I think it would have helped sales and lets face it it would only COST them $10 more to include them (no comment on how much they charge for these things). I've used the i730 and either Samsung tweaked the screen or uses better screens and better speaker so UTstar isn't putting the premium parts in so they could afford to at least match the battery and holster of the i730. The holster of the i730 is plastic - lord knows that wasn't expensive to include!
I forgot to mention they could have used a standard USB plug on the phone so you could use most people's usb printer cable wherever you are.
Lastly a couple more buttons on the units pronounced forehead would have been a good use of space!
Originally posted by 8notime Thanks Shadowmite... To be fair I did email Verichat on Saturday and asked about support for the 6600. Their response was that it was not supported but a release was under development and would be made available soon.
What's up bud? Havent seen you since the good old i500 days when we were all asking the same questions and lying awake at night dreaming of the release date!
I got mine today, so I can now add to the list with my very brief real-world experiences.
Good
- Looks like D-Pad/keyboard on-screen navigation is implemented better than I expected. I can do most things I need to do without touching the screen. But see below.
Bad
- On-screen navigation isn't implemented as well as with the Treo 600/650. By that I mean that it isn't as obvious how to move from here to there. For example...If I'm using PIE and I've got the focus on the URL field I can't use the joystick to move the focus somewhere else. I've got to use the Tab key on the keyboard first. Then I've got the focus on a link on the web page and can now use the joystick to "tab" around and change focus.
- GUI for phone app is not optimized well for a screen this small. The number buttons are too small. This is the same GUI they use for the 6600 which has a significantly larger screen. A screen this small needs a phone app (and, I'd argue, any portrait-oriented app) with fewer, larger thumb-friendly on-screen buttons.
- It needs more dedicated application buttons. In particular, I think it would benefit from a dedicated "Menu" button. Instead, most apps end up wasting one of their precious "soft" buttons for pulling up the application menu.
- Another trait missing that is found on the Palm OS is what mode the "Shift" is in. Microsoft thinks they know better than us and likes to auto-capitalize the first letter of fields. Fine. But at least let me know that you've auto-shifted so that I know to manually un-shift if I need to start a word with a lowercase letter.
* In short, usability is classic "Pocket PC" (i.e., poor) as compared to the Palm OS.
Ugly
- What an ugly beast this thing is. My Treo 650 is a thing of beauty in comparison. Cheap silver plastic is reminiscent of my old Treo 300, though I think my Treo 300 seemed better.
Scott -- I am pretty sure you can change the size of the number buttons by tweaking the UI. People on HoFo were having the same problem with the Jam, which they solved by adjusting something. On the desktop, it's changing the font size. I don't know the name of the control in WM5.
Ok. UPS delivered this thing to me less than an hour ago.
LIKES:
1. Its SMALL, it almost looks like I'm not a geek when I carry it.
2. WI-FI setup was as easy as you can imagine.
3. Form factor is much nicer (keyboard slider) than I expected.
DISKLIKES:
1. Its SMALL, almost a little too small to read alot of text on. I'm a big ebook guy, this might hurt my head.
2. MINI-SD? come on now, I thought SD was small enough.
3. Headphones on the bottom? Why?
I showed it to my wife and she was amazed at the size, I think she might even want one. I cant wait to get it activated. I've been on hold for 30 minutes now trying to activate it.
OH, I saw the EV icon come up when I turned the bad boy on for a couple of seconds. I'm in central jersey and officially according to sprint there isnt supposed to be any coverage in my neigborhood but I'll be looking!
Originally posted by SpineDoc What's up bud? Havent seen you since the good old i500 days when we were all asking the same questions and lying awake at night dreaming of the release date!
LOL, thanks for remembering me! I totally bailed over to TreoCentral, once I laid hands on theTreo 600 & eventually moved over to the 650. I just couldn't keep up with the many forums portals available.
I've acted just as batty with each new PDA phone release, calling Sprint a gazillion times the moment I hear about one, & trying to be one of the first to get my hands on one. It was Shadowmites Treo Killer thread over at TreoCentral, that made me rush to the phone and order the 6600. I even have 2 of them on their way now, since I didn't think the first order went through properly. Now that the craziness is wearing off & I'm starting too read a few reviews, I'm just hoping I didn't rush to judgment, as I've really grown accustomed to the Treo. I guess I'll know in a few days.
As for as the i500, I would have NEVER abandoned the i500, if it had true SMS & OS5. The Treo was looking to sweet & I loved the huge community of users that were hacking the Treo to make it do all the things we wanted it to do. But the i500 was and still is the perfect size pda phone in my opinion.
But seeing that yourself, JRoss & RJMoose are still around over here was sure nice!
Originally posted by Scott R I got mine today, so I can now add to the list with my very brief real-world experiences.
Good
- Looks like D-Pad/keyboard on-screen navigation is implemented better than I expected. I can do most things I need to do without touching the screen. But see below.
Bad
- On-screen navigation isn't implemented as well as with the Treo 600/650. By that I mean that it isn't as obvious how to move from here to there. For example...If I'm using PIE and I've got the focus on the URL field I can't use the joystick to move the focus somewhere else. I've got to use the Tab key on the keyboard first. Then I've got the focus on a link on the web page and can now use the joystick to "tab" around and change focus.
- GUI for phone app is not optimized well for a screen this small. The number buttons are too small. This is the same GUI they use for the 6600 which has a significantly larger screen. A screen this small needs a phone app (and, I'd argue, any portrait-oriented app) with fewer, larger thumb-friendly on-screen buttons.
- It needs more dedicated application buttons. In particular, I think it would benefit from a dedicated "Menu" button. Instead, most apps end up wasting one of their precious "soft" buttons for pulling up the application menu.
- Another trait missing that is found on the Palm OS is what mode the "Shift" is in. Microsoft thinks they know better than us and likes to auto-capitalize the first letter of fields. Fine. But at least let me know that you've auto-shifted so that I know to manually un-shift if I need to start a word with a lowercase letter.
* In short, usability is classic "Pocket PC" (i.e., poor) as compared to the Palm OS.
Ugly
- What an ugly beast this thing is. My Treo 650 is a thing of beauty in comparison. Cheap silver plastic is reminiscent of my old Treo 300, though I think my Treo 300 seemed better.
You've just confirmed all of my biggest fears I'm too used to the navigation on my Treo to switch to anything less. Maybe it'll get better after a few days......
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There is a program called PIE plus that gives you that functionality that you desire with the LINK shifting using the D-Pad, well worth it and it lets you even choose to be identified as PIE Mobile, PIE 5.5 and PIE 6.0 as well as many other cool features.
Listen guys, just like your Treo needed APPS to make it the phone for you, so will the PPC. Simple fact among ALL forms of these devices. REMEMBER: YMMV. This is coming from a Treo 300, 600, PPC6600 and beginning tomorrow 6700 user. I still even carry my SK2 because it does things well.
a couple more buttons on the units pronounced forehead would have been a good use of space!
Hey there SpineDoc!
I'm too used to the navigation on my Treo to switch to anything less. Maybe it'll get better after a few days......
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