Well, after 12 days of playing with the new PPC-6700, I decided to take advantage of Sprints 14 day return policy and send it back.

This was not an easy decision. I really enjoyed this device and all in all, will probably purchase again when the v2 comes out. Not knowing if the problems were related to WM5 or the device itself, I decided, for myself, at least, that if I am to spend $479 on a new toy, I want to have less head-ache.

Thanks for answering my questions and providing me with a lot of valuable information.

Matt

What problems are you referring to?

R

Well, I'm keeping it but I have a LOT of problems with it. Some of them are minor (external speaker is bad, camera delay when taking a picture is too great, etc.) most of the problems are OS/software related.

I think most of it is with Windoze (just like its desktop cousin you have to "ctrl-alt-del" with some regularity!) but I'd still rather have Windoze on my device since in the long run I can probably find more software for it.

Here is just a few of the most annoying problems:

- Just this morning, I woke up, picked up the device and it was completely frozen with the screen on. From what I remember at the time IE, WMP and file browser were loaded on the device. I had to reboot.

- All yesterday it kept disallowing data communications because it was unable to get a modem connection. I had to periodically bounce the flight mode to fix it.

- Integration with the storage card is buggy. It seems most software that try to semi-actively use the storage card can put the device in a coma (black screen) so that it can't even receive calls!! sometimes if you pop the card out and re-insert it it will unfreeze the unit.

Lots and lots of small problems with a few big ones. Too many reboots and worse speakerphone ever.

I too am thinking about returing the phone. It is frustrating that the screen goes black and you have to play with it for minutes sometimes to get the light on. The phone can just accidentally dial the phone and to stop it I use Mortsaver and now the battery drains very fast. I too get the modem issue and the flight mode problem is just obnoxious. I do fly often and whenever I use this feature and get back to the ground my phone turns on flight modem in the middle of call. A reset or removing the battery is the solution to stop this hearache (oh I forgot to mention you have to be out of flight mode when you hit the soft reset). The stange thing here is that I write programs for PPC with WM2003 and cannot understand why there are so many problems with this phone. The pop3 is buggy, I had the sprint I/T department on the phone with me, it does work most of the time and the inbox erases itself most of the time with new E-mails. I can't find a way to clear the last phone number so that it is not on the screen after the call. I use a bluetooth (Plantronics 510) and that does work well except wth the MS voice command program, which I had to buy after paying so much for the phone. I cannot hear anything the phone MS VC is saying to me, I can speak and VC does recongnize my commands.

I've never seen any mini sd issues. Wonder if it's software related.

I had a love/hate relationship with this phone. When it was working, there is no better device, but when you experience the small issues, I wanted nothing more than to return it. If it were a $250 - $300 device, I could have delt with the issues, but for almost $500, I wanted something a little more tried and tested.

Some of the problems (concerns) that caused me to send back:

1. Freezing when sleeping and needing to re-boot.
2. Backlight not coming on for any reason at all.
3. Delay when you turn it on (supposedly due to mini-sd)
4. Speakerphone is almost un-usable.
5. Too little memory.
6. Plastic grinding and continued wear on keyboard sliding.
7. Reception almost non existent at my home (compared to my other Sprint phones).

Again, I am not trying to bash this unit. I wish I had more time with it. Once these bugs are fixed, I am confident I will have another.

I haven't seen any mini-sd issues since removing phm..

actually, (and I'm jinxing myself) - my phone's been rock solid for the past two weeks; my only annoyance right now is bluetooth and voice command (the fact that it leaves the audio channel open if it mishears me..)

-m

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mvgals.net [MV Galleries] - Clublife, Revisited.

holy crap i knew your name looked familiar..and then i saw it..on the spundae board!!!

but to be on topic yeah i thought about returning it after the first few days because it was extremely frustrating..phm self installer not working, the lack of the today screen ive got now thanks to spb, etc. the learning curve was pretty steep for me coming from the treo 600 and the 6700 was pissing me off. i love it now though. there are things i miss and nagging annoyances but im pretty happy with it overall. im sure once the programs start rolling out that are compatible with wm5 it'll make it even better.

small world
-m

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mvgals.net [MV Galleries] - Clublife, Revisited.

I would venture u have the 'always' on hack and am in somewhat evdo fringe area? I just did the hack last night and see similar issue today as you described

I have had mine for less then 24 hours and so far my decision is going to be easy. I though the new version of windows mobile would fix many of my usability complaints but so far I am not impressed in the least. Everything about the palm is better, EVERYTHING. Even my old treo 600 feels faster and is more functional then this 6700. I'm not new to ppc. Owned one device or another since they came out.

To be fair some things are better about the 6700. The camera and screen are nicer then my treo 600. Other then that I cannot honestly find anything to prefer about the 6700/ppc platform.

It's too bad that sprint/audiovox/htc didn't optimize this device before shipping it out the door - it performs so much better with the tweaks found in these forums (i.e. more memory for graphics, more memory for disk caching, etc)

I can see how people wouldn't be impressed with the device off the bat.
-mark

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mvgals.net [MV Galleries] - Clublife, Revisited.

I agree with alot of what is being said here. But honestly I still like the phone. I didn't know if I would like it more than my 6601, but now after using it since the 3rd day it was released, I love it. Wouldn't go back. I just hope some of the little things that bother me and things that are mentioned here, are fixed in an update or two. I think this phone is a good step forward, and us early adopting types always suffer the growing pains.

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LAK
Sprint 6800/Mogul
6700, 6600

We early adopters are essentially late beta testers, no question about it. That's the risk of being first with the latest and greatest. It's probably part of the reason why Sprint restricted early distribution of this phone -- which we all complained about. Adding to the problem is that the phone uses an entirely new OS for which many apps have not been specifically updated yet. Given all this, my approach has been to stick with the onboard apps, i.e. sacrificing some ultimate functionality/convenience until the third party apps I want have been certified as WM5 complatible.

I have had no problems so far with my 6700. Even though the functionality isn't ideal yet, I'm sticking with it because with the eventual addition of Voice Command and one or two key apps this device will be great. The acid test will be whether HTC/Sprint/Microsoft and the application vendors issue updates and fixes in a timely manner. Let's not forget that even the vaunted Treo 600 and 650 were far from stable the first few months after they were released.....

No and No

I never put that hack in and I am in the heart of the silicon valley.

As for the mini-sd issue, yes. It is software integration related. Even IE craps out when you try to use the mini-sd for temporary files. and why is it that ejecting the mini-sd sometimes fixes the dreaded black screen of death (aka PPC-COMA)?