I purchased my i500 from Sprint 6 days ago. To summarize, tt has not exactly been a smooth ride, but I am generally quite pleased with the phone, I am looking for guidance and advice on a few minor things, and I'd like to share my impressions as well.
Before:
AT&T Wireless
former Palm Pro and Palm V user, but stopped using (and lost) my Palm V a few years ago
Nokia 8260 phone (small TDMA phone with basic features)
I was only looking for a new Palm to replace my old one when I stumbled on an image of the new Samsung i500 and I fell instantly in love. I wasn't even really looking for internet access, but the idea of squashing two devices into one (smaller than my last two Palms!) sold me and I bought one literally the next day even though I was a bit uncertain about Sprint.
Fixed problems:
AT&T took 3 days to transfer my number (well covered problem)
several problems with Sprint internet access (password mismatches, their "new system" upgrade, etc.)
syncing on Linux: what a pain in the neck
Unresolved problems:
i500 CD-ROM: I can't mount it in Linux. Not good. It doesn't even read as a block device. I mostly just want to install any applications that don't come installed on the i500.
Hotsync: next to the "HotSync" tab at the top of the screen, there's a string of garbage characters. I was able to clear it once by removing the Unsaved Preferences PRC, but it came back. I suspect there's a bug in one of the other programs, oddly, Blocks (a free Tetris clone) because it seems to have had the same string as the default answer for my high score name. Maybe it's some kind of ID or user name field and it's corrupted?
It sure does crash a lot. Just like the Palm of old. Probably once a day so far, I try to remove any application that crashes soon after installing or significantly more often than anything else.
Any help on those would be greatly appreciated.
Stuff that definitely wasn't communicated well:
Eudora mail is free, get it.
Internet access will probably not work until you talk to Sprint PCS technical support at least 3 times.
EasyCalc is still great even though it's not color
Next, here are the things I'm missing:
A free (open source would be best) IRC client. AIM would be good too.
A better ssh client (TuSSH is okay, but is a bit unstable, especially the display, I found another one, but it had 10 PRCs so I was a bit put off, I might try it later)
More useful WAP and low bandwidth web sites.
A FICS chess client (there is an old one, but it doesn't work on i500)
my lovely Nokia ascending ring, a nice simple ring, starts very quiet and ends up rather loud
some type of battery application that can give me a good estimate on how much time is left
an application to track minutes on my cell phone plan actively
(Ideally all open source or at least free, of course. I'd probably be most willing to pay for a good minute tracker as it would possibly pay for itself.)
I'm also glad that open source applications have made more inroads into PalmOS.
As far as the phone itself goes, I don't have too many complaints. Great size, antenna poking up is a bit annoying, keys are a bit flat, stylus is on the wrong side, 4 application buttons would be better below the text entry area, rubber piece over the headphone jack is annoying... the usual.
I think that sums up my current state and initial experiences. This board has been very helpful so far too, thanks!
well for starters...free chat isn't really I was a palm VX and 8260 person myself. My sister and mom now use them. You can get a Palm VX for $50 on buy.com right now actually.
aim is about the only chat client that's around for free and there should be some links to it floating around here from awhile ago, but I don't think it worked. If you have AOL you can get the AOL for palm program for $20. www.pdaapps.com has verichat that works with Yahoo!, ICQ, MSN & AOL. It's $25 to buy and the first year of service is free. Every year after is $19.95/yr for the service. Other than that you're SOL. I actually posted about a crude version of yahoo chat that works via a pda wap site, but it was more trouble then it was worth.
the rings you're pretty much stuck with what you have. The I500 doesn't have any way to load new ringtones and it doesn't look like there's a way to change that.
I think your crashes are a bit too frequent. Though a lot of it probably has to do with the programs you're putting on but I'm sure you're finding that out as you go..haha. Program conflicts are probably the biggest reason for your crashes and maybe the
There's quite a few threads here that go in depth on PQA's. I have Directory Assistance, MobileWeb, Moviephone, CBS SportsLine, Travelocity, USA Today, SimpleWire, Mapquest, and Weather.
The golf game that's on the CD Rom is fun to play as are some of the others so if you get that running even better. If you can, just load the CD on a windows unit and copy the specific programs to a disk or cd. Maybe that will work.
I don't pay attention to detailed battery strentgh or minute usage so I'm no help there, but do a search or check the FAQ for those programs. They have been talked about.
I never had any problems getting up on the web. provisioned myself on the first phone and one call to *2 had me up and running in a few hours on my 2nd phone. Wish I could be of more help, but there are others on here that make more use of the things you're looking for so I'm sure someone will chime in. Otherwise, do some searches. Everything you're asking has been covered for the most part in previous threads. Just have to find them.
Yeah, I tried a IRC WAP site and it was a total pain and fell just short of working. WAP seems like it's on its way out.
As far as the ring goes, I know, I've read the many threads. I'll just wait and hope in vain.
One thing maybe someone knows about (I couldn't find any links here) ... is there any way or application to make Preferences / System Sound any quieter? The"Low" setting is still way too loud to use in public places (and even loud enough to annoy me as I use it).
Has anyone managed to mount the CD-ROM on Linux? Maybe I'll ask on the Linux sync thread.
BTW are there ANY I500 owners who use EUDORA and CAN tap on the return address within an email and NOT get a crash ? I've love to know... Thanks...
I've had crashes in other areas. I should probably log them all and keep track of what crashes the most. By "return address", you mean clicking on the "To:" address when viewing an email? That seems to crash 100% of the time for me too. Eudora doesn't seem to have any way to report bugs, though. Is it supported or maintained at all?
Are there any free mail applications of comparable quality to Eudora? I need something that supports POP3 with SSL.
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