[qyv42]

I played with a Shadow on two different occasions recently at a T-Mobile store, but since the working models were all tethered with a big piece of plastic attached to the phone, it wasn't a very useful experience (and forget about real-world scenario testing!). That said, right now I think I like my Dash better, and since you've had a chance to use the somewhat-similar BlackJack in comparison, I wanted to ask some follow-up questions:

1.) The Shadow's scroll wheel to me seemed waaaaay too slow. I felt like it only advanced one "tick" after moving it almost a quarter-circle. Do you use the scroll wheel a lot, and do you find it useful? Is there a setting (or hack) to change the speed? The concept is awesome - you need the 4-way movement to do much of anything in Windows Mobile, but the ability to scroll rapidly like a jog dial is also highly desirable. It just felt to me like the execution missed the boat.

2.) What do you think about the new homescreen? It's pretty cool looking IMHO but I wasn't sure it was as functional as the old-school homescreens.

3.) Do you find you use the phone mostly with the keyboard closed? With the Dash, I've grown very fond of having instant access to the full keyboard for navigation and input, so I'm leery of either a.) needing to slide the keyboard out all the time, or b.) trying to use the Dpad and softkeys exclusively.

4.) Do you miss landscape orientation coming from the BlackJack? Especially when browsing web pages, it seems like portrait would be more cumbersome - but that's something I don't know if you get used to easily (I haven't used a portrai screen since my SMT 5600, and that's been a while!

5.) I must confess I'm surprised to hear you prefer the SureType implementation to the full QWERTY. Is it the key size, primarily? I found the Shadow's keyboard to be surprisingly usable, but not to the level where I'd prefer it over my Dash (even setting aside URLs and other strings that cause problems with predictive software). Do you type on it primarily one-handed?

6.) I also had a chance to briefly use a non-functional demo model in the store without it being tethered to the counter, and I found I had trouble sliding the ikeyboard open and closed one-handed. The way I held the phone, it didn't feel like there was a natural place to put my thumb to push the keyboard open as I took it from my pocket. You mention it worked great for you, so I'm wondering if you're holding it differently than I was?

7.) The one gripe I have with my Dash is that it's definitely a bit sluggish at times. I was hoping for the Cavalier to get picked up in the US with its 400MHz processor, but sadly that doesn't look to be happening. So the biggest selling point of the Shadow for me from your impressions so far is the speed difference. I'm surprised that even with the same processor as the Dash, there's a noticeable speed difference (my sense was that WM was more processor-bound then memory-bound, unless you count actually having to re-open apps instead of simply hiding them). I'd be very interested in hearing more about where else the Shadow feels faster - in addition to closing the keyboard - and what your thoughts are about why it might feel quicker.