[Mike Temporale]

Originally Posted by qyv42

since you've had a chance to use the somewhat-similar BlackJack in comparison, I wanted to ask some follow-up questions:

Actually, I have a dash too. I've been switching between that and the s710 for a couple weeks. I'm not a real fan of the dash. But I've got one and I'm familiar with it.

Originally Posted by qyv42

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.

Weird, mine is nothing like that. It actually boots around pretty nicely. Much better speed than the BlackJack and way way better than the JOGGR found on the dash. I wonder if that was just a problem with the demo unit in the store.

Originally Posted by qyv42

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.

The home screen is really nice. I wish they had allowed the scroll wheel to move up and down the list, but it only works when going left/right. It will be interesting to see what the dev community can come up with to extend and modify this homescreen. I don't need some of the things in it, and would rather have other apps listed. So if they can do that, it's gonna rock!

Originally Posted by qyv42

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.

I've used the device in both ways. Of course, if you want to do any sort of input, you need to open the device. With the Auto Lock/Unlock feature, I've actually started to use it in the open mode more and more. Kind of like a flip phone. Slide it open to unlock the keypad and do your work. Then slide it closed to lock the keys and put it away.

Actually, let me put this way - the s710 is a pain to use. Because everytime you want to do anything you need to slide out the keyboard, turn the device and wait for the screen to rotate. The Shadow is not a pain. There's no waiting. It's instant access to the keyboard - when you need it.

Originally Posted by qyv42

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!

YES! Since my first landscape device, I don't care for the plain old protrait screen layout. If this device was made with a landscape screen, it would be even better!

Having said that, I don't find this screen cumbersome or hard to use in anyway. It's just not as nice a layout - for me personaly.

Originally Posted by qyv42

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?

Given the size of this device, the SureType is the way to go. It's very usable and quick to type on. It's not when you need the extra characters that are easy to find on a full QWERTY. I would rather have my BlackJack keyboard back, but I can't see it working on this device. There just isn't the space.

Originally Posted by qyv42

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?

Well, if I'm in a rush, I've been putting my thumb on the screen and sliding it open. Not the best thing in the world, but it works and it's quick. When I'm not in a rush, I've been working at placing my thumb on the top side edge and trying to slide it open. It works, but it takes a little more pratice.

With the s710, the keyboard has a loose feel, where you can kind of start to slide it but not fully slide it. It's a short space before it really grabs and pulls open. On the shadow, there's nothing like that. It starts to grab as soon as you start to push it. The other thing to try would be pushing more at the bottom where the buttons are, so I won't mess the screen up with my oily finger prints.

Originally Posted by qyv42

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.

I'm no engineer so I can't say exactly why. The start menu loads a lot faster as well. I would have to guess that this is because the hardware is getting better and the OS is better tuned to match it. The dash is a year old - HTC has learned a lot in that time.

When I think back to my first Smartphone - the Tanager, it ran on a 200Mhz processor and it was dog slow! The smt5600 also had the same processor, and it was slow, but nowhere near as bad. While the CPU may be the same, I'm wondering if they've upgraded the bus and memory speed. Perhaps the slowness was not caused by the cpu at all, instead it might have been a poor chipset used in one aspect or another. Then you've got the OS - the code keeps getting tuned and eventually runs faster.

Intel has done a great job of making us think that the speed of your computer relates 100% to the speed of your CPU. And that's just not the case at all.