T-Mobile HTC Shadow Finally Emerges Looking Damn Good [Archive]

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Rocco Augusto

10-29-2007, 09:01 PM

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hands-on/t+mobile-htc-shadow-finally-emerges-looking-damn-good-gallery-316068.php' target='_blank'>http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hands-on/t+mobile-htc-shadow-finally-emerges-looking-damn-good-gallery-316068.php</a> </div>"The long-rumored T-Mobile Shadow (aka Juno) officially launches now. It hits stores Wednesday for $200 with voice-plan or $150 with $20-per-month unlimited data plan. (Both require two year contracts.) With it, T-Mobile and HTC have done the impossible: they have made Windows Mobile look good. Great even. Like other WM6 devices including Sprint's recently launched HTC Touch and Verizon's Motorola Q9m, it has an interface skin that shields the user from the immediate effects of the Windows Mobile UI. But unlike those other two, this one goes a little deeper, letting you do quite a bit without ever seeing Windows Mobile."<o:p></o:p><o:p> </o:p><img border="1" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/spt/auto/1193688024.usr8.jpg" alt="" />Mark your calendar folks! It looks like Wednesday is the official date for us to be able to purchase T-Mobile and HTC's latest offering to the Smartphone/Standard world. With the upcoming release of the Motorola Q9h as well as the recent releases of the Pantech Duo and this slick new handset, the T-Mobile Shadow, I feel like my head is going to explode trying to decide which handset I am going to carry for the next few months. This is an exciting time to be a Windows Mobile user. What makes this even more exciting is that the carriers and device manufactures' are finally doing something about the incredibly ugly user interface that Microsoft was so king to leave us with. If you ask me, it's about time too. This is something that Microsoft should have fixed years ago!

Brandon Miniman

10-30-2007, 03:22 AM

What you may find funny is that Microsoft actually made this Homescreen:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139026-c,cellphones/article.html

They're trying!

sub_tex

10-30-2007, 06:03 AM

The 200mhz cpu bums me out.

I want an upgrade to my Dash, not a lateral move. :(

I'll be waiting to hear from Dash users how they feel this phone responds.

As it is, the s730 looks to be my next phone, but I'm not sold on its thickness.

The Shadow looks nice and thin. But at the same specs as my Dash....what's the incentive to pick it up?

damonb10

10-30-2007, 02:30 PM

This phone has double the memory of the dash and a larger screen (2.6"). Reports have been that the memory upgrade makes the phone much more snappy even though it still has the 201MHz processor.

Rocco Augusto

10-30-2007, 06:04 PM

What you may find funny is that Microsoft actually made this Homescreen:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139026-c,cellphones/article.html

They're trying!

I just got done reading this and was going to post that here but you beat me to it! ;)

They are trying, and it is about time. One of the reasons why I LOVE my Blackjack is due to all of the custom homescreens that Samsung included.

possmann

10-30-2007, 09:39 PM

Has anyone here seen the beginning of the movie "Office Space"?

Here I am in the T-Mo "lane" a couple of years ago when they couldn't release anything cool so I switch "lanes" to Verizon - namely for the first Palm Windows device - very cool, fast and reliable netwqork and then - BOOM. I'm sitting watching all the folks in the T-Mo lane pass me by - AUGH!

Tim Williamson

10-31-2007, 01:10 AM

The Home Screen interface looks great (can you disable Myfaves though?)! I'm wondering who will be the first to port this to other WM6 phones? :)

As for the phone, the I'm not sure about the copper color, but the form factor looks great. I wonder how well the keyboard works though.

Mike Temporale

10-31-2007, 03:27 AM

It's not really copper in color. At least not the one I saw. I wonder if that's just poor lighting.

Overall, this is one hot - hot phone. Oh, and it's small... :cool:

Rocco Augusto

10-31-2007, 07:24 PM

Overall, this is one hot - hot phone. Oh, and it's small... :cool:

I want a new tiny device. the images of this phone look incredible. i might have to go play with one sometime soon :)

sub_tex

10-31-2007, 08:45 PM

Reports have been that the memory upgrade makes the phone much more snappy even though it still has the 201MHz processor.

Let's hope so. I just went to the tmobile store to play with one. I love the build. The slider is solid.

So yeah, I ordered one. :)

I should have it in a few days (ordered it over the phone since the guy in the store wasn't giving me any discounts).

Islanti

10-31-2007, 09:34 PM

I picked one up first thing this morning. I'm coming from a WM6 Dash (which was too buggy to be useful to me) and a long line of WM Smartphones and PDAs. So far I LOVE the Shadow. It's very fast. Much faster than I expected given the 200MHz CPU (same as my Dash). The extra memory seems to free the system up quite a bit.

A few things I've noticed so far that might be of interest:
The top screen only seems to come in brown. Setting the WinMo "Color Scheme" only seems to set it in certain applications. Lots of other places it defaults to brown. Not a huge deal, but if you bought a Sage Shadow like I did you might be wondering if the brown would have been the more consistent aesthetic choice.
Homescreen pictures (wallpapers) only show up in the first "Home" view.
Fav5 doesn't show up if you don't have a Fav5 plan.
XT9 has a bunch of customizable options that should please those of you who hate(d) the Dash's implementation. They are: "Spell Correction", "Next Word Prediction", "Auto-Append", "Auto-Substitution", "Word Completion", "Multitap Word Completion". Note the last one isn't actually for the XT9, but for "normal" text entry. Most of them are off by default (sorry, I can't remember which).
There's a user-customizeable "Shortcut Key" on the device. I made this myself on the Dash, but having a GUI is really nice. It even lets you set a tap vs. held action for the button! You can even set this to "Recent Applications", which makes for a nice built-in task switcher (finally!).
I'd forgotten how many apps DON'T work with Landscape on my Dash. I feel like I have a bunch of new applications now.
Slider feels nice, although it rocks a bit side-to-side.

I'm also happy to answer any questions people have.

sub_tex

10-31-2007, 10:37 PM

Fantastic.

You posted exactly what I was wondering about. Now I really can't wait for mine to get here. :D

Tim Williamson

11-01-2007, 02:27 AM

How would you rate the keyboard? Is it really one button for 2 letters, or does it just appear that way? Is the device really a copper color? I have a Dash (that I'm very happy with), but the Shadow is tempting me to make a switch... :o

hondaguy

11-02-2007, 01:35 AM

i just hope that they have actually added some functionality, and not just made the interface look a little nicer. it is tough to tell from the pics, but it looks like they have just reskinned the menus.

i recently had a sony p1i for a couple of months and i really liked how it would show me a picture of the person that had called me, or sent me a message, instead of just showing me that i missed a call (with no name or number unless i dug further into the menus). i think it would be nice to see the names and subject line of unread messages, instead of just another icon that shows me how many messages are unread. if anyone has owned a pearl, they will know what i am talking about here. based on the pics of the new skin on the shadow, there is room to add some of these changes, but it looks like they have just added some fluff

i love the form factor and keyboard, though, and cant wait to try one out

Islanti

11-02-2007, 05:34 AM

i just hope that they have actually added some functionality, and not just made the interface look a little nicer. it is tough to tell from the pics, but it looks like they have just reskinned the menus. It's still WM6, good and bad. One pet peeve is they haven't fixed the keyboard to allow the use of letter-based shortcuts in Messaging. With the Dash, non number keys would jump to folders in the list of the appropriate letters. Number/letter combo keys would just beep. They didn't fix this for the Shadow and since all the keys are pretty much number keys that feature is basically gone. :(

How would you rate the keyboard? Is it really one button for 2 letters, or does it just appear that way?If you've used another phone with (x)T9 it's identical, but with fewer letters per key. Makes the guessing xT9 does work a lot better.
Is the device really a copper color?Yes, the "brown" is copper metallic colored. The skins are all brownish on the device. I bought the sage green color, though, and I'm a bit bummed there's no green version of the skins to match.
I have a Dash (that I'm very happy with), but the Shadow is tempting me to make a switch... :oI'm a lot happier with it than my Dash. Lots more memory helps significantly. And it actually works, unlike the WM6 upgraded Dash.

Side note on the Dash: the WM6 Dash has a major memory leak that causes it to run out of memory for me in about 2 days. Rebooting daily wouldn't be an issue since I can have a program do that... unfortunately rebooting the Dash with a memory card causes it to reboot over and over again about 50% of the time. Known issue (although my Dash has been replaced 3 times) and T-Mo is "still working on a fix". I'm sick of waiting.

Tim Williamson

11-02-2007, 09:05 AM

...

Thanks for the info! Can't wait to try one out. I didn't realize it also came in sage green, I'll be interested in checking that out. And glad to know the Dash rebooting with a memory card is a known issue, luckily I only have to reboot my Dash about once every 2 weeks.

sub_tex

11-02-2007, 04:33 PM

Mine just arrived.

So small!

I'll be playing with it all day and post back tonight with my first impressions.

Rocco Augusto

11-02-2007, 05:32 PM

Now I'm jealous! :(

I really want a T-Mobile Shadow, but I'm suppose to get a new Motorola Q9h for work any day now so I'm torn

Tim Williamson

11-02-2007, 06:49 PM

Anyone have Dash to Shadow side-by-side photos?

damonb10

11-02-2007, 09:46 PM

Is the Shadow lighter or heavier than the Dash? I saw a spec that listed the Shadow as 5.3 ounces, but that sounded way off considering that most people were commenting that it is very light.

Tim Williamson

11-03-2007, 07:04 AM

I had a chance to play with with Shadow earlier today...

The Good:
Navigating around definitely seemed snappier, the extra memory must help.
The NEO home screen is very cool and has some neat animation.
The size is great, smaller footprint than the Dash and just about the same thickness.The Bad:
Both colors are nasty IMHO. To me they looked brown and mint green...come on T-Mo, why couldn't you have released a version in a normal color such as black?
It has a plasticky feel to it (maybe it's just the finish that I'm not used to). It actually reminds me a lot of the LG Chocolate.
The keypad works, and the xT9 input works very well, but I don't know if I could get used to a non-full keyboard after using the Dash keyboard. Also, you have to do a press and hold a key for punctuation, so this really slows you down when typing away (I'm used to having a dedicated period and comma key).
The scroll wheel is neat, but it rotates really easily (there's no resistance when rotating it) and it gets in the way while trying to navigate menus. I accidentally rotated the scroll wheel causing the selection to move while trying to navigate menus multiple times in the few minutes I used it.
The scroll wheel is slow in PIE. It's a lot faster to use the d-pad when trying to quickly get to the bottom of a long web page.Overall it's a cool device, but it really doesn't give me enough reason to upgrade from my Dash, plus the bad outweighs the good (for me). Honestly, the colors are the main thing that turned me off from this phone though.

sub_tex

11-03-2007, 06:47 PM

Anyone have Dash to Shadow side-by-side photos?

If you don't mind blurry, low-lit photos, then sure. I took some a few mins ago:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronfg/tags/shadow/

sub_tex

11-03-2007, 11:35 PM

My impressions after using the Shadow for 1 day

Size/Feel:

I love it. It's narrower and shorter than my Dash.

The casing is smooth too. I was a big fan of the smooth rubery feel of the Dash. The Shadow feels even nicer. I have no idea what this material is, but it's yum.

Keyboard:

Not sure yet. I'm a qwerty lover, so SureType is going to take some time. What I do like is that if I just ignore the buttons themselves, and look at the letters (which are all in the right places) I can still type two handed with the same speed almost as my Dash. The big difference is really when it comes to punctuation. Not having a dedicated period or comma is sort of annoynig, but I'll deal.

The travel on the keys is also not as good as it could be. Not a deal breaker, but it's not as nice as the Dash.

General Hardware:

Soft Keys are a tad too small. they should have been taller. You WILL make the mistake of hitting the Home key instead of the left soft key when using this phone. It's not up for debate. Just know it will happen, laugh (or mumble "darn you HTC..." under your breath) and switch back to the app you were in.

I miss having that tzones key that I remapped to the task manager. There is a Shortcut Key on the right side of the device that you can configure to run an app on single tap and also a second app on tap and hold.

The downside to that is it doesn't pull ALL of your apps. Just some predetermined list. One of those is "Recent Applications" though, so Task Manager is always in the top 2 in my list. So it's just an extra tap now to bring up the task manager. Again, nothing earth shattering, but took me a while to unlearn my year of Dash habits.

The Micro SD slot......... boy do i hate it.

It is super sunken in. I had to really get the tip of my nail on the edge of the card just so, and even then, you have to push it waaaaaay deep in the slot for it to catch. VERY ANNOYING.

Also, the covers for the MSD slot and USB ports aren't the easiest to get open. You can sort of see what I mean in the blurry photo I took here:

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1845413362&size=l

Dead center is the USB port. You'll notice it has a gap to the left of the rubber flap. The problem is trying to get a finger in that gap to pry it open.

The Micro SD slot cover is to the right of that in the photo and on the top half of the slider. That one is even narrower. That is the slot I want destroyed.

Display:

Fantastic. What a beautiful screen. Large, crisp, bright. No complaints.

New Home Screen:

Looks nice. Isn't very functional. For instance: Let's say I get a new text message while the phone is in my pocket. When I get to the phone, I can see the icon in the top of the taskbar there showing the sms message icon. But from there I would need to hit Down 2 times to get to messaging to see the "2 new msgs" text.

Sure, just on seeing that icon, I could instead use my shortcut list and pull up messaging, but that's different than being able to see that I have 2 new emails and 1 new SMS message without even unlocking my phone.

The "home" screen (which is the one with the clock and wifi status on it) si nicely laid out though. Decent sized clock, date, etc. Shows up fine on a quick check even when dimmed.

The whole new layout with the icons on the left and being able to drill down in each section would be MUCH better if it was all customizable. I would love to be able to use HTC Audio Manager instead of WMP in the music tab. I woudl also like to get rid of some others...

My guess is there will be some 3rd party app to do this in the future. They'll copy the look but make it more hacker friendly.

Speed/Memory:

Man. Looking at the task manager and seeing 69 megs free almost knocked me out. I'm so used to seeing at MOST 14 megs free on my Dash. The extra memory really makes the Shadow a faster device. Very noticeable on a fresh boot up.

I always have a pin code lock on my phone. With the Dash, I would hit "unlock" when the home screen first showed, and then wait while the screen lagged far behind my keypresses Sometimes the keypresses wouldn't even register. After say, 10-15 secs, the system would be all caught up and I could type my code no problem.

With the Shadow though, the second the "unlock" screen shows, I can type in the code with no lag at all.

It's hard to describe with words, but trust me, it's noticeable, and I love it.

-------------------

That's about all I can think of right now. :)

Mike Temporale

11-04-2007, 02:23 PM

I want a new tiny device. the images of this phone look incredible. i might have to go play with one sometime soon :)

If you've had a Touch in your hand, you know the size of this device. ;) The two of them are almost exactly the same dimensions.

Mike Temporale

11-04-2007, 02:40 PM

If you don't mind blurry, low-lit photos, then sure. I took some a few mins ago:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronfg/tags/shadow/

They ain't too bad. Thanks for posting the pics and your thoughts. I'll link to this from the front page. :)

Islanti

11-04-2007, 02:45 PM

I miss having that tzones key that I remapped to the task manager. There is a Shortcut Key on the right side of the device that you can configure to run an app on single tap and also a second app on tap and hold.

The downside to that is it doesn't pull ALL of your apps. Just some predetermined list. One of those is "Recent Applications" though, so Task Manager is always in the top 2 in my list. So it's just an extra tap now to bring up the task manager. Again, nothing earth shattering, but took me a while to unlearn my year of Dash habits.Here's a hack for this. If you organize your start menu into folders (rather than the default everything-goes-in-the-root orgy of icons) this will work very nicely.
Go to Start -> Settings.
Select "Shortcut Key".
Assign "Short Press" to "Contacts".
Copy "Task Manager.lnk" to the root of the start menu.
Rename "Task Manager.lnk" to "Contacts.lnk".
Using either Total Commander Pocket or Resco Explorer 2007 you can select "Properties" for the new Contacts.lnk and mark it "Hidden". This will prevent it from appearing in the start menu.
You can obviously do this with any of the pre-defined applications that the Shortcut Key manager recognizes (if you want contacts as a shortcut). I have "Contacts" (mapped to CeleTask) and "Messaging" as my two, both as hidden icons in the start menu.

NOTE: If you're a registry hacker this can more easily be accomplished by editing HKLM\Software\HTC\HTCSideButton . The values to edit are "PressHold" and "ShortPress".

Kris Kumar

11-04-2007, 03:07 PM

I was at the mall yesterday and saw the Shadow. Its display is its strength, it is big and covers almost the entire device, well designed. Loved the new home screen. It doesn't work for me but it is great for pulling in new users.

T-Mobile has a winner. Good partnership story for Microsoft, HTC and T-Mobile.

sub_tex

11-04-2007, 04:56 PM

Here's a hack for this...

Awesome!

You just made my week. Thanks, bud.

chaznet

11-04-2007, 10:24 PM

decodergrizzly

11-04-2007, 11:07 PM

I have a love/hate relationship with my Dash, bought it the day it came out. my gripes with it mostly have to do with speed/memory.

After being on the fence since i heard about the Shadow, i just got off the phone ordering one with customer service, for a full discount i might add (i've only been with tmobile for a year). Over the phone is definitely the way to go for discounts.

Anyway, thanks for making this a much easier decision than merely reading "official" reviews.

damonb10

11-05-2007, 01:04 AM

Can someone who has the Shadow and the Dash please comment on the weight differences? I've seen spec's listing the Shadow at 5.3 ounces, which sounded heavy when users are commenting that the Shadow is "light".

Mike Temporale

11-05-2007, 05:08 AM

Very annoying -- I can't shut off those LOUD touch-tone keypad tones that occur when you start to dial a number, or look up a contact, from the homescreen. On all my other WM devices, it's the last option in the Sounds setting screen, where you can turn 'Keypad Tones' off. This setting is missing from my new Shadow, and is stuck on -- tried finding something in the registry I could turn off, but no luck -- any ideas?

Wow! They got rid of that setting? That sucks. It was just added in WinMo5. And carriers are already pulling it out. :confused:

I know it's silly, but are you sure you're scrolling down all the way on the sounds page?

There was a reg hack that turned this on prior to WinMo5. I imagine it would still work. Check out this thread for more details. http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/showthread.php?t=13987

onlydarksets

11-05-2007, 08:00 PM

Here is some info on the reg hack for WM6 Professional:
http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/samsung-sch-i760/94238-turn-off-beep-when-sending-call.html

11-07-2007, 04:54 AM

Very annoying -- I can't shut off those LOUD touch-tone keypad tones that occur when you start to dial a number, or look up a contact, from the homescreen. On all my other WM devices, it's the last option in the Sounds setting screen, where you can turn 'Keypad Tones' off. This setting is missing from my new Shadow, and is stuck on -- tried finding something in the registry I could turn off, but no luck -- any ideas?

Has anyone found a Shadow-related forum anywhere?

Thanks!

Are you sure about that? I was thinking of getting a Shadow, but that could be a deal-breaker for me. I always turn the keypad tones off. I can't believe this phone would have no way to do that?

Comments from others? Anyone able to turn off the keypad tones?

coderuckus

11-08-2007, 05:44 AM

Regarding the touch tones and keypad sounds. You can adjust the volume in the profile and even set it to silent if you don't want any noise.
(Start - Settings - Profiles > Menu - Edit > System Sound Volume = {Off, 1, 2, 3, 4, Loud}) Default = 2

To answer the question regarding the weight of the Shadow, My postal scale that tells me 3.76 ounces is the weight with battery.

I also own the Wing, and SDA and have had the SPV, SPV E100, SPV E200 and Audivox SMT5600 in the past, and this is by far the best Windows Mobile phone I have used. The dimensions on this thing are perfect, nice giant screen, very slim and not too bulky (the wing was never very cozy in my pocket.) It's thinner and shorter than the SDA, ever so but slighty wider. Much smaller in every dimension than the Wing.

Mike Temporale

11-10-2007, 01:31 PM

Saldy, I can confirm that the ability to turn off keypad tones is no longer in there. It's time to look for a reg hack. :)

damonb10

11-10-2007, 11:32 PM

To answer the question regarding the weight of the Shadow, My postal scale that tells me 3.76 ounces is the weight with battery.

Thanks for checking the weight. What you found with your postal scale sounds much more reasonable than what I've seen posted in some specifications (5.3 ounces). At 3.76 ounces that is a great weight for a phone, which is less than 107 grams!

chaznet

11-11-2007, 10:56 AM

Thanks -- that's pretty obvious though. It doesn't really help as it shuts off a lot more than just those touch-tone noises. The other System Sounds I prefer to have on the loudest setting, with touchtone sound effects turned off completely. It's in the registry somewhere, just can't seem to find it...

[EDIT] Found the settings, posted them here: http://www.modaco.com/content/HTC-Juno-Juno-MoDaCo-com/261591/Misc-Registry-Tweaks/

Regarding the touch tones and keypad sounds. You can adjust the volume in the profile and even set it to silent if you don't want any noise.
(Start - Settings - Profiles > Menu - Edit > System Sound Volume = {Off, 1, 2, 3, 4, Loud}) Default = 2

Reland

01-07-2008, 02:18 PM

Can anyone direct me to information about web browsing with the cheaper "T-Mobile Web" service option as opposed to "T-Mobile Total Internet"? With my previous phone (SE W800i unlocked) I used the Opera Mini HTML browser constantly and never had a problem but with the Shadow, if I'm not connected via Wi-Fi then Opera Mini always says "Failed to Connect to Internet" and T-Zones says "Error 503 Service Unavailable". What's the deal? Will unlocking have any effect on this?

Thanks.

Tim Williamson

01-07-2008, 09:46 PM