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View Full Version : OK, I want a T-Mobile PPC..!!! BUT..


thePhoneGuy
02-04-2003, 06:18 PM
But, I want to know if that is the best available PPC Phone in the market? New to this forum, and would luv to get your 2 cents.

Also, i got an offer to get the pocket PC for $519.99 from T-Mobile through their upgrade plan (since i am a T-mobile customer). Now, would that be a good price on the PPC, or could I find it cheaper anywhere else?

One more thing; I have heard good and bad stories about T-mobile PPC, how is it's overall behaviour otherwise? Sorry for all the questions,.. just want some info. b4 I make the "big deal" !!!

Thanks.. :roll: :roll:

Monty Gibson
02-05-2003, 12:07 AM
But, I want to know if that is the best available PPC Phone in the market? New to this forum, and would luv to get your 2 cents.

Also, i got an offer to get the pocket PC for $519.99 from T-Mobile through their upgrade plan (since i am a T-mobile customer). Now, would that be a good price on the PPC, or could I find it cheaper anywhere else?

One more thing; I have heard good and bad stories about T-mobile PPC, how is it's overall behaviour otherwise? Sorry for all the questions,.. just want some info. b4 I make the "big deal" !!!

Thanks.. :roll: :roll:

Here's my $0.02... ready?

The Pocket PC Phone is by far the best Pocket PC on the market today. Why? Well for many of my personal opinions. For that we must look at the market right now.

1.) 400 mHz chip: It doesn't run at 400 mHz so it's a waste of money right now.

2.) Bioscanning (fancy finger print reader): Unless you are the CIA, FBI, or a member of the KGB, I don't think this is highly necessary. If you are a type of person to misplace a $500.00 Pocket PC so that others may get to your "vital data," then think about this purchase. I wouldn't recommend it to those with dementia.

3.) Compact Flash Cards: good technology, many things are available for this format, but times are changing and everything is going SD and MMC. The Pocket PC Phone has an SD slot and 1-4 gigabyte SD cards are rumored to be out this year.

4.) WiFi: For what? T-Mobile has what's called a VPN service and after MUCH study I can tell you that there are two types of networks that I am familiar with and you can just "dial" into them using VPN. So having WiFi is not important to me. Especially if you are at work and can access your LAN from any computer. If you're in your car then dialing in is just as easy. I do it every single day! I dial into our network from my car or home to look at patients' records, CT scans, etc.

5.) Bluetooth: You don't need it with the Pocket PC Phone. Why? Jabra makes a wireless headset now, you can print using your infrared port, and and you can access the internet anywhere via your Pocket PC Phone... so what's so wonderful about Bluetooth... plus, it's only good up to 30 feet. Whoopie! There are literally dozens of programs out there that let you print any file format to any fax machine in the world just by dialing the fax number from your Pocket PC Phone. So basically any fax machine is a printer for us.

6.) Yes, we have horrible RAM on board, but SD cards again are readily available and getting bigger everyday.

7.) We do not have SDIO support. What's bad about that? Well, we can't have cameras and other nifty gadgets. But I've worked around this. First these SDIO cameras for the Pocket PC's usually are horrible. I invested in the Casio Exilim camera http://exilim.casio.com/camera_best_size.cfm. It supports SD cards, um, so does our Pocket PC Phone. Swap the card from the camera to the Pocket PC Phone and email your friends photographs AND video... oh, I failed to mention this camera captures video as well and is the size of a credit card.

8.) We have keyboards, thumboards, and everything else the "big boys" have.

9.) Our screen is just a beautiful as the rest, don't let them fool you.

10.) Our Pocket PC Phone is well, a phone; they have to have a special Compact Flash card to make theirs a phone... at $260+ U.S. dollars. So, that's $500.00 for their Pocket PC and another $260.00 plus service... sounds like a lot to me.

My advice. By the T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone; you'll have their warranty and their customer support. You can probably go on eBay and find it "cheaper" but you'll be sorry in the end. I promise you. Stick with this company; it's a damn fine company. I've been with them when they were VoiceStream. They have been the first to come out on the market with a true Pocket PC Phone and they stay on top of the upgrades. Do it. I don't think you'll be sorry and if you are, you can always take it back!

Good luck.

jsanfordii
02-05-2003, 02:00 PM
But, I want to know if that is the best available PPC Phone in the market? New to this forum, and would luv to get your 2 cents.

Also, i got an offer to get the pocket PC for $519.99 from T-Mobile through their upgrade plan (since i am a T-mobile customer). Now, would that be a good price on the PPC, or could I find it cheaper anywhere else?

One more thing; I have heard good and bad stories about T-mobile PPC, how is it's overall behaviour otherwise? Sorry for all the questions,.. just want some info. b4 I make the "big deal" !!!

Thanks.. :roll: :roll:

I had a T-mobile pocket PC phone since August. I was very unhappy with it. Contantly resetting, the 'phone' features (even with fonix voicedial, weren't quite there).

I 'accidently' dropped it (my wife's fault actually, but we won't go into that), and got a normal phone (Nokia 3390)and an ipaq 5455, and am MUCH happier.

I did like the all-in-one concept. I had the Sprint palm version before this, and the PPC PE worked much better. The major grip is that the t-mobile service (on those phones) was horrible. Other sales guys I travel with would have FULL bars of signal strength, and that phone wouldn't find a connection (it wasn't that specific phone, t-mobile replaced it twice). Soo, if you need a pocket pc that you would use the phone 'sometimes', then it's perfect. If you travel a ton (I do about 150 or so flights commercially a year, and I fly myself quite a bit on top of that), and your job (sales) would require a phone, then don't combine the devices.

BTW, the little Nokia battery lasts forever!

The Ipaq 5455 is AWESOME. The extras (bluetooth and fingerprint scanner) aren't something I use yet, but the WIRELESS is great. It's fast, has the ability to change out batteries, and the screen is AMAZING. I haven't found anything I don't like about it yet.

James

Cortex
02-06-2003, 04:19 PM
i like the phone alot -- you should look at amazon and see if they are still offering the $200 rebate. i think i paid $350 for my device and that pretty hard to pass up.

as far as wi-fi -- it would be nice. its faster than gprs and more reliable. i have wi-fi in my home and it would be nice to use the handheld as a portable stereo wirelessly connected to my server which has all of my music on it.

i get a little annoyed with wireless internet from my phone because the part of town where i spend most of my time doesnt have reliable gprs coverage. i can usually download my email without any trouble but chatting or surfing the net often hangs. but that isnt a phone issue and if youve got good coverage in your area youll probably be fine.

as for as the screen goes. its pretty good. i went from a casio em500 which has one of the brightest, sharpest screen out there and i was worried the tmo screen would be painful to look it. its not a great screen, the colors are a little desaturated and the color depth is limited (watching movies on the device i sometimes see color aliasing) but im 95% satisfied with it. i was originally concerned about the fact the background lighting adjustment is either on or off (you cant adjust the brightness) but the battery life is soooo very good i just leave the backlight on all the time.

the 32 mb of ram is a bit of a pain. ppc techs will upgrade but they are pricey. i just try to install as much as i can on the sd cards and its working out ok.

a final note -- a lot of people hated the phone up until nov-dec when the rom upgrade came out. i had used mine for about two weeks before the upgrade and i was having to hard reset it quite a bit. the upgrade was the best ive ever installed on a device. it fixed almost all of the problems. when i dial out i still get a "pop" or "click" thats irritating when the device first connects to the phone network and sometimes i turn the device off, and when i turn it back on it decides to reset for some reason. but aside from those two things its a great device and great deal through amazon. i highly recommend it.

Cortex
02-06-2003, 04:25 PM
amazon has it for 299 right now!

T-Mobile Pocket PC Ad at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/wireless/B00006IIRQ/glance/qid=1044544907/br=1-2/ref=br_lf_w_zr_2/002-8542822-0146442)

enjoy

thePhoneGuy
02-06-2003, 04:52 PM
Wow, Thanks for all the response. I have been reading and reviewing the respose from all you guys. Overall, I think its a good deal, .. but I will see how things go..

On the other hand, Cortex, I am already a customre of T-Mobile. I have been their customer for the past 4 years. So, getting that rebate from Amazon would be tough 'coz it's only with a new service activation.

Other than that, I was also looking at something else. I saw that the Sharp Zauras 5500 can be used on the T-Mobile network for Wi-Fi. Now, I was also told that you could dowload some software that would make the 5500 run asa PDA/Phone under T-Mobile.

I don't know? .. Does anyone have any idea of what I am talking about?

Cortex
02-06-2003, 08:13 PM
it might be worth 200 to end your service with t-mobile and then pay the 30-50 dollar reactivation fee.

with regard to the sharp i would stick with the integration of the pocket pc phone edition OS.

thePhoneGuy
02-06-2003, 08:23 PM
Well, I already talked to a CS Supervisor at T-Mobile and she worked something out and gave me a $200 discount on $520. Therfore, My phone cost has dropped down to $320. NOT BAD!!! 8) 8) 8)
So, I am finally thinking about getting it. But, could someone tell me if they have any integrated data/voice plans? And which ones are good? I am new to data service, what do u think I should start off with?

Thanks..

Monty Gibson
02-06-2003, 08:45 PM
Well, I already talked to a CS Supervisor at T-Mobile and she worked something out and gave me a $200 discount on $520. Therfore, My phone cost has dropped down to $320. NOT BAD!!! 8) 8) 8)
So, I am finally thinking about getting it. But, could someone tell me if they have any integrated data/voice plans? And which ones are good? I am new to data service, what do u think I should start off with?

Thanks..

I have the 800 Family Plan. My wife both have the Pocket PC Phones and to talk to each other is free so long as it's to another T-Mobile phone. Then we both have the 10 megabyte a month plan for internet/email, et cetera which totals to about $100.00 a month. Very good if you ask me.

Cortex
02-06-2003, 11:47 PM
i was told by the tmo representative that the data plan is non-binding so you can drop or change it at any time.

i use the 20mb/month plan for $35/mo and im a moderate internet user. typically i use less than 10mb/month.

i recommend starting with 20mb for the first month to see how you do since you'll probably be experimenting a lot during the first month.

thePhoneGuy
02-07-2003, 10:32 PM
Cool, I will definitely try out the 20 MB rate plan to see if that's what I want, but I think the 10 MB should be sufficient.

Now, does anyone think I would need a VPN data plan or a regular data plan? I am not connecting to any VPNs around here, but I guess if they are the same price, what would be the harm? right...

Any advice?

Thanks.