Treo better than the new MS spartphones???

[mbranscum]

Walt sure seems to think so! Ouch.

http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html

[brntcrsp]

You know you could just submit the news by clicking the link along the top rather than posting it in 3 different places in the forums. then we all could read the review and comment on it.

[aristoBrat]

Walt sure seems to think so! Ouch.

http://ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html
I had to write Walt about some inaccuracies in his article. The MPx200 DOES have a speakerphone, and that ifyou select another home screen, the "recently used programs" aren't disabled.

Seems like if he had USED the phone for more than an hour or two, he would have known that.

He was nice enough to reply back to my email telling me that the speakerphone is yet another "problem" with the MPx200, and then points out that to enable the speakerphone on the Treo, you push a big fat icon on the screen that says "SPEAKERPHONE" -- "thats the way phones should be designed", he said. As if all phones without a superlarge touch enabled screen are "problems". <urg>

I'm sorry, but anyone who's writing a review of a device and is going to consider things "problems" when they don't match up to another device that's not in the same category really shouldn't be able to publish their stuff.

[Luzerman]

I have to disagree with you aristoBrat. The plain fact is that the speakerphone function is very non-intuitive on the MPx200. If you go to any of the smartphone sites you'll see 100 different people asking how to make the speakerphone work.

No where in the manual does it mention that if you switch from the ATTWS home screen that it will allow the recently used apps to show up in the home screen. its also a pain to find the right setting to allow you to do that. I also think that many others out there will think the same thing as they will never get around to playing with those settings.

I really like my MPx200 but there are some serious usability problems with the MS Smartphone platform. If a few more of these negative reviews are published maybe MS will get off their butts and fix some of the more egregious ones like "smart minimize", the caller ID problem, and the fact that to customize your phone you must tweak registry settings instead of being able to set them in control panels either form the phone or from the PC its connected to as it takes way too many clicks of the phone to change many of the settings on the phone itself.

As for your statement that the devices don't match up I would not agree. The public will think the Treo 600 and MPx200 are in the same category because they're both Smartphones. While we both might understand that the Treo 600 more readily matches up with the XDA or XDA2 those two devices are not labeled "smartphones" while the Treo and MPx200 are. The Sim unlocked prices are more compatible for the Treo 600 and MPx200 as well though you can get the MPx200 free with rebates while the cheapest I've seen the Treo 600 is $399 with a previous customer discount.

The man is a reviewer who might like smartphones but that doesn't mean he's an enthusiast who is willing to spend hours and hours figuring out how to tweak his registry settings so everything is set up like he wants it. He is trying to figure out if a device makes sense out of the box and that all the features advertised are available without him having to mess around with things. That's the sign of a good device, if you can open the box and use 75% of the features without reading the manual. If you haven't been in the tech or tech support field you might not know that most people never read the manual. It doesn't matter what's happening but that manual never gets opened. People will rather call tech support and sit on hold for hours then open a manual and look at the table of contents and find the information for themselves.