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blascrw
09-26-2002, 03:02 PM
I am about to plop down the 500.00 for the T-Nobile unit. Unfortunately I have never held one hands on...dis-advantage of a smaller town.

I am looking for honest insights into this unit. Would you buy it again...if someone stole yours, would you buy another just like it?

What do you really like about it? What do you dis-like about it?

Thank you much for your input. I hope to descide between the PPCP and the Treo and a seperate PPC and a phone...

BTW...What is the max memory module the PPCP will accept??

Thanks Again...

Ron

mty
09-26-2002, 08:31 PM
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/wireless/B00006IIRQ/glance/qid=1033068795/br=1-3/ref=br_lf_w_zr_3/104-8212280-6729551

MaestroXTreme
09-27-2002, 01:55 AM
You will got a lot of different feedback on the T-Mobile. In my case, I purchased it with that insane rebate on Amazon, and recieved it about a week ago.

It all depends on where you live. That's the key factor in deciding wether or not you will like the PPC phone or not. When the phone is in a bad service area, it will act up. You will have to soft reset a few times, and there are a few programs, mainly the Today Screen apps (Wisbar, Gigabar) that will lock your machine up.

I live only a few miles off of NYC, and the service in this area is wonderful! I have only had to soft rest the unit once so far, and it was becaue my machine locked up after having 10 programs running.

The phone itself is very attractive and comfortable to use as a phone. When no one is around I use the speakerphone feature and all seems well, the person can hear me better than on my old Erickson with AT&T, and I hear them better. The dialing interface takes some time to get used to, but it is easy none-the-less.

The PDA features work extremly well. Surfing the 'net is the best you could get for mobile internet (for me, slightly slower than 56k on a GSM connection). Although GPRS is faster, I don't have a data plan, and I just connect to my dial-up ISP on the weekend (since i have unlimited weekends) and surf for free.

All-in-all, a great first attempt at an all-in-one device like this. It beats lugging around my phone and my Maestro in two pockets, although when in any case it will show through a pants pocket and sag a little, but not too noticeable.

I would not recommend using the case that came with it. It has two magnetic strips, and when you put in the device and take it out it will flake the paint off the device. I am an extremly carefull person with PDA's, and like mentioned before I have only had this unit for one week, but the paint flaked in those two areas near the buttons. It doesn't bother me that much.

I have no memory card yet. I loaded a few apps and games onto main memory, and so far, no problems. The device CAN get sluggish at times, but that is only because of the lack of memory (32 MB isn't enough). The great people at PPCTechs.com offer memory upgrades, although a little high, will boost your internal memory to 60 or 128 MB. I have heard from other people that this upgrade will get rid of some issues with the software. I personally don't have the money for the upgrade, but heard it worked flawlessly.

Games? Yes they are a bit hard to control, as the two buttons on the bottom of the unit cannot be mapped to play games (although some have said in Pocket GameBoy you can). You have to rely on the two on the top of the device. It isn't that hard to do, just gets a little getting used to, and a little sore on the hands.

Screen? It is only 12 bit, which is 60,000 fewer colors than on a 16-bit. But, I tell you, it doesn't matter. The screen is so much brighter than on my Maestro. The only difference is when you are looking at high contrast or high colored picture files or surfing the web, a little bit of graining comes into effect but it isn't that noticeable.

Battery? One word: Awesome. It is the higher end Lithium-Polymer battery, and it lasted me a weekend down the shore, surfing the net, talking, listening to music, etc. When I got home the battery was still at 30 percent after 3 days of use. That is pretty awesome.

All-in-all, I am very very happy with my purchase. And as an owner of a few Palms and a Maestro, this is the best PDA I have owned so far. Mobile color internet at almost 56k speeds, a full PPC, and a full phone in one device is a dream come true for me.

If you have the money, go for it!

mccollin
09-27-2002, 03:16 AM
I have a similar opinion to the Maestro guy that just posted.

I too had owned a Palm and a Maestro... and an iPaq briefly.

To net it out... you'd have to pry this from by cold dead hands to get it from me. I would buy another one immediately if it got stolen. I also bought it through the insane amazon.com deal (which I believe is still available to you, so why wouldn't you order from them).

For me, I use my PDA a lot, and I make about 20-30 phone calls a day. I'm not a heavy data guy, although I'm sure I'll get there over time. I could not go back to a Palm OS system at this point, so the Treo isn't an option. I also can't handle those tiny keyboards. I use PocketInformant a lot, and also HanDBase, Pocket Bible NIB & Life Application, TreNotes, Excel and Word. For phones, I was not a guy that bought the expensive tiny ones with voice activation and all of that... never found that to be something I wanted. That's a profile of me. I think you need to have some idea of a profile to make sense of an opinion about the device.

I had been a long time Verizon Wireless customer going back to Nynex days... about 8 years or so. I live in the capital district of NY (Albany) which is not a major metro area... so I was very skeptical about changing to T-Mobile.... their map coverage doesn't look great. I spend most of my time in Albany County, and Verizon didn't work in many places I went (my home office, my company office, and many of my clients offices). T-Mobile not only works in all those places, it is clear and strong. The coverage for where I spend most of my time is incredible. I'm told that if you get out of the cities, they have no coverage. I have to go to a distant soccer game tomorrow so I'll check that out.

The phone's usabilty is very good. If you get numbers into speed dial, you can do calls with one hand using the D-Switch to navigate and the green and red buttons. It's very intuitive. If you need to dial, I just use my fingers (not the stylus) and it works fine. I haven't had any problems with my face smudging the screen... in fact it doesn't even touch it the way I hold the phone. I have a WriteShield on their which doesn't show fingerprints very bad. I don't care about voice activated calling, but some complain about it not having it.

The battery on this thing is nothing short of a miracle. I use it a lot, both as a PDA, and as a phone and I haven't gone below 50% yet. My Maestro sometimes barely made it through the day, and when I tried a WiFi card with it, it lasted less than an hour (not that WiFi is a phone, but it's the closest thing I can compare to). I think it's nuts that some of the complaints were things like "I can't get 15 hours of use... ". It's crazy to expect that. The battery is better than any other PocketPC that I've seen.. by far.

I think the screen is very good. I think the included case looks neat... has a T-Mobile logo on it... but I will not use it because it will scratch the PDA. I bought an EB Case Slipper and it is quite literally the perfect case. I can't think of anything I would change on it. It's small, looks nice, and is very easy to answer the phone quickly.

Things I don't like.... that's a tough one. I think the vibrate feature is to harsh... it is loud when it vibrates. I've adjusted to this, however. When it's on my belt, it's fine. It was in meetings that it startled everyone. But, since I have the PDA in my hand in meetings, I just turn the vibrate and sound off. It's 1 click away to do that from any screen. So, at the beginning of a meeting, I turn the sound off. If you get a call, it pops up a window on the screen which I see since I take notes with it. You can then answer the phone or not. No one even knows that it happened.

The speaker phone option is really nice and works fine as hands free in the car. I bought an iRock from Radio Shack to let me play MP3s through the stereo with it. If you get a call, it silences the music and rings. You hit the green button to answer and talk away. When you hang up with the red button, it resumes the music. It's cool having your car phone play through the stereo.

Styling... I think this is the nicest looking PDA that I've ever seen. I never cared for the iPaqs. They look too bulky, and too shiney. This thing just looks way cool.

Other things I don't like... I wish T-Mobile would come out with a better data plan. I don't have one yet because what they have seems very easy to spend way over your limit in a month. I'm using dialed access to an ISP which is free at night and weekends. It's a little slower, but you have to remember that if you browse content designed for a PDA, the pages are very light. I've gone onto the web during meetings and checked a stock price, or the weather or news. Noone knows you even did it.

I disabled this battery monitor program on the advice of others and since then I haven't had a single hang up that required a reset. Otherwise, I had to do that a half dozen times a day. Not a big deal, but a small annoyance.

I love the integration between the two. I live and die with Pocket Informant. With my 2 device method, I had to fumble around with my PocketPC to look up a number, then punch it into the phone hoping I didn't have a typo. If I was driving, this was near impossible. With this thing, you look up the contact and click on the telephone number.... you get a dialog asking if you want to call them. You say yes, and it's done.

Probably the best thing for me is that I always carried my phone with me, but I left my PDA behind sometimes. With this device, you will always have everythign with you. That's the biggest benefit of all.

I'll NEVER go back. I love this thing.

nightline
09-27-2002, 05:43 AM
I agree 100% with the 2 posts above. I am in the IT field, and one aspect of my job is to support PDA's that are used by my co-workers (which are customers to me). I have only been playing around with PDA's for about 3 years. My first was a Handspring Visor, I liked it, but soon found out that PocketPC ws the way to go.

After having the Handspring for about 1 year, I migrated over to the Jornada 540 series, it was fun, but soon became too old. I then upgraded to the Jornada 568, and now to the PPC Phone. I must say, I am really amazed that such a product has come into existence.

For personal cell phone use, I was a Sprint PCS customer, and for work, I had an AT&T phone. At the office, where I spend most of my time, my Sprint PCS phone was practically useless unless I stepped outside. As for AT&T, just the wear and tear on my phone finally proved it to be almost useless. The T-Mobile service in my work area is great. Every now and then my signal is between the 2nd and 3rd bar, but even with just the 2nd bar, phone quality is excellent.

I don't have a data plan at yet, but will be turning it on soon. I too am currently using dialup to access the internet. The time will come soon when I will use the data service more, but at this time my data use is minimal.

Switching to the PPC PE enabled me to do the following which resulted in saving a little $$.

1. NO longer using Sprint PCS service
2. NO longer using AT&T service
3. I also used to leave my PDA at home because I didnt want to carry around 2 devices
4. I now use my PPC PE for my work and personal calls, 1000 minutes a month is plenty for both as well as surfing with dial-up.

On Wednesday, I ordered my Vaja Case, and should receive it on Monday.

Next on my list is to send the unit to PocketPCTechs to get either the 64 or 128mb upgrade, I haven't decided which yet.

Once again, if you have the $$ to spend, I say go for it, you will not regret this purchase. And if you can get in on the Amazon.com deal, it is your best bet at this time.

I really have to give all the credit of my PDA knowledge to my boss. He is an extremely intelligent person, and always keeps up on new technology. Fortunately, even though he is my boss, he takes the time to inform me of new things that he finds in the PocketPC field.

blascrw
09-27-2002, 09:04 PM
O I looked at the Amazon deal...how does that work...do I get service with T-mobile through Amazon, or can I have to go to a local T-mobile retailer to get the service?

Is the Amazon a true rebate or credits on your bill??

nightline
09-28-2002, 02:58 AM
Your place the order online with Amazon.com, near the end of your checkout process, you will be asked to provide personal information including your social security #.

You complete your checkout, get a total, submit, and then Amazon sends your info to TMobile/Voicestream for credit approval.

If everything is ok on the credit end, then Tmobile/Voicestream will send an authorization back to Amazon letting them know that they can ship the order.

I believe that somewhere in this entire process, Amazon sends Tmobile the info about the actual phone they are sending you, so that it is all ready to go when you receive it.

When you get the phone, I believe you will receive 2 SMS messages from Voicestream, one of those messages will contain your new phone number.

As for the rebate from Amazon, it appears to be a true rebate, there is a section on the rebate form that tells you what to do if you have not RECEIVED it in 10 weeks.

Click below to see the rebate form as a .pdf file
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00006IIRQ.01.RB06.LZZZZZZZ.jpg


:o Now quit stalling and order the darn thing!!! :lol:

yvilla
10-17-2002, 05:51 PM
The PDA features work extremly well. Surfing the 'net is the best you could get for mobile internet (for me, slightly slower than 56k on a GSM connection). Although GPRS is faster, I don't have a data plan, and I just connect to my dial-up ISP on the weekend (since i have unlimited weekends) and surf for free.

I've been browsing in this forum for the first time because I'm considering going with T-Mobile (and getting my son the PPC Phone Edition so I can play with it too!). I was startled to see your post, because I thought you had to buy a data plan to get on the internet. Are you really saying you can go online without paying any extra over the voice plan, and just use up minutes? That would be supremely wonderful! Could I get online with my e550G too, if my T-mobile phone is internet ready? (My son would have the PPC PE, and I would just have a regular phone--or maybe I'll get the PC card, if in fact I'd be able to get online that way--wow).

The reason I'm asking--even though you said it clearly enough, MaestroXTreme --is that I did ask the T-Mobile people just the other night when we were out looking at phones, plans, etc. And the guy said no, I couldn't dial up to my own ISP and use minutes; said that the only way to go online was with their gprs data plan measured by mb. Did he just not know what he was talking about (something I suspected for other reasons!)? Can't wait to get a reply from someone on this. Thanks.

HughesShoppe
10-21-2002, 04:12 PM
I've been browsing in this forum for the first time because I'm considering going with T-Mobile (and getting my son the PPC Phone Edition so I can play with it too!). I was startled to see your post, because I thought you had to buy a data plan to get on the internet. Are you really saying you can go online without paying any extra over the voice plan, and just use up minutes? That would be supremely wonderful! Could I get online with my e550G too, if my T-mobile phone is internet ready? (My son would have the PPC PE, and I would just have a regular phone--or maybe I'll get the PC card, if in fact I'd be able to get online that way--wow).


I can tell from personal experience that u can use your ISP to dialup the Internet using the TMO PPC Phone. I've had it for over 2 months now and I never purchased the data plan. From what i've seen on other forums the speed is about the same. Don't know if u can get a data plan for your e550G? I did however purchase the $2.99 a month for TZone for my wife's phone (V100) so she can get online as well. Call T-Mobile CS and tell em you want the T-Zone for $2.99 a month.

Good luck. and Tell your son to visit MSN PocketPC Phone User Group for tips and info on the PPC Phone- http://www.msnusers.com/PocketPCPhone

MaestroXTreme
10-27-2002, 05:25 PM
The reason I'm asking--even though you said it clearly enough, MaestroXTreme --is that I did ask the T-Mobile people just the other night when we were out looking at phones, plans, etc. And the guy said no, I couldn't dial up to my own ISP and use minutes; said that the only way to go online was with their gprs data plan measured by mb. Did he just not know what he was talking about (something I suspected for other reasons!)? Can't wait to get a reply from someone on this. Thanks.

Ahh, the salesman strikes again! He was just trying to trick you into having to spend extra money on the data plan. So no one gets confused, I will explain:

There are two main forms of wireless data communication - GPRS and GSM. GPRS is the actual data plan - how many megs per month you are allowed to download from webpages, e-mail, etc. GSM is slightly slower than GPRS (not enough to really notice, though), and is connected to a dial-up ISP with user name and password rather than a gateway (like GPRS). With the PPC PE, you can modify your connections to use GSM when connecting to the internet - you just need a dialup ISP (I use prodigy). I have it set to dial the number and send my user-password. Since GSM *dials* the number instead of connecting to a gateway, the phone and provider (T-Mobile) think you are using voice minutes, which you technically are. In my instance, I have the unlimited weekend minutes added to my plan, so on the weekend while on the road I surf the web, use AIM, and download music without worrying about how many megs I am using or minutes I am wasting.

I hope this cleared things up. If you need any help with the settings to use GSM, e-mail me and I will be glad to tell you.

yvilla
10-27-2002, 07:27 PM
Thanks much for the replies HughesShoppe and MaestroXTreme! We did get the PPCPE and my son is happily online through dialup on nights and weekends. :D

But, now the question is this: Do you know if when I get a phone (we'll change to family plan, as soon as I get first bill and can send in for the Amazon rebate), will I also be able to get dialup access by connecting my phone to my Toshiba e550G? I can't tell from your responses if on T-Mobile dialup internet access may be limited somehow to only the PPCPE. I believe the TZone thing is only for limited access to WAP sites on a phone itself, whereas with Nextel I was able to use a Socket digital phone card and my old PPC (Casio) to dialup to the regular internet. But, and this is the source of my worry/confusion--with Nextel, and before that Sprint, you had to pay an extra fixed monthly charge for dialup data access, even though you would be using voice minutes.

RickP in AZ
10-28-2002, 03:40 AM
I use GSM dialup through T-Mobile several times a day. An iPAQ 3970 connected to my Ericsson T68m via Bluetooth. So no, it is not limited to the PPCPE.

At least with T-Mobile it is *very slow* as in 9600 baud, so I limit myself to email, MSN, and using PIE w/ images turned off. But it's "Free" wireless Net. (600 week minutes and Unlimited Weekends + 500 SMS.)