pt reviews Pocket PC Phone Edition Extended Battery

[Andy Sjostrom]

<a href="http://www.pocketpcmagic.com/battery/">http://www.pocketpcmagic.com/battery/</a><br /><br />Sometimes we take things for granted. That everyone knows what "pt" means, for example. The man behind pt is Phillip Torrone, a Pocket PC enthusiast, entrepreneur, Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) and so on... pt always has something up his sleeves and this time it's a Pocket PC Phone Edition battery. But there is something else too. Go and check out the battery review. Then check out the last two pictures. Can you see what it is?<br /><br />"Installation was super-easy, it clips on the back and then 2 thumbscrew thingies are turned which are threaded to fit in the current top 2 screws on the Pocket PC Phone. The battery is SUPER slim and very stylish, it barely adds any size to the unit at all. The little turny-knobs at the top are very cool too, kinda retro looking, like a cross between that movie "The Rocketeer" and "Stargate SG-1". It's gold-ish like the T-Mobile...actually, just look at the pics below. I dob't have a scale, but the thing is pretty light. On the inside of the battery it says: Rating: 3.7VDC, 1500mAh Li-Ion rechargeable battery. This external battery is charged through the device, and yes- it still fits in the cradle just fine. The cradle has a little curve for it."<br /><br />• 4 additional talk time hours, usage (The Pocket PC Phone has about 5 hours talk time without the extra battery).<br />• 150 additional hours, standby (The Pocket PC Phone has about 180 hours standby without the extra battery).<br />• 10 additional PDA hours (The Pocket PC Phone has about 15 without the extra battery).<br />• 2.5 hours charging time.<br />• 5 hours total charging time when attached to main unit"<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/isthisakeyboard.jpg" />

[palmsolo]

I saw Beth demo the accessory that is shown in the last two photos at the last PSHUG meeting and Pocket PC Phone Edition users are going to LOVE it. I don't know if we can talk about it since pt was silent on it and I don't remember if Beth asked us to keep it quiet until it was "official."

[kaiden.1]

The battery is good to see. I am a heavy user on my mobil phone and I was concerned about how long it would last as a combo device.

I looked at the T-Mobile PPC the other day, a good friend of mine works as a manger a T-Mobile retail store, she has been demo-ing the phone. She tells me that after several hours of use it really slows down, I even saw it do the same thing. It took literally 5 sec. after I had pressed the start button for the menu to drop down. I think that the smart phone is the way to go and leave your PPC as it's own stand alone unit.

[entropy1980]

Could the sqigglies be the thumbboard I have heard about? :?: :D

[pt]

The battery is good to see. I am a heavy user on my mobil phone and I was concerned about how long it would last as a combo device.

I looked at the T-Mobile PPC the other day, a good friend of mine works as a manger a T-Mobile retail store, she has been demo-ing the phone. She tells me that after several hours of use it really slows down, I even saw it do the same thing. It took literally 5 sec. after I had pressed the start button for the menu to drop down. I think that the smart phone is the way to go and leave your PPC as it's own stand alone unit.

like most demo units, it's not set up properly, needs to be reset, needs to be configured properly....etc. i'm literally a speed freak, so if anything took 5 seconds, i'd chuck it. it's hard to get hands on experience / testing with a unit that's not messed up since a million people usually screw around with demo units. if you look on my site there are videos of the pocket pc phone in action (www.pocketpcmagic.com).

cheers,
pt

[mccollin]

I have to agree with pt on this... there is no slow down after you've used it for a while, that I've noticed. One thing that might be happening is that he could have opened many applications that are still running in the background. This will eventually consume all the memory and THAT could make it slow down. I periodically go kill all the background apps if I've been running for a long time without a warm start. The T-Mobile people around here know zip about the PPCPE.

Here's a key about this device, however. If you are a phone user... and not a PPC user, then you very well may hate this device. Not because it has problems, but because you very well may hat a standard PPC! I don't think that's a ligitimate test of the device. If you are already a PPC user and you have to carry a phone as well.... well then my guess is that more often than not you will love this device. I do, and that's my profile. The challenge for the device is that it is being sold primarily by phone sales people that my very well not like, or not nothing about, a PPC. They will hate it. Msft has chosen to OEM PPCPE through telephone companies and that may be a problem. It's too bad they didn't come up with a way to market this more as a PDA... I think it would make it easier for it to gain some traction. If you go into CompUSA looking for a PDA, you probably wouldn't even find this... because it's over in the telephone section.

I think now, it's just people that have done their own research and know they want it.... no one just wandering in and buying it.

[cludwig]

By far the most important thing I can recommend for T-Mobile PPCPE users is to get some sort of memory expansion. Either send it away for internal memory add-on, or even just get _almost any_ size SD or MMC card and make sure to insall any add-ons there (even 32 or 64 megs is good for some MP3 tunes and a couple of memory-hogging games). And ditch that T-Mobile Today app... seems like a pig and doesn't do anyuthing useful for me. It's the tightness of memory that causes the gradual slow-down... surfing fills up cache space, changing apps leaves them running, etc. Soft-reset will temporarily help, but you're better off curing the problem by making sure you've always got 16 meg or so free in the main memory.

The battery is good to see. I am a heavy user on my mobil phone and I was concerned about how long it would last as a combo device.

I looked at the T-Mobile PPC the other day, a good friend of mine works as a manger a T-Mobile retail store, she has been demo-ing the phone. She tells me that after several hours of use it really slows down, I even saw it do the same thing. It took literally 5 sec. after I had pressed the start button for the menu to drop down. I think that the smart phone is the way to go and leave your PPC as it's own stand alone unit.

[pt]

making sure you've always got 16 meg or so free in the main memory.

100%, if you can always have 15+ mb of program memory, 99% of the problems folks report go away. i hope to write up an article about this soon since it's really important.

cheers,
pt

[Akeldama]

PT, did you use your Sidekick camera to take the pictures in your review?

[pt]

PT, did you use your Sidekick camera to take the pictures in your review?

haha, nope. the sidecam is not for takin' pics. my watch takes better pictures. it's a nice little promotional thing, but it only does like 70 x 70.

cheers,
pt