bdegroodt
10-12-2004, 06:44 PM
In the name of sharing my early (11th day) experiences with my 6315, thought I'd share some of the bugs I've found so far...and that cause me to stay on the fence about whether it makes it past day 14 in my life.
Yesterday was my first trip on the road that I decided to give the blackberry a rest and take only the 6315. No laptop either.
And here's what I found to be a real pain
-Biggest issue is around email performance. Even connected to WiFi, the time it takes the unit to download email is incredibly slow. Great at grabbing headers, but if I ask for the meat of the email, it takes for ever. For a 5kb email, it's not uncommon for it to be "receiving" for 5 minutes. Of course, in all the areas you wish the OS to be verbose, there's nothing to indicate why on earth it can't move a 5kb email in seconds.
-If the unit is collecting email and times out, the battery goes with it. It displays a message indicating it's timed out, and doesn't do 2 critical things. A-get back to work trying to grab the email. I'm positive this happens on my blackberry as well, but I'm not bothered with excuses. it just goes back to reestablishing a connection and getting to work. B-Because the pop-up error message remains on the screen, the unit doesn't turn off. This is an incredibly irritating issue. Mostly because if you haven't been baby sitting the unit and you come back to it some time later, it's run the battery dead.
-Dpad is ridiculous. First it's raised. So forget about the case. If the unit wakes for some reason, the dpad becomes depressed, and...the battery dies. Second, I can't use the dpad to move up and down only. If you're in a context menue that restricts movement to up and down only, no problem. But, if for instance, I'm in Outlook and want to scroll up and down my inbox, I invariably end up in the next email account because the dpad has interpreted my up/down command as a desire to move left/right. I hope this is a defective unit, and replacing it will solve the issue.
-No caller specific ring tones. not that that really matters since you can't hear the unit ring in the first place.
-Speakerphone/speaker distorts at the highest level.
-Screen doesn't stay off while the unit collects email in the background. For having given up such a large amount of CPU power, you'd think this would be a natural battery-saving feature HP would incorporate into it.
-Nitpick, but the case is absolute junk and clearly shows a lack of interest by HP in thinking about how a typical business user would employ a case, or the entire phone for that matter.
-Attachments in email, when executed, can bring the entire unit to a halt.
-I've soft reset not less than 30 times in 11 days.
-I've hard reset due to the SMS account just disappearing for no reason. Tmobile always suggests a hard reset--assuming you can find a rep that knows what a 6315 is.
-Tmobile might be guilty of putting a little too much of their software on the surface. Instant messaging comes to mind, and it's a clear departure in user experience and interface from the MS written code.
-The keyboard is pretty good, but the detachable thing isn't really that cool in my mind. I have XDA envy in this department, but I'm unwilling to shell out a grand for a yet-to-be-proven stable OS.
-On a recent flight, even though the unit was in "Flight mode" I opened my bag, upon arrival, to find that it had been busy downloading email. Either HP has some incredible technology that knows you're no longer "in flight" or my 6315 could have been the phone that "interfered with the plane's navigation equipment" and caused us to fall out of the sky.
-Overall, the most difficult part of owning this unit is knowing that it requires attention. It's supposed to relieve stress and keep the trains running on schedule. In reality, it requires me to think about it constantly and have a slight nervousness about its reliability. Bad!
It's dangerously close to right. I sure hope HP/TM get with the updates, as I see a lot of funny stuff being reported on this unit and I'm certain my experiences aren't too far from the norm.
Yesterday was my first trip on the road that I decided to give the blackberry a rest and take only the 6315. No laptop either.
And here's what I found to be a real pain
-Biggest issue is around email performance. Even connected to WiFi, the time it takes the unit to download email is incredibly slow. Great at grabbing headers, but if I ask for the meat of the email, it takes for ever. For a 5kb email, it's not uncommon for it to be "receiving" for 5 minutes. Of course, in all the areas you wish the OS to be verbose, there's nothing to indicate why on earth it can't move a 5kb email in seconds.
-If the unit is collecting email and times out, the battery goes with it. It displays a message indicating it's timed out, and doesn't do 2 critical things. A-get back to work trying to grab the email. I'm positive this happens on my blackberry as well, but I'm not bothered with excuses. it just goes back to reestablishing a connection and getting to work. B-Because the pop-up error message remains on the screen, the unit doesn't turn off. This is an incredibly irritating issue. Mostly because if you haven't been baby sitting the unit and you come back to it some time later, it's run the battery dead.
-Dpad is ridiculous. First it's raised. So forget about the case. If the unit wakes for some reason, the dpad becomes depressed, and...the battery dies. Second, I can't use the dpad to move up and down only. If you're in a context menue that restricts movement to up and down only, no problem. But, if for instance, I'm in Outlook and want to scroll up and down my inbox, I invariably end up in the next email account because the dpad has interpreted my up/down command as a desire to move left/right. I hope this is a defective unit, and replacing it will solve the issue.
-No caller specific ring tones. not that that really matters since you can't hear the unit ring in the first place.
-Speakerphone/speaker distorts at the highest level.
-Screen doesn't stay off while the unit collects email in the background. For having given up such a large amount of CPU power, you'd think this would be a natural battery-saving feature HP would incorporate into it.
-Nitpick, but the case is absolute junk and clearly shows a lack of interest by HP in thinking about how a typical business user would employ a case, or the entire phone for that matter.
-Attachments in email, when executed, can bring the entire unit to a halt.
-I've soft reset not less than 30 times in 11 days.
-I've hard reset due to the SMS account just disappearing for no reason. Tmobile always suggests a hard reset--assuming you can find a rep that knows what a 6315 is.
-Tmobile might be guilty of putting a little too much of their software on the surface. Instant messaging comes to mind, and it's a clear departure in user experience and interface from the MS written code.
-The keyboard is pretty good, but the detachable thing isn't really that cool in my mind. I have XDA envy in this department, but I'm unwilling to shell out a grand for a yet-to-be-proven stable OS.
-On a recent flight, even though the unit was in "Flight mode" I opened my bag, upon arrival, to find that it had been busy downloading email. Either HP has some incredible technology that knows you're no longer "in flight" or my 6315 could have been the phone that "interfered with the plane's navigation equipment" and caused us to fall out of the sky.
-Overall, the most difficult part of owning this unit is knowing that it requires attention. It's supposed to relieve stress and keep the trains running on schedule. In reality, it requires me to think about it constantly and have a slight nervousness about its reliability. Bad!
It's dangerously close to right. I sure hope HP/TM get with the updates, as I see a lot of funny stuff being reported on this unit and I'm certain my experiences aren't too far from the norm.