10-27-2004, 04:25 PM
|
|
Neophyte
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 6
|
|
Review of SMT 5600 from a Mom, Business Woman and Frequent T
I realize everyone in the world has a different perspective on devices, gadgets and gizmo's. My point of view comes from being a Mom and a business woman that travels fairly frequently.
First, let me say I love this phone!! I'm able to do 99% of what I could with my old pocket pc and phone and now I have everything combined in to one device. I realize that's a smart phone upswing though.
My hardware thoughts (what I like):
The phone feels good, very solid. Everything is smooth and it's not so easy to inadvertently push the buttons on it. This is a good thing considering I have it in my purse when I�m not using it. I don�t use the case that came with it, not convenient; I�m not a utility belt girl! =) The phone has its own pocket in my purse.
Ring volume is awesome. Most of the ring volume settings I have on loud and let me tell you it is loud. I can actually hear the phone ringing when it�s in my purse. This was always a problem in the past.
The rocker bar, I sorta like it. It�s much better than the �mouse� on my HP Pocket PC. I never used the mouse on that device. I�m forced to use it hear and thankfully it works well when I have to. But, I do like that I can press the number for the menu item I want most of the time.
Signal and no antenna is a really good thing. With my cell phones in the past I was always pulling out the antenna to try and get a better signal, which I�m not sure helped much really. But with the SMT 5600 the signal is very good and there�s no antenna to worry about bending or crushing.
Reception is awesome!! My husband told me that he could hear the air conditioning in the car over the phone. Though the bottom of the phone doesn�t come down right in front of my mouth, people can hear me just fine and I don�t have to �speak up� to be heard. I also like that the phone �sounds� like I�m on more of a land line than a cell phone with spotty reception.
The signal light on it is actually very useful. Took me a bit to realize and get use to the idea of the battery display not doing anything when it was charging, but the light indicator is orange instead, green when charged, flashing green when not charging but on and has signal and blue when the Bluetooth is active. I like that because I can just look in my purse, see the top of the phone and see the indicator. I don�t have to take the phone out of my purse to see that indicator light.
The battery power is very good!! I haven�t had a dead battery yet and recharging is so much more convenient. Since I find I plug my phone in to synch with my laptop as often as I did my pocket pc, I�m glad that the phone charges at the same time that it�s synching. Very nice and now I don�t have to worry about having a dead battery all the time because I forgot to plug the phone in. But, I have noticed that I can doodle with the phone for hours on end and it doesn�t affect the battery life much!
My hardware thoughts (what I don�t like):
Probably the only real complaint that I have is that the MiniSD card is stored behind the battery, no hot swapping here.
Accessories. There aren�t enough accessories for the phone yet. I wish that AT&T had their act together on this one. I can�t find a car charger???? The available accessories are limited right now, can�t wait till they get more out and available.
My software thoughts (what I like):
I like the themes!! I like that I could download a freeware program that would let me easily change the background image and the colors. I absolutely did not like the standard theme that came with the phone. Now, I�m using one that suits my eyes and ability to see everything clearly.
I like the photo contacts a lot. I also like that I�m not able to take too many pictures, use up all my phones storage and I�m only assuming doing that would make my phone inoperable. I�m glad they are preventing me from doing that. Of course, I did go buy a MiniSD card for the phone.
I love that I can check my email on my phone. I do have a complaint about this though that I will detail below.
Voice dialing is awesome. Once upon a time I used voice dialing with Sprint, but it was stored on a server some place and all my voice dials got wiped out when I changed my plan, yucko! I really do like that the voice dials are stored on my phone and I can�t wait to use this feature while I�m traveling and once I get my Bluetooth ear bud.
I like the way the contacts are laid out. Much better on the smart phone than on standard cell phones or pocket pc�s. I really really like that I can setup all my contacts so that they are either personal or business and I can filter that, very cool!! I do have one slight complaint about this though.
mMode is nice. I could read the web on my old phone, but it wasn�t mMode and this is nice, much easier to read.
Most importantly, I like that I don�t feel like my screen is too small. This is really both a hardware and software item though. The hardware screen is good size and the way the software is laid out on the screen doesn�t make me feel like I need more.
My software thoughts (what I don�t like):
The email function is very clunky and it takes too much time to �figure it out�. Which really is the problem, the user of the phone has to figure out how to set it up. Not easy, not intuitive. They should provide better instructions for this or make it easier to setup.
The contacts feature should be added in to the active sync to help modify fields available in the smart phone, but not available in outlook. For example, ring tones, birthdays. Categories (personal or business) are available in Outlook, but it�s just as cumbersome to change it in outlook as it is to change this on the phone.
It�s my personal desire to be able to modify all �settings� for my phone on my PC and just have the information synch across. There are times, depending on the area of the phone I�m trying to setup, that I wish I could do this on the computer much quicker with my mouse instead of drilling down and navigating through the phone.
Exploring to the phone to save files on it isn�t the same as it was with the Pocket PC, though I realize this may be an issue I have to resolve with my laptop. In addition to that saving documents on to the phone is different as well, not as easy in my opinion. I liked that I could �synch� documents to the phone and have a copy of the same folder and document structure on my laptop.
Reading documents on the PC is a pain. I�m still trying to figure out how I can go about reading PDFs on my smart phone without paying for another program. I do hope Adobe comes out with a reader for smart phones soon.
Overall I really love this phone!! I looked a Blackberry�s a while back and I didn�t like them at all. They looked like Palm Pilots to me and I didn�t like Palms. When Pocket PCs came out I new that was what I wanted, I fell in love with my Pocket PC. I noticed that phones started coming out as Pocket PC�s, but they are/were so BIG!!! I didn�t want to go to a device that was going to be bigger than the pocket pc I already had. I bought the model I had specifically because of the size and features available. The other Smart phones that I�ve looked at had displays on them that I knew would annoy me after awhile. This phone was the right solution for what I wanted. This truly is a very nice phone!
Signed,
Happy Audiovox SMT 5600 User
Mom, Business Woman, Traveler
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Threaded Mode