Browne Trout

I used to own a Palm Trio. I'm not sure I loved it with the ardent fervour of a Blackberry owner, but I thought it was awesome. We parted company because I had dropped it once too often, the battery was on its last legs and because I started working for a company that refused to install the required Microsoft Exchange/Palm connectors.

Being a traveling sales warrior, I need mobile access to my contacts, calendar and email. So I was forced to look at a PDA installed with Windows Mobile. If you have a limited attention span, I'll spare you the rest of this review and let you know that I give this mobile solution C-. I you want to know more, read on.......

When I owned the Trio I was a TMobile customer. I had to change to Verizon because TMobile do not offer a North American calling plan so I was hit with $0.48 per min when I made calls from Canada. I go to Vancouver about once per 1/4. Also T Mobile's PDA choices are VERY limited and do not have a Windows Mobile option. Verizon's choices are excellent. I decided on the Samsung i730. Click on the link for more information but in short:

Glorious colour screen
Slide out QWERTY keyboard
Bluetooth
IR
Speakerphone
SD slot

It comes with the following accessories:

Desktop Charger/Dual Sync Cradle with USB cable (Awful design, see below for instructions on how to get this working)
Home Charger
Standard battery
Extended battery (Excellent idea)
Stereo Headset
Holster (Doesn't fit the phone!)
Stylus

All in all, great phone, very happy. But this review is about the operating system and not the phone. Don't blame the messenger!

Like I said I was a Palm owner and before that a Blackberry owner. Both of these were awesome, reliable, well designed environments to work in.

The Windows mobile environment? CONFUSING. Microsoft is the recipient of many critical assaults of late, but something is common amongst them all. KISS, keep it simple stupid. I read a web site recently (can't remember which one) saying that people were returning phones because they thought they were broken, but in actual fact the errors were caused by confusing operating systems. I know exactly what they mean.

The OS (and please note I say OS not phone, again, don't blame the messenger) is just plain badly designed, complicated and hard to use.

Let me give you some examples:

1. I try to make a call when the phone is syncing and I get the message "Data Session Warning - You must press END key to place data session in dormant state". Errr....like I'm in charge here Bill. I want to make a call. If your software is doing something else, STOP IT and do what I tell you to do.

2. I'm driving down the road. Like a good boy I'm using by blue tooth hands free headset. I try to call someone using voice recognition. The OS presents me with a dialogue that requires me to, with pin point accuracy, click on an OK button. So now, my eyes are directed from the road to my phone. I now attempt to click on the OK button while steering at 65 MPH. Alright, I should pull over, but I don't, get over it.

3. When I close an application, I mean close it. Don't keep it open in memory. I got a message a few days ago telling me that system memory was dangerously low. Turns out that all the apps I thought I had closed down were still open. I'm told that I could cure this by downloading (paying for) a 3rd party application, I don't think so.

4. If I slide the phone open, chances are I want to make a call. Take me to phone screen please.

5. When I plug the phone into the desktop charger, why does the screen come on and stay on, forever. Screens have a lifespan.

There plenty of other frustrations, but I hope you get the idea, hence the C- rating. I'll continue to add to this BLOG entry as I find or remember more.

Suffice to say, Windows Mobile has a long way to go before it comes close to Palm and Blackberry. I see that you can now get Windows Mobile on a Treo, ARE YOU CRAZY?

Note: The Samsung comes with a desktop charger. It is very badly designed.