Saturday, December 15, 2007

Smartphone update


I know I have a couple of regulars who like me are gadget minded, so I thought I'd provide an update on where I'm at with my smartphones. Dad, if your'e reading this you can skip this post (he's a luddite!).
Basically, I've been torn between my Palm Treo 680 and my most recent acquisition, the HTC S710 or "Vox" (pictured) ever since I got the Vox back in the late summer. I couldn't quite bring myself to ditch the Treo altogether in favour of the Windows Mobile device, and found myslef swapping between them on an almost daily basis. However, a couple of months ago I decided I had to make a choice once and for all, and decided to stick with the Vox. There are a few reasons for this, not all of which are necessarily good or rational ones!
  • It's smaller than the Treo
  • It holds a signal better than the Treo
  • It's battery is awesome compared to the Treo (2-3 days at least even with heavy use)
  • It can do most of the things I want, albeit often in a more convoluted way than the Treo
  • Palm support is waning, and Palm itself may disappear if it doesn't remove it's head from it's jacksy and start delivering
There are a couple of things that I frequently miss though
  • The touchscreen - a year or so ago, many WinMob sites were saying the touchscreen is dead, long live "true" smartphone devices with non-touchscreens. Now, what devices do people rave about? Iphone (touchscreen), HTC TyTyn II (touchscreen), HTC Touch/Dual (touchcsreen). Hmmm.. seems a bit two faced to me...
  • The hard keyboard. The Treo's keyboard is better than the Vox by a country mile
  • Palm OS - quicker than WM6 (on the Vox at least) and far more intuitive, although I agree it does look well past it's sell by date and in major need of a facelift.
I still haven't got rid of the Treo. It's sitting on my desk, charged up and ready as my backup. I have to say I'm getting used to the Vox, but it's been sheer perseverance rather than the joyous union I felt when I got my Treo. When I use it, it's atool and it feels like a tool. I don't experience the same sense of - fun - I guess, that I do whenever I pick up the Treo.
I think if I won the lottery I'd switch from the Vox, but what to? Do you know what? I think it might be an iphone. Or I might buy Palm out and get them to produce an updated smartphone worthy of the Palm name.

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