Need a PDA phone in July - which one?

[Taz]

My SE K750i contract with Orange comes to an end in July and i'll be looking to upgrade (or switch provider) to get a proper PDA phone. I need a proper keyboard or a stylus as the input device for writing on the screen. WiFi and Bluetooth are also essential. A large screen would be a bonus.

What are the current best crop of PDA-phones around?

[Aaron]

If you want to stick with Sony Ericsson then both the m600i and P990i will be out by then. If you need WiFi then the P990i is the way to go.

Otherwise, the HTC Universal has a great keyboard but is very large or there's the smaller HTC Wizard.

[Taz]

Thanks, Aaron. I may be going back to Nokia as I don't really rate SE. The K750i is an okay phone but the software is too flaky.

What about the Nokia 9300i?

[hitman67]

9500 over the 9300, has more features and updated software.

[Taz]

Apparently the 9300i is newer than the 9300. Is the 9500 better than the 9300i?

[hitman67]

Yeah the 9500 is a lot better, we've had a couple floating round the office and it's a hell of a lot better to use, updated, got a slightly better camera.

[Waka]

I thought the 9300 didn't have a camera?

I think my upgrade will be one of these 2:
http://www.mobiles4everyone.com/display.asp?hs=n91
http://www.mobiles4everyone.com/display.asp?hs=p990i

probably the SE P990 :-)

W.

[hitman67]

Exaclty, the 9500 does, that's slightly better than not having one

*Realises he's just made an ass of himself and leaves, quietly*

[Taz]

hitman: is the 9500 discontinued? I tried a couple of sites and they say it's discontinued! The 9300i is still not out but doesn't have a camera (which isn't a big deal for me).

[hitman67]

We have a 9500 in the office, it's used mainly as a paperweight but as far as I know Several Phone shops still sell them, if not try E-bay.

[Aaron]

I prefer the 9300i to the 9500.

The only thing it lacks is a camera and it's a lot, lot smaller than the 9500. I'll take the size difference over a VGA camera any day.

[dom_xbox]

Hmm..

I have a HTC Alpine A.K.A o2 XDA IIi, Qtek2020i, i-mate Pda2 etc

Its not a bad device BUT I have had the some problems which were:

BAD Signal in poor signal areas (when a friend has the HTC Blue Angel AkA o2 XDAIIs, Qtek9090, i-mate pda2k and has more bars plus better signal no cutting out in calls).

I think this is because the Alpine is only tri-band and the BlueAngel is Quad (i dunno would it?)

Sluggish response times.. seems to take a while to start things sometimes and then needs a soft-reset (not a hard one else you lose contacts etc).

With regards to new PDA devices:

HTC Universal AKA i-mate JasJar (were they watching episode one?) o2 Exec MDA Pro

Have heard the same problem with signal on my device applys here and guess what its tri band also.. a few bugs in mobile 5 too..

HTC Wizard AKA... umm MDA Vario? Its a smart decent looking phone which i think is let down by the Texas Instruments CPU I havent seen one first hand but most reviews ive read say its sluggish for movie playback BUT it does have wifi b&g (but why must we need g i ask thee?? more power consumption for the speed fr34k5).

and it isnt 3g compatible which the newier model may possibly have (HTC Hermes) and possibly a faster cpu (300mhz samsung) and about the same size...

I like SE phones... well started from a 68i bought the t300 and the t610 then the t630 but they have problems and im not keen on Symbian/QIU of w/e its called.. Had an N-Gage which was quite good.. but cannot compete with a windows mobile (or even a linux if you can get one) mobile device..

[JPreston]

I really like my MDA Compact (HTC Wizard or Magician I think, which ever doesn't have the slide-out keys...it's not just a phone, it's entrance to an owner's club http://forum.xda-developers.com/front_page.php ).

The updated equivalent from Orange got a good review in the Register:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04...ange_spv_m600/

...and that or a differently badged equivalent will be my recommendation for July

Whether any phone is quad- or tri-band has no bearing at all on how good a signal quality you will register....I think with these devices particularly, much as I love mine they are comparatively flaky so it's the luck of the draw how well yours actually works.

[dom_xbox]

I came to the conclusion it could be the triband on the handset because the other handsets in the same range have the same problems with signals.. I've read the forums on XDA developers too and have seen one or to other uses mentioning this as well..

Ive had tri-band handsets before (Nokia NGage) and this never had the problem.. Im not a phone buff, but i know that quad-band handset can operate on 4/5 continents (Eur, Asia, NA, SA) and im sure that Tri Band is for Eur and US possibly asia too.. im guessing that they have a less powerful rf reciever than the quad band handsets in the Pda Phone areas.

Im guessing your handset is probably Tri-Band too.. with an Xscale 416mhz cpu? maybe they used a better rf reciever?

[Aaron]

Ive had tri-band handsets before (Nokia NGage) and this never had the problem.. Im not a phone buff, but i know that quad-band handset can operate on 4/5 continents (Eur, Asia, NA, SA) and im sure that Tri Band is for Eur and US possibly asia too.. im guessing that they have a less powerful rf reciever than the quad band handsets in the Pda Phone areas.

The number of bands a phone supports isn't related to how well it will pick up a signal.

Due to wireless licensing problems and airwave congestion, a variety of frequencies are used for mobile phone communication. Europe and Asia uses 900Mhz and 1800Mhz, whilst North America uses 850Mhz and 1900Mhz.

A tri-band phone bought in the UK will work on both European frequencies, plus one of the North American frequencies. A quad-band phone will work on all four of the frequencies used around the world. You won't see any difference in reception in this country between a tri-band and a quad-band phone.

And for the record, the N-Gage was a dual-band phone.

Microsoft phones generally have poor RF because they're mostly manufactured by companies with little wireless communication experience. They don't have the technical expertise of the likes of Nokia or Motorola and so their RF performance suffers as a result. Getting good RF performance out of a phone is a black art that few companies have mastered.

[pp05]

I have been looking into similar thing and in all honesty as much as i want to bite the bullet so to speak and buy a mda compact i haven't because i simply don't think they are phones first.. Palm treo 650 has been closest thing that bring two segments into one device but again unknown territory so gotta do homework.

From personal experience you can't go wrong with a SE p900/p910i phones, yes they have been on market a fair while and new model is out in July time but that is also the advantage of owning one because you have more apps, large screen estate etc and above all a great phone.