SteveGavJR

Everyone writes these reviews about the good and the bad about brand new devices, but nobody reports back after they've had them for a while. Let me be one of the few to actually do this.

Let me first start by saying that I loved the SDA from the moment I saw it. It was small, feature packed, and had a great feel to it. It had a nice navigational joystick thingy, a mini sd slot, and windows mobile 5. 200mhz omap processor, 48mb ram...the list goes on.

After almost 2 years of constant use, the phone still works! Here is what I've noticed:

The joystick that I loved so much, actually sucks. After about a year and a half, it's operation started going downhill. Intermittently it would stop working, and I would have to press it in a certain direction 20-30 times just to get it to move a single space.

The mini-sd slot is underneath the battery. Initially, this wasn't a problem. Just put in a 1gb mini sd card, and leave it in there. Well, syncing files over activesync takes too long for me. Using the built in card reader on my laptop is 10x faster at transferring files. But to do so, I'd have to shut off the phone, take off the battery cover, and pull off the battery. Not a major pain in the ass, just inconvenient.

The battery door...sucks. Worst design ever. I never noticed it initially because I didn't have to. But after a while(not a long while), it started getting loose. It's basically just held on by two little plastic contact points that keep pressure on the case itself. After taking it off, and putting it back on so many times, the plastic breaks, and it no longer stays on. Currently, it's held on by 2 strategically cut pieces of Duct Tape.


Not everything about this device got worse over time. Keep in mind, it's still my favorite. Here are some things that have made it my favorite:

Durability. I can't say it enough! This thing has been abused in so many different ways it's a wonder that it still works. I've submerged it in water, dropped it down an entire flight of cement stairs, and dropped it on the pavement countless times. All the while, the screen remains only 'lightly' scratched(just normal 2 year old phone scratches), all the buttons are in tact, and for the most part(barring the joystick), everything still works great!

Size. I never really took into account how much I loved the size of the phone until I started using the K-JAM. For what it is, it's a VERY small phone. It fits perfectly in the hand(at least my hand anyways), has great one-handed operation, and fits easily in just about any pocket.

Battery life! Emphasis on the word 'life'. After 2 years of constant use, and only being turned off a hand full of times, this the most amazing battery life I've gotten out of anything, including cars. It's incredible. Maybe I just got lucky, but I can charge my phone, and use it for almost 3 days before it NEEDS to be charged again. If I'm not mistaken, it has a 1300mah or 1350mah battery...either way, this sucker lasts!


That's all that comes to mind for the moment. I'll post up more if I think of it, as well as pictures of the aforementioned device later on tonight.

psionandy

Thanks for that... Axim's apart, there does seem to be a lack of these sort of reviews/roundups/issues.

When it comes to use, was it any good at entering data into it, or was it mainly info that you'd put in in outlook and synced across?

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SteveGavJR

Originally Posted by psionandy

When it comes to use, was it any good at entering data into it, or was it mainly info that you'd put in in outlook and synced across?

Usually, I would put in just name and number info into the phone, then use outlook to add all the other info. Sometimes I would put it directly into the phone if I didn't want to forget. It was a bit of a pain typing in long email addresses, and other contact info. But that's the beauty of windows mobile! I can just input my contacts into outlook, then sync it.