srf506

I have used the phone for two weeks now, and I'm currently on my first road trip with it. Here's my opinion so far.

The phone's display is much better. But I had to set all of the backlight values from default. It was a major pain to be reading an email only to have the screen go dark every three seconds.

The Touchflo is kind of neat once you learn it. However, you can be someplace entirely different from where you want to be by accidently brushing the screen or a button.

Speaking of the buttons, the ones on the side are still a major pain in the A _ S. I hit those things all of the time trying to get the phone out of its case to answer a call or message.

Trying to be Apple like, I guess, they made too many darn folders under the Start menu. It's not intuitively obvious where certain items you want are hidden in all of the folders they have. Causes me to waste time and make false starts trying to find where i want to be.

I ran the AT&T software update app. It asked if i wanted to do it and I answered yes. It then said there was some data management update available and did I want to load that. I again said yes. Then it just sat there. No little hourglass, or multi-colored dots spinning around or a completion bar. I finally closed the app and noticed I had a new text message which said it had been completed successfully. No alarm, no nothing. Just not a very well designed and written app in my opinion.

It's not intuitively obvious that you're able to remove all of the AT&T "bloatware" like we could on the Touch. If there's a way I'd like to find it.

So far, all freeware and apps I've written for my HTC Touch have transferred fine to the Touch 2. I still haven't really rung them all out yet though.

The camera works okay. It's better than the original's but still not as good as some of the competition. Fortunately, I don't buy an integrated device because it's a great camera. I have a really good Nikon Digital SLR when I want to take a good photo. I must admit I wasn't too thrilled overall with the video though.

The other aspect I will never use is the music player. I have a 120GB iPod for that which holds my whole CD collection and some movies.

The machine overall is a little quicker I think than the original Touch. Windows Mobile 6.X is also a more stable OS I think. I have only locked it up once so far and it was a doozie. While on my trip today I plugged in the address of my hotel into AT&T navigator, which has been working fine. I got the equivalent of the "Blue Screen of Death" and said it had to close navigator. The screen went blank after I hit don't send the error message to MS and the machine could not be made to function in any mode or even turn back on. It only corrected itself after I removed the back and battery from the unit for awhile. Up to that point I was heading to the nearest AT&T office to get it fixed.

So, overall I'm happy with the phone for what I use an integrated device for. Are there features and items I'd have done differently, sure, but any complex electronic device is a compromise, and this is one I can live with.

Blkngold

How is the Tilt2 performing for you now that you have more time with it?

srf506

Sorry, been traveling and pretty busy at work so haven't taken the time to respond. After a fair amount of time with the phone overall I'm pleased. Still trying to figure out how to remove the "bloatware" but it hasn't seemed to affect anything, but I'd like to use the memory for other things. The OS seems very stable, except for the incident in my original post, I haven't had any other problems. I've gotten much more used to the "touch-flo" system and can actually get around with it pretty quickly now and don't open a bunch of things when I was just trying to scroll around anymore. The battery life seems about normal for a device like this, but is very dependent on what you're running obviously. The display is excellant, with plenty of brightness and contrast. In pure bright sunlight it might be a little difficult to see, but it's clear and sharp. I wish the keyboard was a little more user friendly. Although I'm used to it from my Tilt 1, I still find it a pain to have to use the function key to get to numbers and some symbols. Also, like the Tilt 1 when the display is flipped up it kind of blocks the top row of keys especially for thick-fingered types like me.

So, would I recommend the phone to a friend? Yes, I would. It seems to be a good package for personal/business use and is a good value for the money.