Ok... Here it is. Slightly (
) later than promised but better late than never.
However good the MDA Compact might be as a PDA it has to succeed as a telephone. I already have a very good X50V so if it doesn’t cut the mustard voice wise then it’s going to get shown the door very quickly.
And I’ve got to say it’s not doing a bad job.
The Good
Phone Calls. -
The Compact is small enough to work as a normal phone, i.e. you hold it up to your ear and talk into it. 2 of the buttons on its face are the traditional green phone (dial/pickup) and the red phone (hang up) when the call comes in just press green and start talking. If you hold down the green button you get ‘speaker phone mode’ which isn’t great quality but may be useful I suppose.
You can also use the supplied earphones and mic for calls. This is my favourite way. Just press the button on the headset (or press green) and you’re talking. Because they are stereo headphones you get the sound in both ears, which really adds to the clarity. The mic also seems pretty clear, and nobody has commented on how the sound (which is probably a good sign).
A nice little feature is that when I’m using the headset to listen to mp3s and a phone call comes in, the music stops while I take the call, and then starts again afterwards.
I’ve also managed to pair it with a BT headset but don’t like this as much as it’s only 1 ear, feels strange to wear, and only works with phone calls (not standard sounds).
Caller ID
The Compact comes with a caller ID app which lets you set up different ringtones/display screens when a call comes in. So I can avoid work calling me, but I have no excuse for not picking up when MrsPsionandy calls.
Ringtones can be in a range of formats including wav mp3 and midi so you can annoy your colleagues with stupid ringtones (just like a normal phone)
Battery life is pretty good as well. It's about the same as my previous phone anyway, and because the data/sync cable is a mini USB I just carry that with me and sync off my pc at work if I need a top up. The proper power supply is also quite light but that lives at home.
Text messaging works great (apart from some strange Tmobile messages that keep appearing in my inbox) and I certainly prefer using outlook to send them than on a normal phone… and my Gmail account is set up so I can pick up Gmail on the go.
(Blackberry is coming soon according to T mobile and may be in the next update)
And mobile internet via GPRS is slower than I’m used to at home, but is very workable. Turning images off makes it quicker and reduces the cost as I pay per kb transferred. The supplied SPB GPRS monitor is a nice way of keeping track of the costs and allows you to set warning levels so you don’t go over your allowance (you can upgrade to the latest version by just downloading the software from SPB and installing it over your existing copy).
The Bad
Probably the biggest phone problem with the Compact is that you really need to use 2 hands to make a call. You can use the phone app (which gives you a standard set of phone buttons on the screen), Voice dialling (which works very well as long as you are in a silent room) the photocontacts app (which is a bit confusing) or outlook, All of which (with the exception of voice dialling) have you taking the stylus out to make a call. It’s not a big problem but will slow you down in a phone shootout.
This brings us on to outlook. Although you can set up the compact to use numbers stored on your SIM card it really wants to use outlook as its phonebook. This is quite a good idea as that’s what contacts are for. It does mean however that I had to spend some time tidying up my outlook contacts. On my Axim it really didn’t matter if it was a fax or mobile number etc. If I needed to dial the number I’d see what it was and apply a little common sense. Now that outlook is my phone book it really does pay to keep it tidy. When I click on a contact I can choose to dial any of the numbers that belong to that person, so I need to make sure their mobile number really is there mobile.
The Ugly..
Probably my biggest problem with this is the support (or lack of it) from T mobile. There seems to be no hardware support at all… unless you ring them up and talk to tech support. No website, no forum, no site where you can download the user-guide! Nothing
If it wasn’t for the fact I know my way around a Pocket PC (thanks to the good advice from aximsite) I’d be lost.
Still searching for my perfect case (the supplied one isn’t bad but it’s more of a slip case so I have to keep removing the Compact to use it). And Proporta is still waiting for stock of the Crystal to come in; I have one on order but am looking at other alternatives.
The screen is nowhere near as nice as the Axim (well no surprise there) and the supplied screen protector certainly makes it worse, so you’ll want to get a ‘nice’ one instead
Lack of built in wifi is a bit of a downer too. However I have found a very cheap SD wifi card which works nicely (check the UK hot deals forum) Wifi does seem to eat up the battery quite quickly so I only allow that treat when I know I can recharge.
At the moment most of my Pocket-PCing is on the MDA. That’s not because it’s a ‘better’ device, It’s just that because it’s my phone it goes everywhere with me. The Axim is more of a ‘fun’ device now
cant wait till part two ;-)
