Hey all, recently i've been looking at purchasing a new phone/smartphone/pda/whathaveyou, I am looking for suggestions on something with good functionality, and preferably a damn good calendar/diary/organiser type system as that's the main reason for purchase. I would like if it were a touchscreen/stylus (purely for ease of use) and music capabilities are always good as well, any suggestions would be fantastic. I have already had a look at the HTC touch diamond, Tytn II, the blackberry bold and the Palm Treo 750 but unfortunately none of these seem to do it for me, I am not looking for a full size keyboard which I must stress. Thanks in advance, Josh
If you dont get something with easy input it'll be the bain of your life. Nothing says "throw me at the floor" better then a device with no keys. *cough* iphone *cough* You could always get a planner, you know, the ones that you write in?
I had an N91 for just under a year and it failed on me after dropping out of my pocket onto the road into the path of the number 3 bus:# lasted me ages though
I would seriously suggest an iPhone as well. I run a small business, so staying organised is highly important (and something that I am catastrophically bad at), and I find the iPhone makes a pretty good job of keeping me in check. Having used a windows mobile phone in the past, I would suggest avoiding them. I particular the syncing is really poor, and I really struggled to get it to work properly.
Personally I hate touch screen phones; when I used PPC's and o2 XDA's I configured the side keys to launch important functions, but I prefer tactile keys. I've been using blackberries for a couple of years now (curve at the moment, waiting for the bold) and have found their organiser functions to be very reliable, especially since I can sync it with my google calander. If you really do not want keys I believe there is a touch screen bberry coming out soon - 'fraid I don't know the model number, but it's meant to be RIM's take on the iPhone.
Personally I have an O2 XDA Orbit 2 (HTC Touch Cruise) and my life runs off it. Being a WinMo device, I managed to find a few plugins which enhance the personal information management features and make it a lot nicer to use. You could go for an iPhone and as far as I'm aware they're fine for PIM, but I preferred the flexibility with the software/OS and the feature-set of my device at the time.
The Diamond Touch will do what you want (you'll probably want to do some minor tweaks - they don't void the warranty) the Touch Pro has the full slide out keyboard, non touch has the stylus with thumb-keyboard, telephone input, touch-qwerty, writing recognition and so on.
I use my iPhone for day to day notes, calendar and contacts. You can also get software from the itunes store that will let you dictate to it and it converts it to text, it's a very versatile device. I thought I'd find the touch screen keyboard hard to use but actually it's quite easy and the predictive text is very good at correcting mistakes. Pop into the shop for whichever carrier has the iPhone in Australia and have a play around, at least over here they have them set out for you to you use.
I generally agree, though I'd also say that the calendaring still could do with some improvement. While I can sync up my desktop iCal with Google Calendar (and others) via CalDAV, that calendar can't yet be synced to the iPhone. Without that, you're left with MobileMe (calendars work well enough, but I prefer Gcal) or Exchange if you want wireless syncing. Ah well, it's 90% of the way there. I use mine mostly for email, and a bit of casual gaming - I'm much more task list than schedule-oriented (most unfortunately, there's no pretty iPhone interface for my task management tool, but that's a lot to ask for FOSS) Try one first though. The touchscreen thing isn't for everyone - some people will always hate it. Though you've also got to give it more than 30 seconds too. I love mine - it's one of very few electronic devices I've owned that I'm just as happy with a year on as on day one (well... technically that was true of my last cell phone, as my level of love for the thing never changed throughout its life since it stayed at zero the whole time).
I have a love hate relationship with my E-ten Glofiish X800 - its a destructive relationship: - The highs feel like they are worth it; when it works, its excellent - It can do so much - Once you get past the interface constraints the package is very useful But - Its interface limits it (need to use stylus for just about everything - I'd like to be able to use my fingers, not multitouch, no haptic feedback) - WM6 software feels like a beta and suffers from huge MEMORY LEAK! (which makes 64mb of RAM worthless, 128mb should be the min because of the awful memory management) - Mobile internet sucks, either the speed is like dialup or the browser (Opera or IE Mobile) can't cope because of Java or Flash. Every PPC/smartphone I've had has suffered from these issues and the X800 is undoubtably the best. I've circumvented most of these problems with 3rd party software; SPB Mobile Shell is great, Pocket Media Player is finger friendly, a combination of browsers such as Opera and Skyfire can really help with internet compatibility and SK Tools can help with memory loss. If you just want PIM functionality then any WM PPC/Smartphone, Blackberry or Palm will suit you down to the ground (I don't feel Nokia is able to bring the same functionality to the table).
The fact that you know how much memory an app is using on your phone is a truly epic fail on the part of the phone's software team.
I guess it's a case of YMMV. I've been using an 02 XDA Exec (re-badged HTC Universal) running Windows Mobile 5 for over two years now. It is well and truly battle scarred, but just keeps on working. I have never found synchronising a problem with XP (32bit) but can't vouch for other OS. I use a number of apps directly related to my profession, and they are not available for the iPhone. Furthermore, I dislike the fact that the only way you can get software onto your iPhone (legally) is via Apple's appStore and iTunes. I'm simply hoping that my PDA stays alive long enough for a number of Windows Mobile 7 devices to make it safely to market. I will then almost certainly opt for one of them.
