my partner's old HP PDA phone died this week, and was on its way out for the past couple months after a few too many 'dropping' accidents! so she's resorted to my old normal mobile until a replacement is bought.

but what to buy? she does NOT want an iPhone. what she does want is:
*Windows OS
*PDA features: calender, notes, addresses, etc
*Telstra Next/3G compatibility
*stylus touch screen/text recognition

can someone enlighten me about telstra 3G? she mentioned 3.5G, which i have no idea about. i believe telstra use their own specific 'band', and not all phones are compatibile - true?

anyway, i suggested she wait for the sony ericsson X1, but that's at least a few months away unfortunately.

so she has shortlisted:
*iMate Ultimate
*HTC Touch Dual or II

telstra apparently endorse the iMate for their Next G, but unsure about HTC. and sony X1 remains an unknown.

any thoughts? she is unlikely to look at other brands like LG, Palm, Blackberry, etc.

budget is up to $1Kish, which will cover most phones. will buy outright, cos she is already on a contract.

have a look at the O2 XDA range of phones.
http://www.my-xda.com/

used to use them at my old work and they were pretty slick, well built and worked very well

g'day Richard, as an owner (and very HEAVY user) of an Imate Ultimate 8502... I'de like to say i have not owned such a bad phone as ANY imate (this is my 4th in a row).

Unfortunately, their product is good conceptually but has plenty of flaws that would drive you crazy if you are as heavy user of it as i am.
The problem lies within the windows interface. Maybe after Imate release a new service pack it might fix a few or more of the "crashing" problems all Imates have.

My problems with the ultimate 8502 are:
* qwerty keypad is way too small
* number pad is just as small unless you touch screen-dial the phone number
* the screen is way to fragile: poke it a little too hard with the stylis and its a throw away item
* if you access satnav software before turning the inbuilt gps reciever on, the phone will crash
* icons are very small meaning its very easy to accidentally open satnav (phone crashes)
* its confusing doing phonebanking as the typical 123 pad is part of the qwerty keypad and therefore you need to use the touch screen
* your ear constanly touchs the screen opening and saving phone notes (u can disable touch screen but then you cannot do phone banking) without it activated
* after using the internet you need to force close internet explorer otherwise it will keep "dialling in" to the internet
* the on/off/standby button is VERY unresponsive
* crappy 2.0 mp camera
* no front camera for video/conference calls

these are just a few things i could think of, but there is plenty more... the next model up, the 9502 is a brick which you are pretty much forced to you touch pad for everything as it has the slide-ways screen to reveal a decent sized qwert keypad. its awkward to hold to make a quick call.

HTC dual touch has an annoying qwerty keypad much the same as an abcdefgh keypad on nokia meaning it needs predictive text but in werty format. I used one and it drove me crazy, i couldnt handle that for use everyday.

put it simple: I dont like any win-blows based phone. Maybe in the future they will become better built, more reliable, better equipped.. but for the short term there isnt a lot of choices...

Iphone: toy

Daniel

thanks guys.

broadz, that provides great insight, thanks. she won't use it as heavily as yourself, but the bugs seem annoying nonetheless. it is the 8502 she has been considering.

she prefers using the stylus and letter recognition, and touchscreen for dialing and writing notes. she doesn't actually want a keyboard; just that many phones have the silly things. i can see how the buttons are so small to be a problem.

thanks again. more research...

In terms of next g, pretty sure you need a handset capable of HSDPA on th 850mhz frequency. Unfortunatley the rest of the world has HSDPA on 2100mhz hence not so many phones compatible with telstra's next g.

VL Commy is right Telstra's Next G network is on the 850 band and the other carriers HSDPA networks like 3 and optus are on 2100. 3.5G is HSDPA which is faster than normal 3G and at the moment in Australia this means data speeds of up to 3.6mbps. If you are wanting to use the Next G network you will need a phone that is 850mhz which means this limits your choice of phones to phones from telstra. The only way around this if you want access to every phone on the market is to buy a phone from overseas that run on 850 like the US. If you don't need to use the Next G network and can use normal HSDPA then you can use any smart phone in Australia.


As for smart phone choices i would recommend the Samsung i900 or the HTC Touch Diamond. There is a head to head between the two on gsmarena.com

http://www.gsmarena.com/htc_touch_diamond_...-review-262.php

I am with Broadz, I had the same issues with my Imate. The SE is a nice smartphone although the keyboard layout is annoying.

Blackberry-esc phones would be my pick of the bunch at this stage. I am using the new SE W960, very capable phone, with PDA features which I do like.

PALM TREO 750

Just to add to the Next G thing. Pretty sure telstra chose to go the way of 850mhz instead of 2100mhz like everywhere else, is because due to the lower frequency band, the coverage area increases. This is how they can claim their next g network has greater coverage than any other network. Whilst this is true, you have to have a handset capable of running on that frequency to reap the whole benefit.

you'll also need a new next-g sim card in a next-g capable phone in order to get the high speed and extra coverage

The HTC Touch Diamond Phone was relseased the other day. Looks the goods. Windows Mobile Gps etc. etc.

Only thing that turns me off is screen res. I think Sony are bringing out a new phone soon with all the features and an 800x420 screen. For me this is helpful for remote desktop back into work, for others, maybe not so useful.

Another option I am considering currently is the HTC Touch Cruise, No buttons tho Shiny so may not suit, not the fastest processor either, but has been getting good reviews on whingepool. Oh, no carrier offers it with a plan though so you need to purchase outright

thanks guys. lots of great info. so far, it has helped her decide against the iMate. she does like the HTC range of phones, but is worried they aren't compatible with telstra, but seems they are, so long as they support the 850MHz band.

phone from overseas could be an option. again, she is already locked into a contract that goes for at least another 12 months, so she will be buying 'outright' anyway.

Its hard to pick a phone these days, I still can't decide what I want, can't even decide what plan will suit me best.

I've got a iMate Ultimate 9502. Happy with it, does work with Telstra (they are the only importers of it, so I guess it has too).

Only problem I've had is it doesn't support Micro SDHC (over 2GB cards), there's a dodgy software hack to get around that. But it doesn't work out of the box.

Retail for it is a bit over your $1000 budget however.

data mine not sure if this will work for your iMate but it works for my viewty. My viewty to can only accept micro SD cards up to 2gb which is built into the firmware so a software hack won't really get around it. So in order to get SD cards larger than 2gb to work on the phone you have to fool the card into thinking the card is free. To do this you have to put stuff on the card that makes the card have less than 2gb free on it. For example for a 4gb card you would have to put around 2.1gb on the card which leaves 1.9gb free on the card which is less than 2gb free space. On an 8gb card you would have to put 6.1gb on the card etc. You have to put the stuff that makes the card have less than 2gb free before you put it in the phone otherwise the SD card will be formatted to 2gb by the phone. Do not format the card on the phone. As i said not sure if this will work on the iMate but it works on my viewty.

Shiny if you do plan to buy a phone on the 850mhz band as you will need to to use Next G you won't be able to use it on any other network for its 3G/HSDPA so if you don't plan to be with telstra after the contract expires in 12 months there may not be any point in spending so much on a phone that you will not be able to use on any other network. There is only one phone that i can think of the is capable of running on the 850mhz and 2100mhz bands for 3G which is the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 but that is not in production yet.

I've got the SDHC drivers from some other windows mobile device, load those up, and it works fine, I've got an 8GB card in there fine.

yes, the X1 is the phone i told her to wait for 4 months ago when i first started researching. but now her current phone has died, so i don't think she is willing to wait until september when it should be out. she is also happy with telstra, so not an issue to stay with them.

if the X1 was already available, it would make the choice easier. cos if it's no good, then she'd simply buy an HTC.

I may have spoken to soon about only knowing one phone that is capable of running on both the 850 and 2100 bands. It looks like some of the iMates and O2 phones are capable of doing this as well which have been in productuion for quite awhile.

We use Palm Treo's at work, and they are HORRIBLE as a phone, and even worse as a PDA.
They crash, drop out, freeze up, don't respond. Absolutely horrible!

However I believe the problem lies sadly with the software more so then the hardware.... that is - WINDOWS MOBILE IS GARBAGE!
Every phone i've used with it has had issues (primarily with freezing/needing to be restarted), and everyone i've spoken to who has a phone with Windows Mobile has said they have a few annoying issues with it.

I guess it depends who you ask however... the sales people at work (being technically inept) hate it, but my mates (who are technically minded) can live with the few quirks.

I personally would look at a pda/phone with purpose built software, not something running a cut down, scaled back, operating system that is already known for its quirky faults.


note: palm treo can do 850 and 2100 networks.

I thought the Touch Cruise could do this also when looking at the specs.?

http://www.cnet.com.au/mobilephones/pdapho...39284443,00.htm

Couldn't be better said. All that is needed is the blue screen of death to make it completely "typical microsoft"

It's a shame as the windows component is that part that spoils such a fantastic phone... i wonder if anyone has managed to crack Iphone operating software onto other PDA phones yet

iphone software is essentially a condensed version of OSX,

Shiny why not buy a crapity old phone of fleabay till the X1 comes out ?

HTC TOUCH DIAMOND or HTC 6500 they are the coolest fones out right now we have a Diamond and a 6500 the diamond while cool is really a flashy phone while the 6500 is a full on work fone if its durability you want get an HTC6500