Does anyone have any recommendations for Windows Mobile-based phones?

I am more and more having to rely on calendar software and as much as I don't want to use it, Outlook is looking like the best software for me because I really want to be able to sync with a handheld device I can take everywhere.

I already have an iPaq but I'm basically not prepared to carry it around everywhere I go.

gimpy used to have one of the o2 Xphones; there's now a new one which looks OK, but he didn't have much luck with his older version with lots of crashes.

edit to add: I don't really want the whole PDA style thing; it's a little too big for what I want to carry around. I don't plan to do a lot of data entry on it; I really mainly just want it for alarms/reminders/being able to view my calendar on the road.

http://www.asus.com.au/products.aspx?l1=8&l2=0&l3=0&model=1172&modelmenu=1

the asus p525, looks nice

PDA's rock! Dunno about smartphones they seem very cheap.


ebay link, go go go

The Asus unit is aroung 1000 bucks, for that price your better off going with a full blown pda, the imate JasJam is damn awesome!

http://blogs.totalpda.com/wp-images/jasjam.gif

The JasJam's firmware isnt as good I reckon.

I have a Dopod 838 Pro from "3" which is just awesome. Honestly brilliant. Stinky has the Imate Jasjam and I think he is considering flashing it to the Dopod firmware.

We run smartphones and blackberries here at work. Here are some observations.

DO NOT BUY A SMARTPHONE IF YOU ARE A NOOB. Basically, they are phones for technical people not ordinary folk. I hate seeing managers stuff up these phones, get us to fix them and tell us they don't know why they were even given one.

Unless you have it talking via GPRS to an exchange server, don't bother. Buy a http://www.jcu.edu.au/school/bsg/bs/stores/images/11-0500 POCKET NOTEBOOK.jpeg

lol, gprs...3G to exchange all the way ;)

I dont think you have to be that technically minded to use one. It is possible your manager is an idiot :)

so your calling trog a noob?

P.S I thouht you drove taxi's?

also paging natslovR to this thread

Yup, JasJam / Dopod 838(?) is the way to go!! if you want something a bit more phonelike, go for the O2 XDS Stealth.

Exchange2003 Push email over UTMS is brilliant!

Its not my manager. It is Several managers. Several. They drop them, they lose all their settings.

Well GPRS in bad areas, EDGE in good areas.

No I don't drive cabs. I used to be a taxi mechanic. I am a computer technician.

my nokia 6280 mobile has a calendar, you can punch in dates, alarms, reminders, memos .. really easy

these fancy things might be overkill?

Depends really. Having your calender, contacts etc sync directly to your mobile is pretty cool, its great when your stuck in traffic and a meeting gets cancelled or whatever, you know about it.

I use mine primarily for email and task lists. Remote access via wireless to your server's is pretty cool as well!

I guess it depends on your needs

EDGE is still slower than UTMS

The JasJam and Dopod 838 are both HSDPA/Telstra NextG compatible as well, so they are at least current with the current and future networks.

http://www.sampos.com/images/bsod.jpg

Having used XDA IIs, HP and Imate Jam, in my opinion all handheld devices are balls. Get a secretary ftw.

i have a nokia n80 and sync my outlook stuff with it, like mr hardware said dont bother with anything too complicated unless its talking to an exchange server all the time

I have a HP6965 and it's the bomb with builtin GPS,GPRS,EDGE,WiFi,Bluetooth, no 3G though, oh well.

Being 27 and since I haven't spoken to my dad in around 6 years I don't think my dad buys me anything. My secretary looks after about 6 people in our office and is a phone call away.

dammit :(

last edited by taggs at 18:44:52 26/Oct/06

not everyone's dad can afford to buy them a secretary buddy

you're thinking of bj, not bjp, idiot

My jasjam arrives tomorrow after 2 years of using the XDA II Mini. The promotion of the jasjam/dopod by the phone providers is seeing a huge influx of newbies to the pda world.. aussie msmobile sites are flooded with them. Probably more than the mini brought in

I'd definitely recommend the jasjam or it's ilk, really looking forward to 3g support over the gprs i'm stuck with at the moment since i don't have net access at work. There's a 3g version of the mini too without the keyboard, worth looking at though the keyboards got me this time.

picking mine up for a shade under $1300 from techoni.com.au Watch out for some of the the plans that the phone companies are pushing them under since the data rates are astronomical after the first 2 months and for any excess data transfer (say hello to $15/MB for excess charges on Telstra).

Also when investigating this type thing be aware that a lot of the 3g functionality talked about isn't actually available to normal people in Australia yet like push emails.

I've just re-read the OP and you aren't event talking 3g, so i'll rave about winmobiles. You can't go back to a normal phone after using a pda-combo-one. Not that i know what a normal phone is, but i now struggle to use the clunky interfaces on 'normal' phones and wonder why people would bother carrying around something that does so little for them.

Well said natslovR, I've been using an XDA IIs for ages now and am looking forward to upgrading to a JasJam, I looked at the O2 Atom but from what I have read they are real lemons. Bluetooth GPS FTW!

btw all you windows mobile users should checkout MegaCE3(mame for windows mobile) I got over 400 roms working, it's a great way to pass the time.

Nice one Cr@acker, ill check that out :)

Another reason to get a 3G/GSM phone like the Jasjam/Dopod 838 is because soon Australia wont have a GSM network.

May as well future proof

trog. ive had windows mobile phones for 4years now. orange spv e100, e200, c500 and now the imate sp5m

im a windows boy so i like them. the sp5m runs windows 5.0. media player on it is nice and i have a 2gig mem card.

syncs contacts, calanders and tasks nicely with outlook / exchange. bluetooth works ok, bit slow discovering poeple, but the finds alot more people than the missus' motorla.

can be a bit slow answering calls, but that doesnt bother me.

say hello to $15/MB for excess charges on Telstra

fk me!!! t-mobile have an umlimted 3g download here on mobile or as a 3g/hpsm? data card for a laptop for £20 a month.

£20 a month = $50 or so don't forget... but yes it is umlimited :)

I've been in two minds as to weather to get one of these smart phones, kinda tempting, but I don't think I'd use enough feature to warrant the outlay.

A few blokes at my work in Syd had the O2 ATOM and I liked that, seemed good - small enough, I don't want a massive thing for my phone/whatever you wanna call it, needs to be small enough to fit in my pockets etc

You can't go back to a normal phone after using a pda-combo-one

pretty much - it's like having broadband then going back to dial-up. it's nice to see some pda's work with Skype ;)

great for accessing the google. ask george w

Yeah my next phone will probably be the Windows smartphone type deal. The only thing that really puts me off is the frickin' data charges....

Thanks for the feedback guys, I'll do some reading. Some of the PDA options look pretty good, though I wanted to avoid that, but it looks like it might be the best thing for me.

Some suggested reading:

MSMobiles.com - For latest application news, hardware releases and smartphone ridicule

mtekk forums - aussies talking pdaphones

MyPDACafe - decent non-aussie forums/tech support

xda-developers - forum for technical stuff like rom upgrades

Saw an iMate for the first time today, HN had the SmartFlip and the JAMin (I think). Both seemed pretty cool.

I've been using the iMate JAMin for the last 6+ months now (formerly being a die-hard Nokia fan) and I went that way for pretty much the same reasons as you, except that I was lugging my 17" Sony Vaio around instead of a PDA :p

In short, it's pretty much the o2 atom in a Telstra endorsed shell. The only diff is that the processor is a little slower, but having used both now I notice very little difference.

Pro's;
- Writing recognition is pretty accurate, and customisable dictionaries mean you can add your own phrases (or l33t sp34k) easily enough
- Takes SD cards, so up to 4gig easy expansion
- 2mp camera (I don't own a camera, so this was handy for me)
- only needs drivers installed if you want to sync, if you just want to charge or swap files it's PnP
- good quality, clear screen

Neg's;
- Recommend a bluetooth headset as really deep or really high voices can be messy
- It's m$ based, so a reboot every week or so isn't a bad idea
- No more driving one handed sms's
- No group sms'ing
- Tends to lose it's screen alignment occasionally requiring either re-aligning or waiting a few sec's before typing again (generally comes good after 2-3 sec pause)

Dunno if you're a Telstra mobile fan, but it's free on something like a $60 p/m plan over 24 months.

All in all though, 2 very enthusiastic thumbs up.

Dunno if you're a Telstra mobile fan, but it's free on something like a $60 p/m plan over 24 months.

ahh, no s***? I was looking at Optus' site and they don't have s*** in the way of Windows Mobile options. I'd rather stick with them because they've been really good to me for the last jillion years since I got my first phone, but if they don't have the goods I may have to make the switch :|

edit: MrWolf, this one?

last edited by trog at 18:14:56 31/Oct/06

pffft, buy the phone outright ... should be able to salary sacrifice it even as it's a PDA device. or make those cheap bastards at mammoth buy it for you.

I have Tom Tom on my WM5 phone now cause it has builtin GPS (zomg the bomb y0) and it works perfectly. /me is impressed++;

skitza, what phoen do you have? i was thinking of putting tomtom on mine, and getting a bluetooth receiver.

Yeah Trog, that's the one.

I left out that to charge it you just need any sort of USB-to-miniUSB lead, which is really handy being a geek inclined individual.

I have the HP 6965, has everything you need ( except 3G ) and that's probably it's only downfall but who cares for now. Got a 2gig miniSD stick for it so I'm complete, just need to get me a car mount but they were all out, so very soon :)

Yeah go for it, it's seriously awesome, can't go wrong with WM5 and a BT gps receiver. TT5 and 6 are very good.

If you are running wm2005 don't forget to run CamerAware, since WM2005 can share your GPS you aren't limited to one application like on previous versions of windows.

megabump - MrWolf (or anyone else with a Jam-min - do you run TCPMP (or any other divx/xvid compatible media player) on it? If so, is the processor in it able to keep up with decent bitrate video?

I run TCPMP on my jasjam ... is heaps better at playing videos that the wmp on it.

altho I love wmp for it's music playing.

If you are running wm2005 don't forget to run CamerAware, since WM2005 can share your GPS you aren't limited to one application like on previous versions of windows.

Hey that's really cool, I was looking at RoadAngel Evo and thinking it'd be cool to have it as an app on the wm. Does it support Australian camera locations ?

I run TCPMP on my jasjam ... is heaps better at playing videos that the wmp on it.

Can you play decent bitrate video on it? My ipaq for example, it's CPU is pretty much fine for watching stuff encoded up to about 1mbps, but I suspect anything bigger might tax the CPU.

I'm not sure, I've always encoded stuff for it. there's several xvid encoders that are specific for creating pda suitable videos.

I'd go the Dopod.

Yes. It runs them fine. I've run TV show sample.avi on it like that, but others recommend converting them to the lower resolution first. There's some program to use that's really good at this, but i couldn't find where i'd put it.

Found it: Omniquiti Lathe.

edt: fixed url

last edited by natslovR at 17:44:29 03/Dec/06

I went with a Jasjam over a dopod because of the 2 year warranty and better support. Having had an O2 Atom that was a dud from day 1 the support factor and 2 year warranty was important.

Dopod support in Australia is still a bit so and so while i-mate is a little more solid due to them being around a bit longer.

hi nats!

me too. But i flahed it with the latest imate rom to get rid of the f*****ytelstras***.

hi Gen.

I got the jasjam, Eds got the dopod... Only real difference I can see between them is the dopod comes with Microsoft Voice Command which s***s all over the voice stuff on the Imate.

Given how many times I set these up in a day at work...

If you're using an exchange account, the best options are any PDA/phone with ActiveSync, or a Blackberry. Blackberrys cost a lot though.

ActiveSync is my friend :D

Don't piss around with IMAP or POPS - ActiveSync with exchange will allow you to sync all your contacts, calendar, emails sent and received.

As far as actual phones that have been easy vs hard to support... The new Nokias that look like Blackberrys are a pain in the arse, even for someone who sets them up all the time. iMates seem to be the easiest, next to Blackberrys and O2s.