TMobiles MDA - Fit the First

I finally did it and bought an MDA from TMobile. I have had the HP Ipaq 6315 for almost two years now. If you are not keeping track, the 6315 has got to be one of the worst devices to ever come out. Having passed minimal to no QA, the device came out and distributed by TMobile. I pre-ordered it and got it a few days after it was out.

The forums, internal aliases, sites - they were all against the little fella. With good reason. It could not hold on to any BlueTooth or WiFi connection for long, it required a LOT of booting and it came with Mobile 2003 when 2003 was already a little long in the tooth. 4 months later, TMobile and HP came out with a patch which solved some of the bugs, but left a lot of them there. In short, everybody hated it.

Everybody, but me.

It was AWESOME. It was my first PDA and once I learnt the voodoo needed to make it work properly, I used it for pretty much everything. I recorded conversations with it, used it A LOT with my GPS reciever, wrote notes, used messenger, listened to Israeli Radio, used it as a dial up network modem via bluetooth. It was awesome.

But sicne then, the Wifi started declining, connecting less and less, and the device started showing its age. And so, I decided to get a new one. I will try to log my experience with the MDA as it seems like with these devices, you start out being amazed by what they can do and slowly learn just how crappy they really are.

Which brings us to first impressions.

I love it. While I miss some of way the keys worked with the old device, the new one is pretty easy to get used to.

* The keyboard is great. The fact that it has the "Windows" button and the "ok" button make most navigation very easy. Some things suck (I think), such as the inability to move from folder to folder by using only the keyboard requireing you to touch the screen..I like the arrow keys on the keyboard. A lot.

* I miss the Arrow-down for speed dial.

* The camera is nice (though, as always, pretty useless).

* The EDGE seems to be significantily faster than my old GPRS.

* The wifi connected quickly, very quickly. Same with the BlueTooth.

* Pocket Internet explorer in landscape mode with the zoom capabilities is really great.

* The ability to sync Outlook 2007 RSS folders is just damn nice. No need for another RSS reader installed.

* It is so much smaller than my huge 6315. Soooooo nice.

More when I have it.