[Advantage X7500, MDA Ameo General] HeartOfDarkness:
Outlook is but a means to an end. If Nokia provided an equivalent application that worked, I would have used it when I had a N92. BUT the only synchronisation software they provided was a conduit with Outlook, so it NOKIA who benefited from the existing application (Outlook), which they didn't not need to develop for themselves, and only provided a "link". And well, they DID screw that "link" up, somehow.

Bottom-line is: PocketPC phones, WHICHEVER they are, have much better functionnalities when it comes to contacts, and your argumentation doesn't show any evidence to the contrary.

As I said, I personnaly voted for "ok", because I believe there is still room for improvment. But at the end of the day, it seems that you consider the Athena's telephone functionality below par because:

- it doesn't have an embedded earpiece;

- it is big.

What you repeatly fail to consider is that having an embedded earpiece and being big is NOT what makes a telephone a mobile telephone, at least NOT OBJECTIVELY. The simplest argument to support this is that there are many, many people, myself included, who prefer bluetooth headsets EVEN with small phones, and just as many who don't really care abour size (or else, we'd all have Xun Chi phones.

What a mobile phone needs to do, in my opinion, in order to be a mobile phone, is:

- quality of network reception;

- quality of basic phone functionalities (contact management, call logs, etc.);

- etc.

The Athena may not sport an embedded earpiece, but it IS sold with a wired headset. So it DOES have all the appendices of a regular phone. That YOU may ind it less convenient to use, ok, but that doesn't mean that it is below par, not by a long shot. Not when Nokia, clearly your brand of choice, is only able to manufacture the E90 as a competitor to PocketPC devices, which doesn't even have a touch screen, and costs (around my parts at least) even more than an Athena.

Yeah well, it is your choice to have a bagful of cameras, HSDPA phones, GPS devices, mp3 players, etc. etc. Which, by the way, is I think on the whole much bulkier and, well, MUCH more expensive than an Athena.

I can't deny the keyboard is extremely crappy. But I *DO*, personnaly, use the Athena as a laptop replacement on a number of occasions, because I have a foldable bluetooth keyboard and small bluetooth mouse. And yes, I do usually type my reports with that on the train, and I'm no greek God (although I do have good eyesight :-) ).

Well, I've been an Archos user for years and years. And since I have the Athena, my Archos I use mainly as a bulk multimedia storage device from which I transfer, occasionnaly, items to my Athena for viewing. True, the Athena's not a DVD quality device, but I find, using TCPMP and encoding consistent with the screen-size, that it handles video quite nicely. And not many (and by that I mean none) multimedia players allow me to view a movie with my BT headphones on, without any wire, and to have it pause playback instantly when a call reaches me, and continues automatically when I'm done (if only to give an exemple).

But, as you said, we're here to talk about telephone capabilities. I'm not sure why you put this video topic on the table.

Or did you mean to talk about Visio-calls ? Something the Athena, by nature, has no competitor for whatsover ?

Sub-par, you said ?

Aside from the large amount of memory, be it hard-disk, bubble, or whatever ? Aside from compliance with a gazillion network protocols ? Aside from USB-Host ? Video out ?

Etc. etc.

lol Well, contrary to you, it seems, I *did* test a large number of phones before I picked the Athena as my "do it all" device. I did it carefully, so it didn't seem to me like it grew inches overnight and suddenly became too big. Before the Athena, I had an Universal that broke down, and got replaced with a TyTN (HTC Hermes). Not a single minute passed without me cursing my fate for loosing my VGA screen to the tiny, tiny, ridiculously small QVGA screen with which web-browsing, GPS navigation and movie viewing feel like a joke, and not a good one, to me. So no, I do not feel OBLIGED to get over anything: what I get wit hthe Athena is *exatly* what I wanted.

Is it perfect ? No, of course not. Is it sub-par in anything I cannot, with at worse a little abnegation, improve ? You must be kidding.

Yes, let's. I don't think I have anything else to say on the matter anyway. :-)