[General Topics] Menneisyys:
touchscreen CPU usage bug plaguing all (!) non-Xscale-based HTC Windows Mobile phones

sub-par graphics / gaming performance of all Qualcomm-based, HTC-manufactured phones, making playing quick-paced action games almost impossible.

Of course, you can’t go wrong with any other phone either, but, frankly, I just don’t see the point in purchasing (!) a phone that has almost the same feature set as the iPAQ 210. Why purchase a QVGA Windows Mobile phone in addition to the iPAQ, when you will use the iPAQ most of the time for, say, browsing, e-book reading etc., and the phone will almost surely be inferior to the N95 in many respects (camera, gaming and multimedia capabilities etc.) – again, because it doesn’t have the complementer feature set of the iPAQ 210? And, again, most of the stuff that you can do on a QVGA WinMo phone, you can also do on the iPAQ, while functionality that requires a constant network connection (MS Exchange / BlackBerry) can also be accessed on the N95. (And I haven’t even mentioned call recording and local answering machine support, which, in general, are in favor of Nokia's phones – see THIS for more info & links.) This is why I’ve been recommending getting a phone that has an entirely different (complementer) feature set (and even operating system!) than the iPAQ 210. You get the best of both worlds: currently the best Symbian phone with the best camera, excellent gaming capabilities, speaker, phone, connectivity, Push Mail support and the best standalone Windows Mobile Pocket PC with a huge and excellent VGA screen and up-to-date (PXA310) CPU.

You can also consider getting a BlackBerry as a phone, but you need to be aware of the following facts:

no 3G support at all, let alone 3.5G (HSPA)

no support for MS Exchange at all

no high-quality games; only Java MIDlet games exist and they’re far worse than even on Windows Mobile (see THIS for more info on this issue), let alone on the Bluetooth, 3D HW acceleration-enabled N95

no (or, in the consumer models, pretty bad) camera

being dependent solely on Java, pretty poor 3rd party software support (even worse than that of Symbian)

As a plus, you do have a thumbboard (and, on the Pearl, SureType) – but, again, the 4” screen of the iPAQ is large enough to make it unnecessary, unless you don’t want to fire up the iPAQ to, say, answer to / enter an SMS as conveniently as possible.

Finally, I don’t see the point in purchasing a feature (dumb) phone either unless, say, you’re absolutely sure you’ll never need Exchange / BlackBerry push mail access (which is, to my knowledge, is impossible with current “dumb” feature phones.) Also, if you’re a gamer, you will want to go for a hardware accelerated and Next-gen N-Gage compliant N95 instead of a phone without hardware acceleration and only capable of running Java MIDlet games (as opposed to the native and, therefore, much faster N-Gage titles).

BTW, THIS thread is also worth checking out on the various new models, their shortcomings, how the N95 compares to them.

c. as far as the Samsung i780 is concerned (particularly the optical mouse), HoFo forum member doni’s comments HERE are worth checking out.

d. the Asus P750, which I’ve already mentioned in my i-mate article, may also be worth checking out. While it does not really have up-to-date hardware (for example, it’s still based on the outdated PXA270 architecture), it’s still pretty decent. In addition to the MoDaCo thread I’ve recommended, THIS HoFO thread may also be of interest. Note that as it’s not a HTC product, it won’t have “cooked ROM” support by XDA-Developers. Fortunately, there are some Russian ROM cookers that will? may? make sure it’ll receive the latest “unofficial” operating system upgrades. (BTW, the case is the same with Samsung’s phones. With the exception that I don’t know of a hacker / ROM cooker community to actively developing / “cooking” new ROM’s for them.) Also note that, currently, it has major multimedia problems – for example, full incompatibility with SlingPlayer (see THIS post in THIS thread.)

e. Bad news of i-mate – according to Engadget, poor retail performance saw i-mate's US division enter mass layoff mode on Friday. Giving up on the American market may be even fewer (future) devices. (Also see THIS PPCT thread.)