[About XDA developers] chicawhyte:
My post from Howard's Forum Pt. 1

My review - I got it last week

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi, first post here...

Got the Duo after still mourning the 8125 that is booting off and on constantly. And it was about time I renewed anyways. Here are my thoughts, still not 100% sure that I am gonna keep this one (because of what I am gonna write below I am gonna try switch it for another Duo.

PROS:

1- Got the Duo for the dual-slider. Hard to dial when in a car and I don't use my Bluetooth often. Busy mom, it is hard.

2-LOVE how clear and crisp the screen is. Bright, vivid and good enough space.

3-I know there are some users and abusers out there but I do my best to keep it in "Lock" and inside my case. The less I deal with dirt, lint, scratches the better. I will buy a screen protector though.

4-Took me a couple of days of breaking the touch-screen habit; it's like going from automatic transmission to manual. It was not easy but not as complicated as I thought it was gonna be.

5-I like the speakerphone, simply turn the phone over and adjust the volume and I can hear fine.

6-Looking forward to really modify the phone to my liking, get into as many mobile forums as i can and customize it to my lifestyle. With that said...

CONS

1-WHAT IS WITH THE MUFFLED SOUND? I read this thread SHOCKED that no one mentioned it here...perhaps in another thread. Multiple forums users complain about the same problem. Stayed last night till almost 1am doing research and getting ready to alter the unit and lookup some software to fix this issue like a patch or something; well at pantechusa.com they have a radio patch (it will wipe out whatever the phone had and bring it up to default). I hoped really that the patch would work but it didn't. I knew that by having the same version of the software on my Duo it was a 75/25 chance that it was not gonna work and unfortunately I was right.

2-JUNKWARE - The Duo has lots of them and they are really useless and take up a lot of your memory if: a-you don't have a PDA plan, and b-you don't care for them. First things first, 95% of those need the plan in order for them to function and get the most out of the Duo. Since I don't have the PDA plan ($30/mo) then these have GOT to GO.

3-Cannot adjust/distribute memory on the unit - I can stop working programs fine, but there is an area where you can see both "drives" where it stores memory. I can't go in and just click and manage it further. It is frustrating because it would make the Duo faster.

4-I suffer from the Curse Of The Worst Ringtones. Whenever I get a cell the ringtones SUCK. Which makes you wonder who this Duo was designed for, or going for which type of person.

5-MicroSD card-I got a 4 Gig SDHC and forget it, it does not work. You can see the icon top bar that it has the micro card inserted, can't see it the rest of the Duo. Big disadvantage because: Micros are evolving to SDHC and have way more room; a Duo just can't be lagging behind with technology and get stuck with a regular Micro 2 Gig card (?!?!?!). Because there is wonderful people out there that can do lots of programming and hacking, I found the solution at xda-developers from reading in this forum. Thankfully the xda people have helped me with software for my Wizard and it seems I will use their software this time around too.

6-NO WI-FI, NOT FAIR! I have wireless at home and I used to go online, Media Player, and look online for my fav radio station (from another country), listen live and with headsets, go about my business. Can't do that with this unit.

7-Battery Life-This has been brought up multiple times and yes, the first couple of days it felt I was dealing with my HP camera which sucks batteries dead in one day. Now I can deal with charging it either daily or every other day. With the 8125 because of the type of battery you HAD to charge it daily or the cellphone would pay the consequences. On this one the Pantech people say let it drain then charge it; I am not comfortable with that scenario and I hope I don't ruin the battery because I charge it halfway or down to one bar.

To me the worst are in "bold", and I expect the Pantech people to come around and fix the muffled sound-which is worse if you talk with someone from cell-to-cell. Will take the unit today to AT&T and see if by getting another Duo the problem is fixed.

Interestingly though, I am willing to give the Duo a pass if I can program it, hack it, alter it every which way I want so I can have some fun with it!