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- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 306 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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46 out of 56 people found this review helpful
3.0 stars
"Nothing special"
Pros: Wifi, Windows Mobile
Cons: Weak processor, No office software
Summary: I purchased this phone first thing this morning, upgrading from a Blackberry Pearl. The first thing I noticed was that the interface is somewhat slow and tends to lock up for short periods of time (while logging keystrokes), when the OS comes back to life all of the buttons you pushed are instantly applied, sometimes leaving you in some random menu.
I was surprised to find out that this phone uses the same processor as the older T-mobile SDA and MDA.
The user interface is cumbersome.
Any phone running Windows Mobile with a QWERTY keyboard needs to have mobile office, only including document viewer software like what is on Dash does not cut it.
This phone really lacks any special touches that would make it stand out, I guess I was spoiled by the Blackberry. The Pearl is a smarter phone with the ability to turn itself on and off, turn itself on when you set the alarm clock so you don't have to leave it on all night, it adjusts the backlight automaticaly according to ambient light conditions.
The "volume control" on the side is useless.
Fundamentaly it seems to me that the OS is a little to much for the processer to handle.
These are just my first impressions, I'll give it a few more days of use before I consider returning it and getting that little blackberry back.
I will put the disclaimer on that I have never used a Motorola Q so the Dash might be way better then the Q, but if that is the case the Q is ultimately overrated.Updated
This phone is an absolutely terrible "smart" phone. The only thing it has going for it if WIFI, which actually works pretty well for light web browsing. I turned on error monitoring, every morning when I wake up it has at least one system error to report. Here's a list of things that suck with this phone:
1) No copy and paste. Smart phones need the ability to copy and paste text. I guess this is a moot point with this phone, as it has no text editing capabilities.
2) There is a serious flaw in the alarm clock. The phone does not turn alarms off, if you use the alarm clock, you will find that it goes off at all the times you have ever set it for.
3) The volume control is worthless. Even if the touch strip worked, it is positioned in a place of the phone which makes it useless during calls (which is when most people adjust the volume)
4) The ActiveSync utility does not allow you to manually select the correct entry when and entry has been changed on the phone and on your computer.
5) You can't close programs without going into the task manager. Running more then one program at the same time burns what little memory this phone has and makes it incredibly slow and prone to freezing.
6) Come on, 64MB of memory? this thing needs at least 128!
7) When you have call waiting, you are not given the option of dropping the current call in favor of the incoming call.
8) The camera on this thing is terrible.
9) You cannot edit the learned word list in XT9, XT9 tries to force you to use misspelled words that you have used in the past.
10) you can't do a full backup of the phone, if you do a hard reset you loose everything but what you've synced to your computer.
11) No pocket office.
That's probably enough for now, but I could go on for a lot longer. Some of these things are a little nit picky, but smart phones should have smart features.
The hardware is actually pretty decent, the only fatal flaw is the volume strip.
The software is garbage. This phone can do a lot of things and most of it's problems can be worked around, but why pay $200 for a "smart" phone when it requires you to spend hours in internet forums searching for workarounds to its many problems and extra money to purchase software that should have been included in the first place?
I'm going to hold on to this phone for another month, hoping that t-mobile, microsoft, or HTC will take responsibility for the shortcomings of this phone and issue a software update. If no update is issued, I'm going to sell it and get a real smartphone from Blackberry.
I hope this helps, it's a little negative, but the software on this thing is poorly designed. All of the people who gave this phone a 10 must have a higher tolerance for flaws then I do.Updated
This phone is an absolutely terrible "smart" phone. The only thing it has going for it if WIFI, which actually works pretty well for light web browsing. I turned on error monitoring, every morning when I wake up it has at least one system error to report. Here's a list of things that suck with this phone:
1) No copy and paste. Smart phones need the ability to copy and paste text. I guess this is a moot point with this phone, as it has no text editing capabilities.
2) There is a serious flaw in the alarm clock. The phone does not turn alarms off, if you use the alarm clock, you will find that it goes off at all the times you have ever set it for.
3) The volume control is worthless. Even if the touch strip worked, it is positioned in a place of the phone which makes it useless during calls (which is when most people adjust the volume)
4) The ActiveSync utility does not allow you to manually select the correct entry when and entry has been changed on the phone and on your computer.
5) You can't close programs without going into the task manager. Running more then one program at the same time burns what little memory this phone has and makes it incredibly slow and prone to freezing.
6) Come on, 64MB of memory? this thing needs at least 128!
7) When you have call waiting, you are not given the option of dropping the current call in favor of the incoming call.
8) The camera on this thing is terrible.
9) You cannot edit the learned word list in XT9, XT9 tries to force you to use misspelled words that you have used in the past.
10) you can't do a full backup of the phone, if you do a hard reset you loose everything but what you've synced to your computer.
11) No pocket office.
That's probably enough for now, but I could go on for a lot longer. Some of these things are a little nit picky, but smart phones should have smart features.
The hardware is actually pretty decent, the only fatal flaw is the volume strip.
The software is garbage. This phone can do a lot of things and most of it's problems can be worked around, but why pay $200 for a "smart" phone when it requires you to spend hours in internet forums searching for workarounds to its many problems and extra money to purchase software that should have been included in the first place?
I'm going to hold on to this phone for another month, hoping that t-mobile, microsoft, or HTC will take responsibility for the shortcomings of this phone and issue a software update. If no update is issued, I'm going to sell it and get a real smartphone from Blackberry.
I hope this helps, it's a little negative, but the software on this thing is poorly designed. All of the people who gave this phone a 10 must have a higher tolerance for flaws then I do.
- 8 replies to this review
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after reading your review I have to say I'm relieved that I got another Blackberry Pearl. I had a pearl 8100 and when I got a full discount for a new phone I purchased another pearl for $150 (sold my first pearl to my sis) That being said I NEVER had a problem with my first pearl nor have I had a problem with this one. I ALMOST got the Dash instead! I'm so glad I didn't!
It's interesting people say you should review the hardware not windows mobile.... but if that's the OS on the phone why wouldn't you review it as part of the phone if it hurts the phones performance. -
after reading your review I have to say I'm relieved that I got another Blackberry Pearl. I had a pearl 8100 and when I got a full discount for a new phone I purchased another pearl for $150 (sold my first pearl to my sis) That being said I NEVER had a problem with my first pearl nor have I had a problem with this one. I ALMOST got the Dash instead! I'm so glad I didn't!
It's interesting people say you should review the hardware not windows mobile.... but if that's the OS on the phone why wouldn't you review it as part of the phone if it hurts the phones performance. -
Useless blah, blah, I have tried this phone for a week and overall performance is great.
Most of the facts in this review are innacurate, including pricing, which is over $600 directly from HTC.
What for you need to be attached to t-mobile? -
got o this web site and look up tweaks and hacks. it will speed up your phone.
http://forum.dashsmartzone.com/index.php?s=00a4402cf9f32eaf37d7734c3fcb9c60&act=SC&c=2 -
Every complaint listed was about Windows Mobile, and users should be providing a hardware review, not a software review. Besides, most of the "faults" listed were merely features available in a separate version of Mobile, Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC edition, and the other ones could have been fixed if the user spent any time looking through the manual......
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I agree with the messages above, I have had almost every smart phone in the market from the Ericson P990 to the Treo, Blackberry to this.
This is a great phone by design but I have incurred the following problems which I cannot stand anymore.
1. Phone freezes frequently
2. When I'm on a call and another call comes in it immediatly hangs up on the current call and picks up the other one (Call Rejected)
3. Volume touch strip just drops to no volume whenever I'm talking... I can be in the middle of a call and the touch strip goes to nothing and I have to re-adjust
4. Once you lose signal it takes FOREVER to regain it. I was standing in a room with someone who had the Pearl and she had service and I did not. What a joke.
5. Battery lasts for about 2 minutes. It has a really crappy battery and it does way too fast.
One PRO of the phone is that it has great call quality and a great speaker phone.
I can go on and on about this phone but the bottom line is that it is slow...freezes and needs some major tweaking.
I'll be selling this thing and going back to my beloved blackberry. -
crazy carl curious what you decide. This is my first smart phone and it was between the BB Pearl and I got the Dash. I've been looking for a while and I really like the design and features.
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I took a first look at the Dash today at the T-Mobile store and found that opening applications after the device had fully started up, took a long time - 10 seconds or so to get to te calendar. That felt VERY slow to me. I am used to a Axim X5 which is very fast compared to my in-store experience with the Dash. Is this typical and how does the Motorola "Q" compare to the Dash in this performance area?
Germanus
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