Of course, you continue to get the Microsoft Office Mobile Suite for viewing and editing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (view only) documents. If you're looking for a little break from work, you also get Windows Media Player 10 Mobile, allowing you to enjoy your favorite AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA, MPEG-4, and WMV music and video files. There's a File Explorer utility to help you locate files on your device and media card. Other personal-information-management tools include a PDF reader, a voice recorder, a task manager, a calculator, an alarm clock, and more. There's a wealth of third-party applications available for Windows Mobile devices; check out CNET Download.com for some ideas and suggested titles for the T-Mobile Shadow.
The T-Mobile Shadow also features Microsoft's Direct Push Technology for real-time message delivery and automatic synchronization with your Outlook calendar, tasks, and contacts via Exchange Server. You can also access your POP3 and IMAP e-mail accounts, and like its predecessor, T-Mobile includes a set-up wizard for each of the popular e-mail clients, including AOL, Gmail, Windows Live, and Yahoo. The phone also comes preloaded with four instant-message clients: AIM, ICQ, Windows Live, and Yahoo.
The second addition that the new Shadow offers is UMA (unlicensed mobile access) support. This means that you can use the phone's integrated Wi-Fi to make and receive calls via wireless networks. The benefit of this is that calls made via Wi-Fi will not be deducted from your cellular plan, meaning you get unlimited calls as long as you're within range of the hot spot. However, there's a catch (isn't there always?); you will need to sign up for T-Mobile's Unlimited HotSpot Calling service, which starts at $9.99 per month, on top of an existing plan.
Regular phone features on the Shadow include quad-band world roaming, a speakerphone, voice dialing, and text and multimedia messaging. The smartphone also works with T-Mobile's MyFaves service, which gives you unlimited calling to five contacts, regardless of carrier. MyFaves plans start at $39.99 per month and your MyFaves contacts are displayed right on the Home screen for easy access. The address book is only limited by the available memory, and there's room in each entry for multiple numbers, e-mail and IM handles, home and work addresses, and all the other standard information. For caller ID purposes, you can assign each contact a photo, a group ID, and a custom ringtone.
Bluetooth 2.0 is onboard, with support for mono and stereo wireless headsets, object push, phonebook access, dial-up networking, and more. Unfortunately, the Shadow isn't compatible with T-Mobile's 3G network, so even if you were to use the smartphone as a modem for your laptop, you wouldn't get the fastest speeds.
Finally, the T-Mobile Shadow comes equipped with a 2-megapixel camera, which isn't any different from the original Shadow. In camera mode, you have the option of five resolutions and four quality settings. Other tools include a self-timer, white balance and brightness controls, a time stamp, various effects, and zoom. In camcorder mode, you get three resolutions, effects, and white balance and brightness settings.
Despite having the same camera, we actually found picture quality to be better this time around. While we weren't thrilled with the yellowish overtone, objects looked clear and there wasn't that hazy look that plagued the first Shadow. Video quality was also quite decent, as the picture had minimal blurring and graininess. Once you're done with shooting, you can view your images in a slide show and save them as your wallpaper or a contact photo. You can also send your images via MMS or e-mail, and there's something called Audio Postcard, which lets you title your picture and send along an audio note. The Shadow offers about 100MB of available storage, which can be expanded up to 8GB with a microSD card.
Performance
We tested the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) T-Mobile Shadow in San Francisco using T-Mobile service and call quality was decent. Volume was fine and audio sounded mostly clear, though we could detect a slight background hissing and some warbled tones here and there. We were still able to carry on conversations without much distraction and successfully used an airline's voice-automated response system. On the other end, our friends said they could tell we were using a cell phone and at times, our voice could sound a bit digital, but otherwise they didn't have any complaints. Unfortunately, speakerphone quality wasn't the hottest. Calls sounded hollow, and even at the highest volume, the sound was very soft. We successfully paired the T-Mobile Shadow with the Logitech Mobile Traveller Bluetooth headset and the Motorola S9 Bluetooth Active Headphones.
Despite the faster processor (260MHz versus 200MHz), we ran into a bit of that notorious Windows Mobile sluggishness in the form of a pause or a few-second delay when launching applications and performing some tasks. It was particularly noticeable when trying to activate the camera and view our photo gallery. The onboard task manager can help you optimize CPU usage and will allow you to end tasks or close out of any applications you're not using.
The Shadow had some initial problems finding our Wi-Fi network, so we had to turn the radio off and then on again. Once we did that, we were able to connect right away. On T-Mobile's EDGE network, it took about 40 seconds for CNET's site to fully load, while CNN's mobile site came up in 10 seconds.
The T-Mobile Shadow has a 1,100mAh lithium ion battery with a rated talk time of 7 hours and up to 7 days of standby time. In our battery-drain tests, the Shadow was able to beat the rated talk time and by an hour and a half. According to FCC radiation tests, the Shadow has a digital-SAR rating of 1.38 watts per kilogram.
What You'll Pay
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