Friday, August 2, 2002
Pocket PC phones - the media doesn't get it.
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 07:31 AM
Have you people seen these asinine reviews of the new T-Mobile Pocket PC phone? These people simply do not get it. No one expects Joe Blow to rush down to his local T-Mobile store and trade in his free Nokia for the Pocket PC phone. Here, let me help with the basics.
1. The Pocket PC phone is about data first.
2. The Pocket PC phone is about data first.
3. The Pocket PC phone is about data first.
There. I think that covers it. Lets see what the media has to say about the T-Mobile. First you have the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg column saying First-Edition Pocket PC Phone Has Flaws in Both Functions. His biggest complaints are in comparing the device to the Handspring Treo. Despite his love affair with the Palm PDAs over the years and the Graffiti alphabet you must learn, he is suddenly opposed to anything without a thumb keyboard. We'll see if that criticism holds up with non-Microsoft Products, like the Sony-Ericsson P800. In his review of the Thera back in May, he was critical of the lack of integration throughout the device of the phone side to the data side. That is because the Thera is a plain Pocket PC with a third party dialer. The Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition has that integration, right down to tapping a phone number in an email to make a call. He keeps hammering on the needs of heavy voice users. Mr. Mossberg - see my list above. Refer to number 1. Heavy voice users will likely not be interested in either the Treo or Pocket PC Phones. The latter has about 4 hours of talk time, besting the Treo, but still pales in comparison to what cell phones can offer.
Ok, enough about Walt. Lets move on to this well thought out review in the Mercury Times by Jon Fortt. "I could tell before I even switched it on that I was going to be disappointed. The device is not made with me in mind." He as a Samsung N200 phone and a Palm Vx. "I like them both. But if I had to toss one off the Golden Gate Bridge, it would be bye-bye, Palm." There is a shocker. You could live without your PDA and you wonder why you don't like the Pocket PC Phone. Mr. Fortt, please pass the T-Mobile to someone else in your organization that lives and dies by their PDA for a fair evaluation. Your review and comments make about as much sense as a soccer mom complaining about seating room in a Porsche Boxter.
Lets move on to David Berlind's review at ZDNet. "PDA-phone convergence represents yet another challenge for hardware manufacturers: battery life. Unlike normal PDAs, where users turn off their devices in between sessions, a converged device has to stay on all the time if you want to receive phone calls, SMS messages, and other alerts. Microsoft officials tell me they've been getting about three to four hours of usage per charge. [That is talk time] I made quite a few calls with my test unit, also using it in PDA mode enough times to give the battery a run for its money, but the device lasted the better part of a day before warning me that it needed refueling. That said, any device that has to return to the refueling station every three to four hours but that can't have extra batteries easily attached or detached would not last very long on the market."
Hello. {tap}{tap}{tap} Is this thing on? David, you get four hours of talk time, 150 hrs of stand by. You do not have to keep the device on to get a phone call or SMS messages. You leave the phone side of the device on just as you would a normal phone. Turn the PDA off. When you get a phone call or SMS message, the PDA side will wake up, give you the SMS alert balloon, flash an LED or play a fart noise from a wav file, whatever you want. David, when you have actually used the T-Mobile, give us a call so we can read your updated review. You and Josh Taylor, who wrote this ZDNet review, go have lunch together and figure out what you want to do with your futures. I stopped reading his review when I hit this sentence in the first paragraph. "While this gadget is impressive, it's still more Pocket PC than phone. And that, for me, means it can be simply maddening."
Have I missed any other reviews? These people simply don't get what a Pocket PC phone is about. It isn't about replacing your phone with a converged device. It is about shedding your cell phone if you are a PDA addict that uses their cell phone sparingly or wants mobile internet access anywhere you travel. Quit blasting the device because it isn't a phone. It ISN'T supposed to be.
1. The Pocket PC phone is about data first.
2. The Pocket PC phone is about data first.
3. The Pocket PC phone is about data first.
There. I think that covers it. Lets see what the media has to say about the T-Mobile. First you have the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg column saying First-Edition Pocket PC Phone Has Flaws in Both Functions. His biggest complaints are in comparing the device to the Handspring Treo. Despite his love affair with the Palm PDAs over the years and the Graffiti alphabet you must learn, he is suddenly opposed to anything without a thumb keyboard. We'll see if that criticism holds up with non-Microsoft Products, like the Sony-Ericsson P800. In his review of the Thera back in May, he was critical of the lack of integration throughout the device of the phone side to the data side. That is because the Thera is a plain Pocket PC with a third party dialer. The Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition has that integration, right down to tapping a phone number in an email to make a call. He keeps hammering on the needs of heavy voice users. Mr. Mossberg - see my list above. Refer to number 1. Heavy voice users will likely not be interested in either the Treo or Pocket PC Phones. The latter has about 4 hours of talk time, besting the Treo, but still pales in comparison to what cell phones can offer.
Ok, enough about Walt. Lets move on to this well thought out review in the Mercury Times by Jon Fortt. "I could tell before I even switched it on that I was going to be disappointed. The device is not made with me in mind." He as a Samsung N200 phone and a Palm Vx. "I like them both. But if I had to toss one off the Golden Gate Bridge, it would be bye-bye, Palm." There is a shocker. You could live without your PDA and you wonder why you don't like the Pocket PC Phone. Mr. Fortt, please pass the T-Mobile to someone else in your organization that lives and dies by their PDA for a fair evaluation. Your review and comments make about as much sense as a soccer mom complaining about seating room in a Porsche Boxter.
Lets move on to David Berlind's review at ZDNet. "PDA-phone convergence represents yet another challenge for hardware manufacturers: battery life. Unlike normal PDAs, where users turn off their devices in between sessions, a converged device has to stay on all the time if you want to receive phone calls, SMS messages, and other alerts. Microsoft officials tell me they've been getting about three to four hours of usage per charge. [That is talk time] I made quite a few calls with my test unit, also using it in PDA mode enough times to give the battery a run for its money, but the device lasted the better part of a day before warning me that it needed refueling. That said, any device that has to return to the refueling station every three to four hours but that can't have extra batteries easily attached or detached would not last very long on the market."
Hello. {tap}{tap}{tap} Is this thing on? David, you get four hours of talk time, 150 hrs of stand by. You do not have to keep the device on to get a phone call or SMS messages. You leave the phone side of the device on just as you would a normal phone. Turn the PDA off. When you get a phone call or SMS message, the PDA side will wake up, give you the SMS alert balloon, flash an LED or play a fart noise from a wav file, whatever you want. David, when you have actually used the T-Mobile, give us a call so we can read your updated review. You and Josh Taylor, who wrote this ZDNet review, go have lunch together and figure out what you want to do with your futures. I stopped reading his review when I hit this sentence in the first paragraph. "While this gadget is impressive, it's still more Pocket PC than phone. And that, for me, means it can be simply maddening."
Have I missed any other reviews? These people simply don't get what a Pocket PC phone is about. It isn't about replacing your phone with a converged device. It is about shedding your cell phone if you are a PDA addict that uses their cell phone sparingly or wants mobile internet access anywhere you travel. Quit blasting the device because it isn't a phone. It ISN'T supposed to be.
