[Certs]

I know some people passing through here are thinking about getting this phone when it comes out, so here's a review for you. If you're impatient, then the conclusion is to GO BUY IT!!! I absolutely love it!

First- exterior: A little smaller and thinner than the 700. The shell feels as if it is made of rubber, which is a nice feel when you grip the phone. Sits on your ear well also when you need both hands. The keyboard, however, feels a little moe cramped, but not too much. Enough to notice, too little to hinder you. Jus thave to get used to it I guess. Top half of the stylus is also that rubber material, so it doesn't fall out easily. Will that change? We'll see, but I don't think so. The mini-SD card now has a cover, and under it is the reset hole. No more removing the battery, and no more card catapults when you drop the phone. Both very good things. Battery is tiny, I have yet to test long-term use, since I am always charging it at home, work, and in the car.

Call quality is great. I noticed that when connected to UMTS you don't get the feedback in nearby electronics. In G mode this is not the case. Speakerphone is fine, same as 700.

UMTS is awesome! The speeds ary drastically. If I can get the HSDPA hack working my speeds are 800kb+, but most of the time I can't get it to work, and the speeds are in the 300 range. Still fast enough to not notice in PIE, but I'm sure when I DL a large file I will notice. I can't wait for the Cingular ROM to enable this properly. But the main attraction of it? I made a phone call after checking my email. When I got off the phone, there were 3 new messages waiting for me on my device! It DLed them while I was on the phone. YEAH!

A2DP is great. I have the moto 820's, VC 1.6, and am loving it. I can't say that it is CRYSTAL clear, but better than I thought it would be after hearing all of the complaints. When the phone rings, the RINGTONE that the phone would play (not the beeping noises) come THROUGH THE HEADSET. I thought I would need the Widcomm stack for that, but I guess not. When people call me that have their own ringtones, I know who's calling without touching the device. And the music starts back up after the convo automatically. Now I have not gotten VC to use the mic on my headset yet, but I believe that has been hacked and will search for it tonight.

I was able to put my device to the test this afternoon. I was emailing one friend while SMSing another. I sent an SMS, and as it was sending I tried to open outlook, because an email was coming in; but hit the today plugin for IM PLUS instead by accident. While all this was going on the phone rang, which I have a 30 second mp3 ringtone set up. All this happened within 2 seconds, and thought for sure my phone was going to freeze, if not explode! I waited maybe 4-5 secinds, and the treo caught up and I was able to answer the phone properly, and have my convo. And it was so bad that I said to myself "I have to mention this on the board!"

Summary: If you have a 700w/wx already, I don't think the TWO added features is enough to switch carriers. Besides, I believe they will be included in the next ROM update anyway, but who knows. Those who love the Palm OS, keep it. If you want something more involving (feature-wise AND time-wise) Windows Mobile is what you need. It is more complex than Palm, and requires more "get to know me" time, and more time to get all the settings to your preferences, but it is well worth it. There's plenty of other comparison threads, I'm not starting one here. Try it for yourself!