Standard newbie questions. Please help out ;)

[Vigilante]

OK so here is the background story and my plight.

I'm a flip phone user but I really want to get in to the PDA thing for this next round. Been researching and looking around for days now and it actually seems like slim pickings for me. I mean, I just plain want Windows Mobile cause I'm a bit of a geek and want to play around with adding programs and such. Here were some of my requirements.

WM of course. Full keyboard. Touch screen. Decent reviews would be nice. I really liked the slide-out keyboard idea cause the KBs are wider that way, the Palm-style ones that cram in the front didn't suit me. Also, I'm not used to using holsters and cases, I just cram my flippers into whatever open pocket I have. So it was important to have as many keys hidden as possible, to keep from getting screwed up.

Anyhoo, I pretty much landed the Mogul, seems to be the only device that fits me. Don't like Touch, I want wifi and KB. Don't like the skinny KBs on Palms and stuff and I'd rather have WM.

My Sprint contract is actually over and I am free to switch providers, but only Verizon would work and almost everybody I know uses Verizon so that is the only provider I'd switch to. But the only Verizon phone I like is the upcoming Voyager. And what I don't like about THAT phone is the rather redundant dual screens, and of course not as many features as Mogul, proprietary OS and and so forth. So really VZ doesn't have anything, and I don't like anything else besides Mogul.

So that brings me here. I've just finished browsing the site for like 2 hours and I'm done reading, now I just want to ask. So there is all this bad talk about problems with Mogul and ya it's Windows and it'll freeze and crash sometimes. Since this would be my very first PDA, I probably won't use Bluetooth and buy all this fancy stuff. I just want to mess around online with wifi and games and progs. So really is the phone's problems really that prevalent and earth shattering? Seriously, from one thread in here it seemed like buying the Mogul would bring about the apocalypse or something. But then it gets lots of rave reviews on youtube and cellphone websites.

Basically I'm just at my wits end, I'm done researching. The time has come to make my choice. Either I grab a PDA and the Mogul seems to be the one, or get a Katana II DLX and be on my way until a WM phone comes along which isn't possessed by the devil.

OR, does anybody know if Sprint has fixed some of the issues if I were to buy a Mogul NOW. Do I still need to hard reset the ROM and all that stuff I've been reading?

Lastly, odd question about PDAs like this, but if WM screws up somehow, can I still make or take calls? Sounds silly, but I just don't know, does WM handled the calls or is there some "basic" functionality even if WM is screwed up?

Thanks for reading, please educate me about WM and PDAs and phones and what Sprint is doing and how the Mogul stands at this moment and what the best competition is for Mogul. I wouldn't touch the Touch or iPhone with a 10 foot stylus. So what's the story? Oh and the 6800 on VZ is not as good what with the external antenna and all.

Now you see how confused and muddled I am about the whole thing. Please show me the light!

Peace

[EDGE23]

honestly, since its going to be your first pda, and you really like the mogul, i dont think you will dislike it. heck, you might even get happy with a moto Q, lol. if windows mobile some how screws up, you wont be able to make/receive calls, most likely the phone will freeze, but nothing a soft reset cant fix,(unless you really mess with roms and things like that)

also, since your contract with sprint is up, take advantage of retention and save some $$$ on a mogul. if the mogul is not what you really thought it was, well, you could always exchange within 30 days for a touch.

[TMB_XV6700]

Originally Posted by Vigilante

.... Oh and the 6800 on VZ is not as good what with the external antenna and all....

Vigilante,
More general reviews of the phones and features can be found all over - not necessarily here, where the focus tends to be on the software. If you haven't found it yet, pdaphonehome.com has a ton of great information for someone in your position. So keep reading and I'm sure you'll come up to speed soon enough.

Two clarifications:
1. The phone with the antenna is the PPC/XV6700 (not 6800), which I have. It's an old phone with new life brought to it by the ppcgeeks software updates.
2. The XV6800 is Verizon's version of the HTC Titan/Sprint Mogul. Supposedly it is launching for B2B orders on 11/28 and for retail orders on 12/5. So that's another option.

[Vigilante]

I kinda thought so Edge, since it's my first, it can't be that bad.

Thanks for the info TMB, online documentation is often poor, and most sites equate the VZ with the Mogul. But if VZ is coming out with the 6800 soon, maybe I'll wait and see, but they don't have it announced on the site yet like they have the Voyager, so I don't know. Any "official" launch date? And would it be wise to grab it right away? At least Sprint's Mogul has been out long enough to get some problems reported and worked on, maybe it's still better to get that one, rather than be VZ's beta tester on a new launch?
This page says it was supposed to come out on the 16th, and references a dude on ppcgeeks as the source!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/21/v...november-16th/
Since that didn't happen, I have no reason to think a 28th launch is any better.

Edge, what do you mean by "take advantage of retention and save some $$$ on a mogul" ?
The only deal I can get it seems is $150 instant savings and then a mail-in $100 rebate. Is there some other way to get additional discounts? So I can get the phone for $300. Think I can do better?

Keep the sage advice coming, I'll check out that website TMB.

[TMB_XV6700]

Originally Posted by Vigilante

Thanks for the info TMB, online documentation is often poor, and most sites equate the VZ with the Mogul. But if VZ is coming out with the 6800 soon, maybe I'll wait and see, but they don't have it announced on the site yet like they have the Voyager, so I don't know. Any "official" launch date? And would it be wise to grab it right away? At least Sprint's Mogul has been out long enough to get some problems reported and worked on, maybe it's still better to get that one, rather than be VZ's beta tester on a new launch?

Right on all points. The release date for the 6800 has been extremely squishy for a long time; that's why I said "supposedly". I remember in 3Q of 2006, before I bought the 6700, the 6800 was on the radar screen as a 1Q 2007 release, but I couldn't wait. Here's the info behind the dates I gave, http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...&page=76&pp=15.
Of course until we get it, we Verizon users are hoping that VW learned lessons from the 6700 release and by watching Sprint's Mogul release; with the extended testing and tweaking that VW has been doing for close to a year, they should deliver a pretty stable and useful device. (fingers crossed). But no hurry here; my Apache suits me fine for now.

[Vigilante]

So it is still muddy in my mind. I'll read some good stuff, then suddenly I read that the Mogul was the worst phone they ever owned. Arrg! Someone will spew out some problems that I haven't read anybody else complain about, so should I think maybe his problems were JUST on his phone, and not universal? Like one guy says that it just comes "on" by itself all day, wasting battery for no reason. I haven't heard other people complain that it comes on by itself. Other people say it is real slow switching orientation, but all the youtube vids I've watched seem fine to me so maybe it was just his phone?

Of course, there are lots of hacks and tricks to speed it up and make it more stable and remove the junkware, reload it and what not. So maybe these complainers just don't know what they are doing? What about dropped calls? Some don't complain, some say it is epidemic. I hate researching devices that seem to be a "love it or hate it" contrast, cause I can never make up my mind.

I am a techy guy, been doing computer repair for years, I have no problem doing reg tweaks and file hacks. So I am pretty confident I can make it run smooth and keep it uncluttered, there are a heck of a lot of resources for tweaking WM to clear out junk and speed it up, etc...

Also I read up on the SERO stuff and that seems interesting. Is the Vision and Power Vision the same as their Power packs? For some reason they don't call their packages Vision any more, but that is what you get with SERO so I don't actually know if Power Vision is the same as the data plans for web and TV and all that.
I can get SERO "the right way", I actually DO have a friend who works for Sprint, I am on the "Fair and Flexible" plan right now actually. Since the SERO plan includes Power Vision, does that mean it has unlimited web and SMS?

Why is this stuff all so confusing!

Thanks for all the help I can get.

(P.S. Hasn't anybody found a way to upgrade the built-in RAM? Solder on a new chip perhaps? Is the RAM or CPU even upgradeable?)

[Vigilante]

Any ideas about release date for XV6800 on Verizon? Everybody I know wants me to switch, even though I can't complain about the 7 years or so I've been on Sprint, been perfectly happy. Others have had issues but not me. And also I can get the SERO discounts which means I'd pay a heck of a lot more for Verizon data plans, starting at $70, STARTING at $70! Anything I can do about that?

Will the XV6800 be out "for sure" before, say, mid Dec? At least before Christmas? Not finding much info on it, though Verizon has an add on their site, it gives no dates.

[TMB_XV6700]

Here's the post from the link I posted above. It's from an internal VW page, supposedly (we've seen these before).
http://www.howardforums.com/showpost...postcount=1130

[Vigilante]

$500 with 2yr? Na I'd take my chances with Sprint fixing their issues in the next couple months.

There is just nothing I like on Verizon, nothing! Voyager would be cool if it didn't have redundant screens and proprietary OS. I would grab the Touch if it had wifi and just an extra feature or two. Or the Touch Dual if they had it.

Why do they put out these phones that are just ALMOST perfect, but leave out practically obvious wanted features? I mean, what good is having a miniOS (WM) with no wifi access? Why, as if on purpose to piss people off, put nearly half as much RAM as you should? Grrrrr!

What's cool about WM6, or the Mogul specifically, is that people have put the touch-flo shell on there, or the iPhone, and use it just the same. WM gives such incredible possibilities, it's almost to fun to pass up. But then, there is the problems, and that everybody wants me to switch to VZ. Life just sucks sometimes.

[EDGE23]

oh shoot, forget about retention(people you talk to when trying to cancel, they can give you discounts on your plan or phone just to keep you as a customer),, but SERO is better, i dont know if they offer the mogul with the SERO plan thou. and vision is just slow internet, you want power vision(just internet) i think power pack includes some more features, a few channels(not real tv) for sprint tv, maybe picture mail.? honestly SERO is the way to go these days. unless you are looking for family plan.