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Old 08-20-2007, 08:06 PM
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nsinsinsi
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I owned the Mogul for about 27 days, just returned it last week. Here's some extra information some other people may be neglecting:

1- The device works very well as a plain WM6 device. You can run TomTom 6 with bt GPS like a champ, it can run emulators and games perfectly, and web browsing on it is absolutely excellent over EVDO or WiFi as long as you're using it two-handed. It feels fast enough in most situations.

2- It eats up memory much faster than the 700wx, and you become very worried about running more than a handful of apps or you start getting out of memory errors, some of them requiring a reset. For example, you usually have to go on an app-quitting tour before running the camera to take a simple photo.

3- The above problem is compounded by the fact that you have to get a bunch of different third party programs running at all times to make up for deficiencies in the device, such as PocketCM for one handed contact dialing, OnLock for device locking without going to the Today screen, and whatever today plugin you may need for speed dialing (I used the HTC homeplug, nice but took a lot of ram with it as well), among others.

4- No hardware mute switch. The Treo has a nice mute switch on top which should be part of any device calling itself a phone. The Mogul doesn't have suich a thing. So you end up having to run yet another application to be able to do this without operating the phone's on-screen interface. Even then, there were many situations where the Mogul just wouldn't shut up even after muting it.

5- Even though the Mogul has about 13 buttons on it (some of them in weird locations), soon, after all this, you start running out of buttons to launch of all these patchy applications you have to use in order to operate it comfortably.

6- Build and materials are not the highest quality. You can usually hear the phone creak beneath your ear while you're on a phone call, because the keyboard is bending against the other half of the device's body.

7- The keyboard is inferior to the Treo, in my opinion, not only in form factor, but also in layout and physical arrangement - I really missed the Treo's Alt key, for example. The keys have very nice button-push action though.

8- The screen looks very nice indoors, but is essentially invisible and unusable outdoors during the day. A lot of the time I couldn't even tell if it was on or not when I was outside in daylight. I had to swirl around looking for shade to be able to see anything. I also noticed text would become blurry when seen in landscape mode, especially if Cleartype was enabled.

9- Compounding the above problem further, they device has very poor battery life if you spend a lot of time in a low coverage area. This forces you to turn off all beams, bluetooth, and also turn down screen brightness to a usable minimum in order to last about 6-8 hours on a good day. I couldn't get past a single day without having to recharge at some point in the middle of the afternoon. Battery life is not as bad if you spend most if your time in an area with good signal coverage.

10- Outgoing sound quality was extremely poor in all conditions according to people I talked to on the other line. Even the Sprint operator kept asking me to repeat myself. This was regardless of coverage or mic device - onboard mic, wired headset, etc. Not to mention Bluetooth issues with the phone, which was essentially unusable for me. Also, I kept wishing for more volume in most applications.

11- The device doesn't seem to have proper video drivers so all video funcionality is extremely poor, the worst of any current device I have tried. Video recording looks horrible and is extremely low resolution (half of the Treo's), as well as low framerate. Playback is also very choppy compared to other devices, even after setting the proper Video settings in TCPMP. It works, but it's the worst of the current crop of smartphones in my experience, including new multimedia Blackberries and both flavors of Treos.

12- I still can't understand the decision not to include a headphone jack of any kind (2.5 or 3.5). Instead, you get a semi-proprietary mini-USB connector. It's great for charging and syncing, but it sucks to have to use the included headset or be forced to carry one of the weird, unwieldy adapters it comes with. Also, you have to use yet another adapter if you want to talk on a headset while charging the phone in order to avoid killing the battery even faster.

Just some of my thoughts after intensely using this device for nearly a month. Your mileage may vary, but my recommendation would be to stay away from it. I'm waiting for the Treo 800w, personally.
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