[Kasracer]

At first I thought you made up a list of the good and bad but it sounds more like a rant after going through 11 bad items and 1 good item. Surely a device like the Mogul can't be that bad! I love mine!

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

Well it eats up memory "faster" because it has less but I've only gotten memory errors with WMP. I've never received any with the camera or any other application. This is really an issue that ends up coming up on all WM devices because of the way memory is handled but the device is always very snappy for me and this never becomes an issue for me so it may depend what you're doing and what programs you're running.

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

I agree with the third party apps. I hate having a software lock! Though I am in love with the HTC Home Plugin and it doesn't really take up much memory on my device (I constantly have about 15-20mb free).

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

This is definately something I miss from my 700wx but I've never had any issue with the Mogul not "shutting up". The profiles in the HTC Home plugin work great for me!

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

Agreed. Thankfully AE Button is simply awesome and I can do so much more with my buttons than I ever could on my Treo (granted AE Button should work on the Treo as well, heh).

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

How hard are you pressing the phone to your head!? I have never heard mine crack or make any noise like that and I dropped it twice pretty hard (once onto a thinly carpetted floor, which made it bounce into a metal desk and the second time was on a hard, wooden deck) and I haven't had any issues with the build quality.

The battery door is a bit flimsy, I'll give you that, but the device feels pretty solid to me.

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

Personally, I like the Mogul's keyboard better. The buttons feel great and they're more spaced apart. Not to mention there are more of them

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

Cleartype is just like Cleartype on Windows XP. It's usually recommended to not enable it as text can become slightly blurry. Having said that, I usually have my brightness a little under the half way point when I'm not using my phone that much and I will give you that it's a little hard to see it outside like that. But (and this is a big butt), if I crank my brightness all the way up I can see my screen clear as day outside. This phone gets brighter than my 700wx's dull screen which was more difficult to see outside than my Mogul.

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

You're doing something wrong. While I do not use bluetooth or beams, I use my phone to surf the internet at least 1-2 hours a day and I listen to podcasts throughout the entire work day. Not only that but I also talk and text on the phone quite a bit and usually my phone can go for about 15 hours without a charge if I do everything I said I do. While I would like more power, I am using my phone very heavily so I don't really mind. I am getting the extended battery anyway for those long, long days at work

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

Really? I've found the sound quality thus far much improved over the 700wx. The quality of the phone calls for me have been about on par with my land line and the volume is much louder than my very quiet 700wx. Not only that but I have a much better signal on my Mogul than on my 700wx so the calls are much clearier.

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

No clue what you're talking about. The video plays very well on my Mogul and I haven't had any issues with it. Video capture also works pretty well but the qualtity isn't the greatest (though it's definately better than my 700wx).

I would also like to add that the BlackBerry's video support (or, at least the 8800's) is mediocre at best. My girlfriend owns this device and not only can you not download videos easily but it supports a very limited amount of files formats. WM devices are far superior in video playback simply due to the third party codec support.

Originally Posted by nsinsinsi

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.

I agree that it sucks it doesn't include 3.5mm by default but at least it has 2.5 with the included jack. Though you don't need yet another adapter to charge and have a headset plugged in as one is already included that can do both.