PPCGeeks - Alltel Touch new user review and questions

I would first like to give a big thanks to the veteran ppc users on this board, always helping out others.

I was not sure if this should be posted under the "sprint" first impressions and questions sticky, so I just am posting it in the general section for now. Feel free to move this if it belongs somewhere else.

Two days ago I picked up the Touch from Alltel. I was previously undecided between the 6800 and the Blackberry Pearl, but I chose the 6800 at that time. I'm glad I waited a bit, because the Touch was released shortly after. This is my new guy first impressions of the Alltel Touch.

About a year ago I tried both Treo 700p and 700w, and although I liked what they could do, they were just too darn big for me to use as a phone and I returned them, and I returned to being a regular old cell phone user. I really wanted something to just slip in the pocket. For the last couple weeks or so I spent many hours researching the Touch, I read all the forums, reviews, and watched videos of it on youtube. I counted the days until Alltel released it.

So I arrive at the Alltel store and meet with a sales person. After a couple of questions I could tell I knew quite a bit more about the Touch than he did, but thats fine. I looked at the display of the 6800 while I was there, boy that is an impressive phone, too. Tempting, but for my use, I wanted the thinness of the Touch (and the Touch was $50 cheaper). In my simple mind I viewed the 6800 as a Cadillac Escalade and the Touch as a Cadillac CTS. The Escalade being a bit slower, and bigger, but with more hardware, the CTS being smaller, and faster. Both are great rides. Anyway, he brought out the Touch box. After showing him how to open it by lifting the magnetized side (thank you youtube unboxing video!!) the first thing that jumped out at me was just how small it was. All the pictures and videos on the internet did not do it justice...that thing is small. Maybe in my mind I kept picturing that old Treo, but needless to say, I was happy with the size. Also the color. If you look at Alltel's web site it shows a light silver looking Touch. After seeing all of the black Touches Sprint has, I was not looking forward to this silver one. Let me say that the color in the picture online is completely off. Alltel's Touch is actually a mid to dark gray. It is VERY nice looking. It also has that rubberized feel to it that the black ones have.

We set it up, I paid my $300 (after MIR will be $200), and out the door I went. Just getting used to it sitting out in the parking lot, it was very intimidating. The cube is a nice way to organize everything, but the heart of it is still Windows Mobile. My humble opinion of WM is that it can do just about anything you want it to do, but boy, I think they could have made it more user friendly and streamlined the interface. I think they would actually sell a lot more phones if it was more user friendly. I am not an expert by any means, but I also don't consider myself a slouch when it comes to technology. And if I was intimidated by it, I just could not imagine someone like my fiancee buying this phone on her own and liking it, just because of how complicated WM can get.

As I was checking it out in the parking lot, It reset automatically on me...huh, must have pressed something. I fired it back up and it did it two more times on me in a half hour. I know then that I did not do it. I brought it back to the store and told the sales guy what happened. I played around with it for awhile and it did not do it for him. He said that it was probably just updating with Alltel, and should be fine. I was skeptical, but he turned out to be right. It has not reset itself or locked up at all for two days now.

A couple things that may or may not be Alltel specific... the included memory card. That is, there is none. Checked the box, nope, none, and its not listed in the box contents either, so they must not provide one. I was under the impression that Sprint's came with a 512 card, but maybe I'm wrong. Another gripe, is the included instructions. A worthless quick start guide and a CD. Wow, thanks, couldn't print up something more usefull???

Overall I am happy with the phone. Most of my gripes have to do with WM, you know, the usual stuff. I first played around with the provided Pocket Internet Explorer, and was pretty disappointed. It made surfing the net a chore, not an enjoyable experience at all. Then I made my first download...Opera Mini 4. Would not work at first, but then I installed Esmertec Jbed, re-installed OM4 and it works like a charm. Talk about night and day difference. Although it is not totally perfect, it makes surfing the net fun. If you use PIE, for the love of God, try Operamini 4!!!

So far, that is the only change I have made. It really makes me like the phone alot more than I already did. I am a bit nervous to try a registry editor and play around with that, I am afraid I will mess something up and not be able to get it back to normal. Any advise on this guys?

The next thing I would like to do is change the text messaging and maybe a better weather app. Texting on the Touch is very confusing to me. I can't find my outgoing texts. only incoming. I got a picture message, and it went into a different section and kept notifying me of it, even though I opened it. So I had to delete it. Any suggestions on figuring this out, or what to download to change it to a more easy to use function?? Threaded would be nice.

Anyway, I'm sorry I got so long winded here. I just thought I would give my two cents about Alltel's Touch. Overall, I am very happy with it and would suggest it to others.(in fact, I already have suggested the Touch AND PPCGeeks.com to some friends) Thanks again!