PPC6700 vs. Touch Pro - Mini Review

[MarcusInMD]

Well,
I have had the touch pro for 4 days now. I picked mine up at a local best buy that got restocked late last week. After reading posts here I was concerned about the build quality, ear piece volume and static and battery life.

I have had the PPC6700 for about 3 years now. Shortly after the siedo 3200mah battery became available I jumped at it because I simply could not get through an entire day without running out of power. As a matter of fact, by 2 or 3pm I would be powering off because of the crappy stock battery. The 3200mah battery gave me everything I needed and then some. I could go all day without issues on power and when the battery was new, easily go two and perhaps three days without a charge.

I had always had serious issues with my bluebooth headset and the 6700. If I allowed the device to go into sleep mode, more times then not it would lose BT connection and I would have to reset the connection manually or sometimes I would even have to soft boot the device to get the connection back. This was even with some of the latest cooked roms. I was using 6.0 when I finally got the Touch Pro. So, to avoid the issues, I set my phone to never sleep and only turn off the backlite. This worked Ok, but of course really used the battery up.

Using the included voice dialer was so hit or miss I gave up on it. And that was one of the reasons I purchased the 6700 in the first place!

I use the internet frequently and PIE just sucked. When I found opera it was like getting a whole new device, however, the main annoyance was the fact that the software would say out of memory.

I can happily say that the new Touch Pro has exceeded my expectations so far. Internet with opera is fast, without problems and is really a treat to use. My blutooth woes are gone now. The phone can go into sleep mode and when I press the headset button I am instantly connected with the phone. And when I actually tell it to do something via the headset it works!!! The voice recognition is flawless even when in my noisey truck on the highway. Dialing by voice "Dial 555-555-5555" works everytime and as it should.

The TF3D is awesome and I find little reason to ever go into the window mobile area anymore...Though once I settle in to the device I think I will have to start messing around in there too.

The GPS is a nice addition and I had always wanted to take full advantage of MS Live search with the GPS and now I can! Tracks perfectly too.

At this point, the only down side I can see is the battery life. However, because the phone is able to go into true sleep mode now, I probably can make it through a full day with out issue. This is my first full day with the unit and I did very little talking so... I do plan to buy a car charger though and perhaps a spare battery.

Build quailty of this unit is probably not quite up to snuff with the 6700 but its good enough. The keyboard kinda slides side to side a bit where the 6700 did not. The home key area of the Touch pro is perfect on this unit and does not rise up I love were they put the micro SD card. It was kinda dumb to have the card exposed like it was on the 6700 with the chance it would go flying never to be found.

Once I removed the protective plastic from shipping (DOH!) the headset volume is leaps and bounds above what I had on the 6700 and the voice is a lot clearer. Same goes for the BT headset..louder and much clearer. Callers on the other end have commented on the improved voice quality/volume as well. The included screen protector works very well and is a welcome addition to the box.

In closing, I have had one instance were the phone was stuck in some kind of loop with the wait circle coming up for a few seconds and then reappearing. The backside of the device was getting very hot and the onyl fix I could find was pulling the battery. Once I did that all was fine. This problem seemed to occur after I received a text message.

At this time I have only loaded some songs on the included 1GB SD card and some photos. The device is stock and I have not loaded any hacks or additional software.

Finally, now if I could get a really nice plastic holster for this thing I will be very happy. If I can think of anything else I will try to add it later.