Re: Verizon
 

LOL...that could start a pretty contentious thread. Fortunately we're stuffed down here in the Intrepid forum in the bowels of obscurity where it'll remain civil. :)

I can SSH into my servers and fix things (I can get root, and I run my own mail server. Not particularly well, but I do...I think that makes me a power user). I can copy and paste things from a web page into an email and vice versa. Is it important? For me, yes...I communicate with customers that way all the time. I type lengthy emails at times (a pain on any device, but one without a hardware keyboard tenbds to loook lke thus becase i cant hit alll th keyw right. Well, not me, but the ones I get from friends who use the iPhone (in their defense, I think they are getting better at it as time goes on, which is a fair point). I use FTP and a text editor to modify text files and HTML documents when I'm away from my desk. It's not fun, but it works and I don't have to carry a laptop around all the time.

2. Of course documents look better on the iPhone than the Intrepid. My #1 complaint about the Intrepid is the screen resolution. I bet my TP2 looks just as good as the iPhone screen, though. The Intrepid screen is a throwback to smartphones of 5 years ago. Samsung goes retro.

3. Don't know if iPhone does server search (Exch2007 feature), or remote wipe, or some of the other nifty things you get with WinMo Exchange. If it does, that's great...just don't know.

Also I don't like the control forced on iPhone users. You'd have to jailbreak your iPhone to get most of the similar tips and tricks working that WinMo users can enjoy on a stock ROM. Maybe the iPhone is such a perfectly usable device that it needs no tweaks, though.

That's not to say the iPhone isn't a groundbreaking device that will hopefully continue to revolutionize how people interact with mobile devices. For some people the iPhone is great, and it would be even better on VZW's network, if they can all whip 'em out, measure 'em, and just get over themselves for a change. But I agree with OP here that all roads are starting to lead to iPhone clones, and I think that's a shame. Apple innovated, people bought iFart in droves, and the rest of the world is playing catch up. Only they're just doing myFart, they're not doing anything new and exciting. Since we know W7 is just going to be a crap teenage-friendly iPhone clone with pretty screens and huge text that doesn't fit on the screen and plays lots of music and shows pretty pictures, and Palm is about to vanish off the face of the earth (in perhaps the ultimate irony), that pretty much leaves Android as the only game in town within a year for people that want flexibility and control (and copy and paste...and multitasking). That is, here in the states, lest the Europeans harp on me about Symbian.

Unrelated, but...OP, don't settle for the saga...based on the reviews it's awful. I think you'll be miserable.

Whew. What a way to start a Monday.

Re: Verizon
 

Ah. That, I get. I have a netbook at the house that I have installed Ubuntu Linux on, and I like not having to mess with endless EULAs etc. I'm just not a power smartphone user I suppose. PDA functions, work email, music player, and occasional weather or news on the browser, that is what is important to me. I am with you on like physical keyboards for work email. And I have installed a few mods and apps from XDA so I do like fiddling with the phone a bit. I just wish WinMo was more stable and user-friendly like a Unix-based system would be. I hate errors on my phone. WinMo standard on my old Q was more stable than this Intrepid, though it still crashed occasionally and was slow as tar.

Re: Verizon
 

Your description of power users is perfect. I'd also add the caveats that the interface should be information rich. I don't want large fonts and cool extraneous graphics. Having 6 emails (subject/sender) listed at a time in a large point font that I can flick through is for example the reverse of what I want. I'd prefer to have 20 emails in a much smaller point font, without an extra 20 empty pixels between each line.

Nice summary. After thinking over what you wrote above, I realize my real complaint is only peripherally related to the iPhone. That effect you elucidated (in large font above) is my real problem, the success of the iPhone has caused everyone to try to copy it. The iPhone is fine, and I'd have no problem with it if Microsoft and Palm were out there producing a power user focused OS. Instead, they are making crappy versions of the iPhone. (To be fair to Palm, WebOS might be an alternative, but there's no dual band GSM/CDMA version so it's currently a non-starter for me).

Yeah, I'm getting that impression. The HTC Trophy might be coming out for Verizon. It looks killer.

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/02/...-trophy-specs/

Sadly, there are no front facing QWERTY Android phones. I've read up on the saga, so I'm aware of it's myriad short comings. If I can get a Saga that doesn't have the reception problems, and is stable, it'll work for me.

Re: Verizon
 

"Nice summary. After thinking over what you wrote above, I realize my real complaint is only peripherally related to the iPhone. That effect you elucidated (in large font above) is my real problem, the success of the iPhone has caused everyone to try to copy it. The iPhone is fine, and I'd have no problem with it if Microsoft and Palm were out there producing a power user focused OS. Instead, they are making crappy versions of the iPhone. "

My tastes run to the minimalist and simple, so I do admire the Iphone interface. I also like the WM 6.5 home screen once I got used to controlling it. What I can't stand are the interfaces on some of these new Android phones that shove Twitter and Facebook feeds directly in my face. I have apps for both of those networks on my phone, but I don't want to see alerts from them, I will turn them on if I wish to look at them. This millennial generation 10-second attention span crap is highly annoying.

Re: Verizon
 

haha. yup. and im 25, cant stand that stuff...

Re: Verizon
 

I'm 23 and I can't stand it.

If I had to pick, I'd take a minimalist interface (i.e. windows 6.5 homescreen) vs. Android or Windows Phone 7 with a plethora of stuff I couldn't care less about.