Guest cyrilthefish Posted June 15, 2005 Report Share Posted June 15, 2005 (edited) I realised my phone contract is nearly up and i've been having a look at what to get next. I was planning to get a C550 or whatever the next smartphone would be until i stumbled across the MDA Compact in the T-mobile shop! I've allways wanted a pocketPC phone edition device but they've allways been too big and too expensive, this MDA is cheap and only marginally bigger than a C500 ;) just a few questions i have: whats the battery life like compared to the C500? the person in the shop reckoned about 3 days with average usage but i don't really trust phone salesmen ;) how durable is it? does it have the dreaded HTC 'flakey paint plastic' panels that seem to end up on HTC phones? (ie on my C500, the front looks fine, but the plastic battery cover looks a mess where paint has been flaking away) does it use flash memory for internal storage? ie. my friend with an XDA has lost info/programs several times when the battery has died and wiped the memory, very silly design flaw i reckon :D Anything else i should know about it before i rush out and buy one? :D Edited June 15, 2005 by cyrilthefish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Samsonite Posted June 15, 2005 Report Share Posted June 15, 2005 i got one - Qtek S100 - and its as the phone salesman says - i could get about 3 days with 'average' use. 'Average' being a few minutes of calls a day, a few more minutes GPRS, and a godd few hours bluetooth to the GPS. Build quality is good enough - i think my power/miniUSB socket isnt gonna last a year but it might be a wobbly cable rather than the phone... have to wait and see... Paint seems ok; ive had mine for about 3 weeks now and no chips or flakes that i can see... cant comment on the flash memory side of things, i havent let the unit run dry of battery as yet. As i understand it, you get about 2 days of backup battery keeping the memory intact allowing SIM card activity and battery flatness. as for which variant to get, the T-mobile unit is the only one i have ever seen on the high street but i took the plunge and took a contract out with O2 thru A1comms over the web (www.a1comms.com) and the phone cost me £9.99 - better than T-mobile buy 80 quid!! highly recommended!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest extravagant Posted June 15, 2005 Report Share Posted June 15, 2005 I realised my phone contract is nearly up and i've been having a look at what to get next. I was planning to get a C550 or whatever the next smartphone would be until i stumbled across the MDA Compact in the T-mobile shop! I've allways wanted a pocketPC phone edition device but they've allways been too big and too expensive, this MDA is cheap and only marginally bigger than a C500 ;) just a few questions i have: whats the battery life like compared to the C500? the person in the shop reckoned about 3 days with average usage but i don't really trust phone salesmen ;) how durable is it? does it have the dreaded HTC 'flakey paint plastic' panels that seem to end up on HTC phones? (ie on my C500, the front looks fine, but the plastic battery cover looks a mess where paint has been flaking away) does it use flash memory for internal storage? ie. my friend with an XDA has lost info/programs several times when the battery has died and wiped the memory, very silly design flaw i reckon :D Anything else i should know about it before i rush out and buy one? :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> nice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cyrilthefish Posted June 15, 2005 Report Share Posted June 15, 2005 (edited) actually T-Mobile seemed quite cheap free with £45 p/m, 200mins cross-network calls and 55mb GPRS included £100 with £23 p/m and 100mins cross-network calls very very tempted by the cheap GPRS bundle (i go over my orange GPRS bundle all the time) ;) Edited June 15, 2005 by cyrilthefish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Samsonite Posted June 15, 2005 Report Share Posted June 15, 2005 yeah, i was offered the 55MB bundle and was almost hooked with it... In reality, i could only ever eat up 10-20 meg max of GPRS and didnt see the overall value. T-Mob have changed the pricing structure for the MDA every month for the last 3 months but never got it vheap enuff for me.. if you're happy to use t'internet for buying the phone, you will find comparable and better tariffs from a number of Web retailers - i'm on 35 quid a month wth 250xnet mons anytime and 50txts. GPRS bundle was a fiver for 7 meg i think (might be 5Mb - not too sure now) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MitchellO Posted June 15, 2005 Report Share Posted June 15, 2005 The paint is a non-issue, as there is none! The case is metal, and is the most resistance PPC case I have had. It is soooo much better than plastic PPCs, and its really hard to scratch (I haven't been able to yet, not that I'm trying ;) ). The battery life is pretty good, particularly for a PPC, but not great compared to phones. I get a day out of heavy use (GPRS/SD Wifi/Phone/Music), with about 4-5hrs. If I don't use too much (maybe 1hr/day) I can get 2-3days out of it. I bought a spare battery (3rd party 1200mAh) and it makes my device go for a while without needing a power point. Also, the spare batteries seem to stay charged really well. I didn't use my spare for a week and when I put it in it was still at 100%! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Perfectionist Posted June 16, 2005 Report Share Posted June 16, 2005 You have spoke to soon !! ;) I've had my Jam for about 4/5 months now and only this week saw a small flake of silver paint come off near the corner where the stylus lives ..... ;) The case is most certainly not metal ...... just some plastic with a fancy coating :D This is with me keeping it almost 247 in a case - wonder how the "naked" JAM's are doing ..... Oh well, all the more reason to upgrade to a JAM2 next year :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MitchellO Posted June 16, 2005 Report Share Posted June 16, 2005 Sorry, I should rephrase what I said. MOST of the device case is metal. Strangely, the part above the battery door (where the camera, mirror and ext. antenna connection is) is plastic, and is painted. The new JAM/Magician, if it is the same as the pictures shown on the net, looks all plastic, and really crap IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Disco Stu Posted June 16, 2005 Report Share Posted June 16, 2005 It will dent if you drop it on tarmac. Not a big dent, but vaguely unsightly all the same. You can drain 50% of the main battery with 3 hours or so of music / games use. I thought the backup battery only lasted for about 2 hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest chucky.egg Posted June 16, 2005 Report Share Posted June 16, 2005 actually T-Mobile seemed quite cheap free with £45 p/m, 200mins cross-network calls and 55mb GPRS included £100 with £23 p/m and 100mins cross-network calls very very tempted by the cheap GPRS bundle (i go over my orange GPRS bundle all the time) ;) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Where did you find those prices? 20Mb is £25 on tmobiles.co.uk, was it from some other site? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cyrilthefish Posted June 16, 2005 Report Share Posted June 16, 2005 Where did you find those prices? 20Mb is £25 on tmobiles.co.uk, was it from some other site? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> From a T-Mobile shop. Aparrently the cheap GPRS bundle is only on the more expensive contracts. But then i came across this amazingly cheap deal : http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=122762 T-Mobile MDA Compact + Relax 100 + 55Mb Data @ £36 p/m and the MDA was free :shock: needless to say, i ordered one today despite me having still a month and a bit left on my orange contract ;) should arrive tomorrow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Metoo Posted June 16, 2005 Report Share Posted June 16, 2005 MOST of the device case is metal. Strangely, the part above the battery door (where the camera, mirror and ext. antenna connection is) is plastic, and is painted. There's a very good reason for this - if all of the case was metal, the internal antenna wouldn't work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MitchellO Posted June 16, 2005 Report Share Posted June 16, 2005 There's a very good reason for this - if all of the case was metal, the internal antenna wouldn't work! Ah! Thanks for enlightening me! I always wondered why they did that. Now it know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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