MDA Compact ii - Not that impressed

[Guest kaf]

I've had my MDA Compact ii for nearly a week and so far I'm not sure I'm all that impressed

Let me state for the record my other PDA is an XDA 2 running a copy of WM5 - so I am familiar with wm5 on a fairly good device

Now I like the small size of the mda (infact I love it) - a lot of 'power' for the size - the standard headphones look bad (though sound excellent (probably one of the best I've heard - keep a good bass)

Now I can get everything on the MDA -( my docs (12MB) - tom tom - skype - sunnysoft backup) - I want

but I'm annoyed by 5 things:

1. Takes about 3 or 4 times longer than and XDA2 to warm re-boot

2. however MB it may be - only 47MB of useful space is available to you for data (another 44 for programmes - though this poses no problems)

3. The thing seems so so so slow - now I don't mean picky slow I mean hanging slow

4. Has a tendancy to re-boot

5 T-Mobiles implementation seems a little rushed - example: Delete messages from the start menu and the link at the bottom fo the today secreen won't work

Now I removed spb finance (Works but takes 3 hours every sync to process my 10MB money file) and installed the slow CPU version of skype - better, but still seems flakey

Anyone having similair problems - Are T-mobile fairly good at rolling out bug-fix upgrades - where do they post them?

Edited December 26, 2005 by kaf

[Guest kaf]

I'm a bit happier now.

I did a hard re-set - and soft so nothing loaded from extended rom (All I miss from this is intellidialler - everything else - whatever it is? - I can live without.)

Reloaded all my software (except skype) - it works much better now

I suspect it was the low memory caused by the t-mobile gubbins and some kind of memory leak - the good thing about wm5 is it's good at not loosing it's data - but if you have problem programmes it can be difficult to truely get rid of them.

Skype seemed to cause a lot of problems with resets - and I suspect it was taking the memory because I kept getting an error about skype even though I had removed it

[Guest impy78]

I haven't had so many problems with slowness - mind you, I have come from Using a nokia N70, which is marginally less fast than a stoned tortoise.

It does take a while to boot up.

By the way, I was under the impression that you couldn't use skype on the Compact II, is this incorrect (I would like it to be!).

[Guest monkeynotes]

I haven't had so many problems with slowness - mind you, I have come from Using a nokia N70, which is marginally less fast than a stoned tortoise.

It does take a while to boot up.

By the way, I was under the impression that you couldn't use skype on the Compact II, is this incorrect (I would like it to be!).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Skype does not really work on the Compact II, sure it installs and runs but the audio is so incredibly choppy that you cannot really use it. I was using it over a bluetooth connection to a broadband connected PC, I am sure there is enough bandwidth in bluetooth to carry the voice so it can only be the sluggish proc in the Compact that is the problem. I would be interested to hear of other people's experiences with this.

As for general use of the Compact II, I think it is good but it often hangs at the worst time, like when a phone call is coming in. I attribute this to programms left running in memory or just poor processor performance, either way it is annoying.

The audio is another niggling problem, it is just crummy. I have a Nokia N70 also, where I prefer the Compact for the bigger screen and better functionality I have to say the Nokia shines through in audio quality, the speakerphone on the Nokia is superb too. The Compact has tinny terrible audio on both the internal and external speakers, it often pains me to listen to it.

[Guest kaf]

I put the skype on for messaging I too found the sound choppy even connected to the PC broadband - but that asside with hindsight I think it was Skpe causing a lot of my initial problems.

I still notice it out of the corner of my eye (I got a stand) warm booting every now and again and I do find it hangs a lot. usually when some comms are going on.

Comparing these devices to phones a bit reminds me of the story where Bill Gates was supposed to have compared his innovation to GM and the GM boss said if we ran our cars on Windows you'd have to press start to turn it off - it'd crash every 30 minutes, it'd say "are you sure you'r sure" before the brakes work .... etc etc IE phones just work, Windows Mobile has allways being a bit hit and miss - if your life depends on a call - don't use a pocket pc.

Having said all that - all that technology in such a small package is worth the few issues and T-Mobile web-n-walk is brilliant.

PS: Never been much of a Nokia 'fan' but I have to say I did have the use of one a couple of months ago and they did seem near perfect --- would walk near my laptop and it would just automatically connect and sync no problem ---- now we all know what a farce activesync is

Edited January 15, 2006 by kaf

[Guest monkeynotes]

PS: Never been much of a Nokia 'fan' but I have to say I did have the use of one a couple of months ago and they did seem near perfect --- would walk near my laptop and it would just automatically connect and sync no problem ---- now we all know what a farce activesync is

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Nokia PC Suite is absolutely awful in comparison to Activesync. You can't even connect your Nokia to the internet using PC Suite. Activesync may have its problems but beleive me in daily use it is far more useful and reliable than the Nokia offering. Nokia really put need to some more effort into their software, their hardware is often excellent and on their non-symbian phones the OS is usually good, but as far as smartphones go, Nokia really does blow.

Edited January 15, 2006 by monkeynotes

[Guest theyeti]

I'm experiencing a little annoyance with MMS. My device will only send a MMS message if I manually connect to GPRS before hand - and that i can only do by firing up internet explorer! :?:

If i don't, then any sent MMS remain in the outbox, marked with an icon of a message with a little clock.

MMS settings are the preset ones fromt he T-Moblile rom and configured to send immediately.

Any thoughts?

And is there another way of connecting to gprs without having to run IE or MSN messenger?

thanks

theyeti