Experiences using HP6365

What to say about this PDA-phone, it was the first PDA-Phone from HP.
It was loathed by many yet, loved by many.
Being a first phone prom the company that's had lots of expertise in the PDA arena. It was designed more a PDA in mind rather than a phone.

I used one for more than a year, being a gadget freak I could not not love the PDA, it was almost a full blown PDA, and it has all the connectivity option a gadget freak could ask for.

As for specs, you could probably just Google it and find it, as I'm gonna be talking about user experience here.

Having a really buggy ROM on their shiped product, it was really annoying with frequent hangs and instability, also with the frequent GSM signal drop. HP released a new ROM to fix most of it's problem, and it was almost an entirely different PDA.


Performance:

Using a 200Mhz Omap processor was slow, yet battery live was superb. A lot of people taunts HP for using such a slow processor. I used it and have nothing to complain about. the 200MHZ was just for running apps and no other. other processes are handled by it's counterpart processor, being a dual core processor.
It was swift, and I could play games such as age of empire and virtualpool smoothly. No complaint there. If it's a bit slow, so what? being a phone, it has to have a good battery life, as you are gonna be using it on the move constantly. Unlike regular PDA that doesn't have a power guzzling GSM module, it's really nice to have a phone that would actually last more than a day of use. Imagine using a cell phone that could only last half a day, would you use it? With 6365, I could actually use it for 2 days with moderate usage.
RAM could be bigger, 64MB was really cutting thin. As a WM2003 uses ram for storage also.


Connectivity:

With external antenna, Weather it's GSM signal, or Wi-Fi signal, are recieved pretty well. At least compared to other PDA-phone. Most Cell phone have better signal reception tho.
Being a Quad band Phone it can be used virtually anywhere in the world where GSM signal is available, road warriors that travel between countries all the time.
It was Wi-Fi B they used, not exactly cutting edge when G standard was available, but it gets the job done, besides most notebook still comes with B standard back then.


Build quality:

Build quality is excellent, case were sturdy.
Of the 1 year I used the PDA, rear speaker got busted twice. Apparently, i was not the only one that has the same problem as one of the HP technician I met confirms. Speaker volume was really low, can barely be heard in a noisy environments. With most cell phone having a much better speakers for their phone, I would only rate 6365's rear speaker a 1 out of 10 rating. The rear speaker is a screw up on HP's part on choosing parts I'd say.
Despite the flaws on the phone, having an HP great after sales was great. Repairs are swift, some of the best after sales service i've seen so far for consumer products.

Experiences using dopod 818pro

I've used a dopod 818pro for about 8 months. and would like to share my positive and negative experiences using the device.

the specs are (as taken from their web site):

Dopod 818Pro Specifications

Basics

l Smart model: Microsoft Windows Mobile Version 5.0

l Style: PDA Form Factor

l Frequency: GSM Quad Frequency (850/900/1800/1900)/EDGE EGPRS Class B

l Size: 108 x 58 x 18.2 mm

l Weight: 150g

l Standby time: 150-250 hours

l Talk time: 3.5~5 hours

l Battery:1200mAH

l Color: Black/Silver/Pink/Blue/Lavender

Processor/Chipset

l CPU: TI OMAP850

Memory

l ROM:128MB

l RAM:64MB

Interface/messages

l Messages: SMS; MMS

l Recording: Unlimited (up to memory's capacity)

l Voice control: Yes

l Hands free: Yes

Communications

l Data transfer: GPRS/Wi-Fi

l IR: Yes

l Bluetooth: Yes

l WiFi wireless LAN: Yes, 802.11b/g

l USB: Yes

Screen

l Colors: 65536 colors TFT screen

l Size: 2.8 inch

l Resolution: 320×240 pixels

Multimedia

l Original ring tones: MP3/AAC/AMR/WAV/WMA

l JAVA: Yes

l Multimedia player: Windows Media Player 10

Camera

l CMOS resolution: 2.0 mega pixel with macro

l Focus: Yes

l Recording: Yes

l Preview Mirror :Yes

l Memory slot: MMC/SDIO interface

Others

l Handwritten recognition: Yes

l Browsing Office documents: Yes

Now, specs aside, how about user experience?

I've used used the device for 8 months, throughout this 8 months, it's been in the service center twice. once for broken rear speaker, and the the second one was... what do you know the same problem, the rear speaker plus vibrate. Apparently the flaw with the rear speaker plagues this model everywhere, lots of users complains about it on almost every forum I visit. Apart from those flaws, I had little to complain on the device performance, overall it was satisfactory. Well, maybe I can complain about the after sales, their after sales are terrible, well at least where I life it is. each time, service takes a really long time to complete.

Aside from all that gripes, it was a great PDA-phone none the less.


Performance:

There are pros and cons when it comes to OMAP processor from Texas instrument. What it lacks in raw processing power, it makes up in longer battery live. the one thing that most PDA phone lacking is long battery live, and it's OMAP processor provided just that.
But is it really much slower than most new PDA that comes with 400-500Mhz something processor from intel and samsung?
From experience I would say, not by that much. it was slower with it's 200Mhz processor, what most people don't know is that OMAP processor is actually a dual core processor. the 200Mhz is dedicated to running application, while the other core works on the rest of processes, such as managing the phone, saving pictures from the camera, etc. On the other hand, other processor uses the same processor to do everything. one thing I notice is that my 6828 takes a lot longger when snaping a picture wit it's 2MP camera, while 818pro with it's dedicated processor took almost no time at all.
The downside is not all application is optimized to run on an OMAP processor, therefore not taking advantage the full potential of the proc.
If you use your PDA-Phone more as a phone then you would really appreciate the significantly longer battery life, battery live is superb.


Camera:

excellent 2megapixel camera. the best one I've seen so far on a pocket PC. Not as good as many of high end mobile phones though. under sunlight, picture was excellent, it was almost not usable under poor light condition though.

Build:
Sturdy build, good looking, 5 colors to choose from, the screen is not sensitive enough for my taste. Watch out with the area where you put your stylus in, paint job is not that good, as its worn off after a few months of use.


Conclusion:

I really recommend this PDA, only if it wasn't plague with bad parts that breaks easily. I would still use it if their after sales were any good, and parts that got replace is actually better than the defect factory standard. beside, how hard is it to provide a good speaker for it? Have you ever heard a blown mobile phone speakers? you can blast it all the way and it wouldn't break and it's much louder too, speaker phone mode is actually usable. Is it so hard to put a similar speaker on a PDA, which usually cost twice as much as a regular mobile phone.