Google
 
Web www.howardforums.com
Pages: 1

Shadow vs Dash

(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: dannykewl

Hi, I had the Shadow for about 8 days and am thinking about turning it in for the Dash. The battery life is horrible on the Shadow, as soon as you do anything it drops like a rock.

Is the screen on the Dash larger, or does it just seem that way? Can't get IE to go landscape on the Shadow, would be nice to turn the Shadow on it's side and see more text.

Any idea about Wi-fi on the Dash, how sensitive? I took my laptop, a Toshiba Satellite, and the Shadow around various places in my house, and the shadow was consistently about 1 bar weaker than the laptop, and finally 1 bar on the laptop, but couldn't connect with the Shadow (had red X on antenna icon), when far enough away, and wasn't all that far.

I do like the volume on the earpiece of the Shadow, nice and loud, but the speakerphone is kind of tinny. Any Dash users on this?

I read the Dash camera may be a bit better, even though only 1.3 MP vs 2.0 on the Shadow. Lag time must be a good two seconds on the Shadow.

Is the QWERTY keyboard on the Dash more usable than the 2/1 key keyboard on the Shadow. I assume the QWERTY keys are smaller.

Hopefully there's some opinions from people who went from the Dash to the Shadow. I have 5 days left on my 14 day trial. I know some things I can go into the store and check, like screen size, but other features have to be actually tried out after purchase. Thanks much.


Posted by: Jason_V

My wife has the Shadow and I have the Dash. I like them both, although she shares some of your complaints about battery life.

The amount of system memory available for the Dash is really it's biggest flaw. The Shadow's interface runs very smooth comparatively due to to this. On the Dash I have deleted a lot of the OEM software that I didn't need and installed a 2gb Mini-SD card where I install ALL the software that I have downloaded. When I cold boot the Dash, I will have ~20MB of system memory available. Running any applications cause this to be sapped and I routinely run with ~12MB free. Versus the Shadow, which has ~60MB of free memory available from the start.

I think that texting is a bit easier on the Dash due to the QWERTY layout, but I've not tried getting used to the Shadow's.

I don't believe that the Dash has a larger screen, but I have noticed that the Shadow has a better dot pitch, resulting in a nicer looking image.

The Shadow's portrait screen seems to be more universally supported than the landscape screen of the Dash. This isn't too big of a deal, but some software doesn't natively support the Dash's orientation.

Not sure if any of this is helping you, but they are my observations.


Posted by: dannykewl

I went and traded my Shadow in for a Dash 2 days ago - Jan. 10. So far I like the Dash a lot better, no freeze ups, speaker quality a little better - not great - but better than the Shadow. I like the landscape layout. Especially for the web, email, etc. Only problem is playing a video in full screen, it turns it on it's side, with the two sides cut off a bit. The screen display is not as crisp as the Shadow, but it's adequate.

It's much easier to type on the Dash vs. the double click keys of the Shadow. My only gripe is that somehow the number keys on the Dash could have been a little bigger, kind of rough if you're dialing a phone number. But then I understand that would mean a bigger phone, and the layout of the keyboard would be interrupted.

No freezes yet, my Shadow frozen up twice the first day I got it. The Dash does seem almost as fast as the Shadow given less onboard memory, if not faster sometimes. I did install a 2 GB memory card also. Free memory however seems to vary between 3500K and 18000K sometimes with no rhyme or reason, even with all apps closed via the task manager. The Shadow would give between about 50000K and 68000K.

The battery seemed to come from the box at 100% on both phones. However the Dash battery stayed at 100% for about 6 hours, under light duty. The Shadow would have fallen to perhaps 94%. However both phones started dropping nore rapidly, once the battery readout did start going down in %,

I think the Dash may have lasted about 150% or more doing similar tasks as on the Shadow. I'm hesitant to say twice as long. Even though the Shadow started dropping faster at 50%, the Dash dropped like a rock literally. When I woke up today, it still had 40% charge, and about 60% about 8 hours earlier. It just sat overnight, ready to receive calls but no Bluetooth, Wi_Fi, or extra apps running.

When I got uo, I started playing with it, and as I said really dropped like a rock could see it dropping about 2% a minute. At that point, I put W-=Fi and Bluetooth on just to drain the battery more so I could do a full charge. Within minutes I got the low battery warning, and then the critical battery warning about 2 minutes after that. About a minute later, I plugged it in to my PC via the USB cable to charge it. I also turned it off and put the SIM in my Nokia 3650 while the Dash is charging.

I did not like the battery dropping like that after 50% or 60%, but until it got to that point, again, probably 50% more life than the Shadow going to almost complete discharge.

So now I'm doing a full recharge with the phone off, hoping to condition that battery. And I bought a car charger if I need a charge on the road. Down the road I may order a spare battery.

I have until tomorrow - 1/13 to decide to return this, but I think I'll keep it, I just know to recharge the battery when the battery level drops to 2 bars. Both the Dash and Shadow) have 4 battery bars at 100% charge, and drops to 3 bars under 80%, and 2 bars at about under 60%, may be 70% on the Dash, so may be better to go by bars displayed.


Posted by: dannykewl

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason_V
My wife has the Shadow and I have the Dash. I like them both, although she shares some of your complaints about battery life.

The amount of system memory available for the Dash is really it's biggest flaw. The Shadow's interface runs very smooth comparatively due to to this. On the Dash I have deleted a lot of the OEM software that I didn't need and installed a 2gb Mini-SD card where I install ALL the software that I have downloaded. When I cold boot the Dash, I will have ~20MB of system memory available. Running any applications cause this to be sapped and I routinely run with ~12MB free. Versus the Shadow, which has ~60MB of free memory available from the start.

I think that texting is a bit easier on the Dash due to the QWERTY layout, but I've not tried getting used to the Shadow's.

I don't believe that the Dash has a larger screen, but I have noticed that the Shadow has a better dot pitch, resulting in a nicer looking image.

The Shadow's portrait screen seems to be more universally supported than the landscape screen of the Dash. This isn't too big of a deal, but some software doesn't natively support the Dash's orientation.

Not sure if any of this is helping you, but they are my observations.


Thanks for the reply Jason. I posted here that I returned the Shadow and got the Dash, and put my experiences so far in there. I'd like to ask, what applications are safe to remove, as you said you removed some of yours to gain more memory. The most I ever had was 18M, and it's routinely running with 4 or 5 MB. Thanks,

Dan


Posted by: Jason_V

You will need to application unlock the phone in order to do most of these. Do a search for more detailed information on how to remove these items.


Using Total Commander or Active Sync, you can set it to view hidden files and browse around the OS to become familiar with what is installed. After doing the app unlock, you can remove non-critical applications. I would make sure that you backup what you can before doing so. Also remember that getting back to the T-Mobile defaults is as easy as clicking the 'Clean Storage' icon. Just make sure that you backup everything that you care about.

You aren't likely to end up running with more than 20MB available and that number will drop drastically based on running apps. Remap the T-Zones button to the task manager and you'll be able to quickly end any running programs to free up memory and increase battery life.

Good luck and enjoy your new toy....


Posted by: dannykewl

Thanks Jason, I'll give these a try.




vBulletin Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
vB Easy Archive Final ©2000 - 2008 - Created by Stefan "Xenon" Kaeser