vB Easy Archive - Difference between Smartphone & ppc phone

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Difference between Smartphone & ppc phone
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Posted by: beholder95

I'm looking for a device that will effectivley combine my dell Axim X5 and Cell phone into one less bukly phone. Currently I have a Nextel (moto) i 860 but am going to ditch nextel as their service has gone consistently down hill over the past 2 years. (I've had NExtel since 1994).

I have exchange server at work, so i'd like to access that as well as my personal email account from which ever device i go with.

Currently i synch my Axim with my home and work PC, so calendar and contacts are all identical. However i don't have email synch.

Will smartphones allow me to create new appoitments, tasks and such while away from the computer?

What are the advantages/disadvantages of a smart phone?
How bout advantages/disadvantages of the PPC Phone?

What made you decide to go with the device you did?
Finally, Can you suggest some good devices for the option you recommend?

Thanks,
Andy

Posted by: tendomentis

Okay, the biggest difference between a PPC phone and a smartphone is the touchscreen (or lack of it).

PPC phones have a touchscreen and smartphones don't. Depending on what you use it for, one is preferrable over the other. If you are constantly jotting notes on your ppc, you want to stick with a ppc phone, but then you have the vulnerability of the touchscreen breaking or getting scratched up (which is stress that I'm thankful to say I don't have to live with anymore).

If you just use your ppc to check and respond to emails, surf the web, listen to music, watch videos or play games a smartphone would probably be all you need.

I personally recommend a smartphone over a ppc phone just from the convenience and durability factor standpoint.

Currently the "best" ppc phones immediately available are the HTC Magician, HTC Universal, and the HTC Wizard. The last two have foldout or slide out keyboards, but the Magician is the smaller of the three.

The "best" smartphones out right now are the SMT5600 and the MPx220 (I use the MPx220 and love it). The keypad on the MPx220 is larger and easier to use than the SMT5600's keypad, and the newer firmwares basically fix EVERY reported issue with it.

You may also want to wait until the end of the year to make your final decision as there are several ppc phones and smartphones being released (or have just recently been released but not adequately reviewed yet) by the end of the year that will be running the next version of Windows Mobile.

Good luck!

Posted by: Redhed97

I actually replaced an Axim X5 and a SE T616 with my SMT5600. For me, I would say the Smartphone does 95% of what the Pocket PC does (some PPC software is just not available in an equivalent Smartphone version) and I am VERY satisfied. I don't synch email or do any browsing or anything on the phone (don't even have a data plan). I mainly just want a few tunes, pics, games, movies and all my contacts/calendar/notes/info. with me and on both my personal laptop and work desktop. Someone will know for sure, but I am pretty sure you cannot synch with 2 computers WITH EMAIL. Just make sure if that's important to you.

The Smartphone will allow you to create new tasks, appointments, etc. That said, I still find text input tedious with a keypad. I'm just not that good with it (I know some are). I supplant this by recording voice notes to myself and entereing long data later when I am at one of my PCs. A minor annoyance with Smartphone is it does not synch Notes - what were they thinking? I paid the 10 or 15 bucks for Smrtphone Notes and it works great.

I really like the SMT5600, but I always liked candy bar style phones. I would say go for that if you want one right away. I bought my SMT5600 for $200 delivered, and basically broke even after ebaying the X5 and T616. So the cost was great. This really is a time when a lot of new devices are surfacing, what with the new Windows Mobile and all, so you might want to wait a little.

I think I would like a Pocket PC phone a lot too, but for something comparably small you are talking Jam or K-Jam/Wizard and at least double the price, maybe triple. I'm hoping those prices will come down and I can get a K-Jam or something with a keyboard next time.

Posted by: Sprayed Dog

Consider Smartphone a "PPC Lite".

PPC's have more applications, and you can do more with a touchscreen. The screen also is bigger, which mean reading on it a lot easier. I have never read an e-book on the smartphone (don't want to kill my eyes yet) while I do a lot of reading on the PPC. PPC have more applications, and they are more powerful. You can't really edit Word document or excel document on the Smartphone, but PPC is ok for that.

At the end of the day you ask yourself do you need all that. I still bring my PPC along after I got the MPx220 during the weekdays, but I don't bring it with me for the wkends anymore. When I need to lookup contacts, address (with Mapopolis!), listen to MP3's, or play a couple games to kill time while waiting for my wife the Smartphone is as good as the PPC.

my 2 cents,

Posted by: tendomentis

I use Repligo on my MPx220 to read my ebooks full screen with bookmarks. I'll admit that it would be nice to see more text at once (particularly because I'm a fast reader and it's a pain to hit the down key every few seconds), but for tossing back with a good novel or dummies book, it works fine. I used to read books on my old Asus 620BT (PPC), but although it had a bigger screen, it just isn't as easy to hold one handed while lying down as my smartphone is.

Posted by: beholder95

THanks a lot for the feedback. I really appreciate it. I think i'll end up with a smartphone (The Moto, unless i hear an objection and a better recomendation). Probably gonna pull the trigger in the next few weeks.
I don't use my Axim much due to its size, and i dont think i'll ever read an ebook on it. I bought my Axim (upgraded from Palm Vx) to use a GPS (w/ Mapapolis) but recently bought a new car with GPS integrated so i don't need anything now more then email, contacts, and calendar.

Can i have my corporate exchange email and my personal (pop) email readable on the phone?

Thanks!
Andy

Posted by: tendomentis

To get your corporate exchange email DIRECTLY connected to your phone, you would have to talk with your Exchange Server administrator to get the settings/permission you would need.

On the other hand, if you sign up at 4smartphone.com for the xpress account, you can have your pop email and corporate email uploaded to your phone AS YOU RECEIVE THEM (think blackberry style). To do this you just set your corporate email server to forward a copy of all messages to your pop email and set your pop email up in 4smartphone.com. That way, anytime you receive email at your corporate account or your personal pop account, it will be uploaded instanteously to your phone's inbox.

Alternatively, you can just set up the Pocket Outlook program on your phone to download your email directly from your personal pop account. The downside to this is that you won't receive email INSTANTLY when it arrives in your pop account, you would have to wait until you hit send and receive or a scheduled send and receive before you would get notified that you have new email.

Personally, I have my phone set up with 4smartphone.com (I actually use them as my email provider) and I can't imagine how I ever survived without it.