After having some initial doubts whether I should get a 9500 because of speed issues mentioned on this forum, I finally took the plunge. Ordered on Wednesday at 10.00am from Expansys and it arrived prompt 10.00am the following day. I did try to get one in Tottenham Court Road but every shop was sold out and was being quoted around 600ukp.
Now I would like to make it clear that some of my points may not be valid as I haven�t read through the manual to any degree yet as I prefer the �play around� method of learning. I�d also like to say that I have tried just about every PDA series ever released from Psion, Palm, and Windows PPC. My PDA for last couple of years has been a P800 & P910 but I have really been missing a proper keyboard since the death of my Psion 5mx a few years back.
The first thing I noticed when opening the box was that it appears much smaller than the 9210, I know the stats state it�s just 10% lighter and just fractionally smaller, but the sleeker design gives the appearance of a non-brick like phone, for me it�s just small enough to whack into my jean pocket without feeling like I�m carrying a lump around with me. It�s certainly okay for carrying around in a suit jacket inside pocket.
The hinge is fairly light and I noted a forum member state that it was too light and it sort of just opened by itself when picking up, this is true if you lift up by the front screen, but you just lift the phone up by the bottom and there\s no problem (if that�s clear??)�this light hinge I find much more preferable, as it makes opening up the PDA effortless.
The screen is really nice, very bright and sharp and thoroughly readable outdoors, although I can�t test for a bright sunny day because here in London, we don�t get those this time of year J I do wish though the screen was touch sensitive, it would really aid navigation and I find that initially I was prodding the screen where I�ve been so used the P910. I�m not sure why this hasn�t been implemented, is it a cost or other functionality issue like battery life?
The keyboard in my opinion is very good, not as good as say a Psion5 but it�s a far more compact unit than the P5. One niggle I do have is the key click volume option, normal and loud settings seem to be the same, this may be a bug, it would really aid me if the click was louder. I find the internal jog wheel to be much better than the 9210 and only very occasionally I have not got the correct press with it. I do think though these things are quite personal as my wife doesn�t like it at all?? The jog button on front of phone isn�t as good and I find it pretty bad.
The speed issues mentioned here are nowhere near as bad as I expected, for me it�s very acceptable switching between apps, but saying that I have only got around 50 contacts entered up out of the 900 I need to get on there, also my calendar just has a couple of months entered up so not sure how this would effect speed. There is some delay in a few functions such as opening up a document, or selecting a contact for an SMS message but again I find the delay perfectly acceptable.
The Wi-Fi connected without any problem. At work we use a Netgear wireless router, at home I have a Linksys router and both use WEP. It was as simple as selecting the Network, entering up the HEX code and that was it. Using the internet using the Wi-Fi connection was pretty frustrating. Pages loaded slowly, taking a fair bit of time to update images etc. Also with just 1 hours use I have had 2 error messages, one from this site and another from Google News, the error on one occasion needed a reset. Also surfing on such a small screen isn�t pleasurable, especially without a touch screen. When using the browser a mouse arrow pops up and you use the navigator button to move it across the page to select items. I would only use the browser if I really had no other alternative option.
Synching has been a breeze but all I synch is Outlook calendar entries.
Other small niggles are:
1) No vibrating option..WHY?
2) The zoom does not zoom out enough for me, the smallest size font in contacts and calendar is too big, I�ve got no idea why this won�t go smaller as other programmes like Word the font goes much smaller.
3) The small screen on the phone displays contacts incorrectly, I can�t seem to get it to view by business name, so where I have a Business name in contacts with no personal name, it just displays the phone number and no name, which makes it impossible to search from phone interface. I think this has been mentioned here and if this is the case (and not just me being thick), this is a very poor to have a bug of that degree.
4) Security locks aren�t flexible enough, I would like to see a password option every time I turn PDA on, there is a work-around but this only gives you an option of using a 5 digit number which is a pain to keep entering. Saying that there is a great facility to lock the phone remotely. All you do is set-up a remote password on the 9500 and then if the phone receives an SMS with that PWD it locks.
5) As far as I can see there�s no auto key lock on phone keys, a ridiculous historical Nokia feature.
6) Can�t seem to find an option to keep PDA screen from automatically turning off, say if you have on charge, so it keeps turning off.
Saying all that I am definitely going to keep with the 9500, the niggles to me are all very minor, and I am starting to really appreciate the 9500 and I am thoroughly pleased with the purchase. Comparing the P800/900/910 with the 9500, I would say the P series is a phone with PDA functions and the 9500 is a PDA with phone functions.