I've had it two weeks and I have to say that, in my opinion, it really is a poor successor to the P910i. I've been a fan of P800, then P900, then P910i in turn but this is a step backwards, in my view. Here's why:
Completely unintuitive
It's taken me a fair old while to work out some of the stuff. Now someone is going to say "but it's all in the manual". Pants! One of the really nice things about the P910i is that it was intuitive. I could use almost all functions without having to read a manual first.
By way of example, the applications used to reside in one long list which I could group by category if I wanted. Not now. Whilst most of the synchronised applications are accessible from the main applications window, if I want to access the Notes (an application that I, personally, have, historically, found to be very useful) I have to go into the Office application.
Loss of functionality
This time I have read the manual but can find no way of doing the following:
[LIST=1]
[*]Delete e-mail received via onto the phone using a messaging account.
[*]Import music transfered to the phone using the file manager
[*]Customise the applications that appear on the screen either with flip open or closed
[/LIST]
These were things that I could do before.
Flaky menu items
In SMS the ability to delete messages is sometimes listed as a menu item and sometimes not. What's that all about?
Flaky software
Now this is odd - whenever you disconnect from the USB cable having synchronised with the PC the phone brings up the Bluetooth connection menu.
Also, when coming out of an application the phone pad is often briefly displayed. Not a bug issue, granted. But why?
Prone to crashing
I've read a lot of people say that this is the case and some who say it isn't. Well, I'm definitely in the former camp. In fact, I can get the phone to crash on demand:
[LIST=1]
[*]Try editing a contact withe the flip closed, then open the flip. Oops - crash
[*]Connect the phone to the PC after having used more than one application (e.g. having played a music file and, say, opened calendar). Oh dear, phone crashes, turns itself off, and refuses to be recognised by the computer until unplugged and replugged in again.
[*]With the flip closed, edit a calendar entry and open the flip. You guessed it - crash, bang, wallop every time.
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Poor battery life
Apparently it's got 10.8 days stand-by battery time. Poppycock. With only minimal use I'm lucky to get a day and a half out of it and when it decides to go, boy does it. In the past week I've had complete battery failure.
Poor menu system
Yes, you do work them out but it can be confusing as you have often got two menus - one on the right at the top and one on the left at the top - which do subtly different things.
Slow screen response
Movement between screens is often painfully slow; often to the point that one wonders whether one has taken the action one thought.
Reduced screen area/ rubbish keyboard
A lot of space that could have been given over to the screen is wasted - IMHO - on the pathetic keyboard. Yes it looks nice, and the buttons have a better feel to them than the ones on the old P910i, but at the end of the day it seems to be there to try and win some of the Blackberry clan over. One of the differentiators between SE and Blackberry is the fact that I don't need to subject myself to RSI with SE as I can write naturally instead of using a segment of thumb.
Loss of functionality on the wheel
Whereas I used to be able to push the wheel in to select, push it away from me to cancel, and push it towards me to navigate, now all I can do with it - apart from spin the wheel to navigate - is push it in. Not only that but often it keeps going for a millisecond after I've stopped turning it which often leads to the wrong thing being selected. Not good. I've lost count of the number of times the phone has gone into Flight Mode when all I wanted was to turn it on.
Over-responsive navigation button
So now I have a navigation button. Press to the left, you go left. Press to the right, you go right. Up and down, same things. To select, I press the button in the middle of this set up. All well and good but it is all too easy to do this when trying to go left or right, up or down.
OK, so does it have anything going for it? Well, yes, a couple of things but only a couple:
[LIST=1]
[*]The predictive text is great once you acclimatise to it
[*]It's not a Blackberry. I can still choose to pull e-mail rather than have it pushed.
[*]It looks quite stylish
[*]Er
[*]That's it
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Marks out of 10? Well, probably only 3 I'm sorry to say :frown: . If someone comes out with a better phone that can be written to using a stylus then I'm off. Simple as...