Right the time has come to replace my aging 9500, poor thing is three years old, chipped, cracked, and some of the buttons are held in place with sellotape. But I still love it and it's the best device of it's ilk I've played with. Though as yet I've not touched an E90. It's tempting but the move to S60 has put me off somewhat (never gotten on with S60 devices before).
A big selling point for me though is the use of Mobipocket reader, and though they do it for S60 3rd editon on their site they don't mention compatibility with the E90 specifically. So all S60 3rd edition apps work on the E90 or do they need to be E90 specific? I.e. there's bugger all of them? And more importantly does mobipocket work on it?
How comfortable is the keyboard for word processing duties. Those that remember me from here no doubt remember that I do a lot of word processing on my 9xxx series devices, I'm assuming it's along the lines of the one on the 9500 from the pictures.
I'm just trying to choose whether to upgrade to the E90, or try to buy a replacement 9500 from E-bay.
EDIT: Also as an extra, how hard/easy is it to hack the skins on the E90 compared to the 9500, any tutorials about yet?
Mobipocket Reader works perfectly on the E90, full-screen.
And the keyboard's not that bad. I'd say it was 80% as good as the 9500's.
Steve
I am a former 9110i /9210i / 9500 user , and I felt I was taking a real "gamble" with the e90
For me , the only real loss was the Fax - but if I am REALLY honest with myself , I never used it anyway ! - I had almost convinced myself that this was a terrible ommision , that I would never come to terms with - and then I realised I had NEVER actually USED the fax function on my 9500 ! - which sort of put it all into perspective
I feel that we (the communicator fraternity ) have gained a lot more than we have lost - OK so we have lost fax & a nice menu structure .... but we now have a far quicker device - Decent processor , Decent connectivity - I personally was FAR more annoyed at the previous couple of Commies - the 9210i for not having GPRS , and the 9500 for not having 3G !! - at last we have a "state of the art" device !
But I will say .... it IS different - pretending it isn't would be a mistake , Whether or not you will like the e90 is really a question that could go either way - You really do have to get your hands on one and have a play - or find somewhere that will let you have 14 days evaluation.
Well I've taken the gamble and got an upgrade to an E90. Guy on the phone couldn't believe I'd not upgraded since the 9500 came out in '04. Anywho should be arriving tomorrow.
RE: the keyboard. 80% I could probably live with, nicely quantified Steve. I remember my thoughts on how bad the keyboard on the 9500 was compared to the 9210, now I look at my 9210 in comparison and the keyboard feels so crappy. Though at least the buttons didn't fall off.
Matt I have to admit I kind of feel the same about the gamble. I've never used the fax functions and a fair bit of the stuff that's gone I can see myself saying, "Well that's not that important to me really". It's just that comfort zone of knowing series 80, and all my experiences of series 60 devices (admittedly the 7650 and 3650) being that they were crap. If I could bare the tiddly keyboard I'd probably have gone for a UIQ device on the strength of past experiences.
As for my application question though, can anything for this generation of S60 run on the E90, or do I have to look out for E90 specific stuff?
Well it's arrived, just popped it out of the box, first thoughts are, damn it's small. At least it feels like it's got a decent hard wearing chassis now. UI looks a hell of a lot more modern I've got to admit, though having to press the menu key to see my applications instead of them being on my desk is irritating. Major complaint now, where's the dock and what length do they call that USB cable, my PC sits under my desk with my dock next to my screen, the 9500 data cable was plenty long enough, as was the 9210, I'm gonna have to put the E90 on the floor with that thing.
Also in messaging what's the shortcut key to delete messages, ctrl-d doesn't seem to work any more?
To delete messages you use the "c" key (right of the navigation pad) on front keyboard and the delete key on the internal keyboard.
What about on the inside which is where I'm most likely to read them? Closing the device for one-key deletion is as annoying as going through the menu.
Also while I'm here, the QuickOffice application that seems to have replaced Documents. Am I right in my thinking that it's not going to open all my existing documents, and as such I'm going to have to convert them all to plain text/word? If so which format would be better?
As i said above it's the delete key (below right of the navigation pad) on the internal keyboard 😊 (edit backspace is probably a more accurate name)
As for docs, I'm afraid i don't know since I haven't used the previous communicators.
Aha, so simple, so obvious. So should have read to the end of your sentence in your previous post. 😃
😊
Well, your sig gave me a hint you might not have 😉
SwitchBlade wrote:Also while I'm here, the QuickOffice application that seems to have replaced Documents. Am I right in my thinking that it's not going to open all my existing documents, and as such I'm going to have to convert them all to plain text/word? If so which format would be better?
Hi
I was a Psion user years ago, but have never had a 9xxx Communicator, so I don't know what format your documents are in, but QuickOffice will read M$Word and M$Excel documents, so I'd guess your best bet will be to convert to Word and Excel (if necessary) and then copy over. That should give you the best minimal-loss functionality. There is also a transfer app available from Downloads! As I haven't had to use it I don't know how much that will convert for you (I think it's mostly aimed at Contacts and Calendar, but who knows? Maybe there's document conversion in there too if you need it.)
As to applications, pretty much everything for S60 3rd Edition should work, although they might not all make best use of the internal screen. There are a few that won't work with the E90, but these are in the minority. If in doubt, download and try 😉
Julie