The Gadgeteer - Comments on 'Two Days with the HTC S620'

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

John M

Glad to see you liked the smartphone. Shame about the touch screen. I'm currently using the Cingular(AT&T) 8525/HTC TyTn (yeah, I know.. I got it before I really started reading a lot of the stuff out here...but it's better than what I was going to get..).

Anyway, My previous post (ref: Phone Tag part 1) wasn't asking for you to give the phone for someone else to review..but more trying to get you to recycle (though payment or through "giveaway") the phones that you have completed a review on. Granted, if you're paying for these phones, giving them away is probably not the best of ideas.. But after you review it, perhaps sell it at near what it cost you (the words.. slightly used come to mind). e-Bay, of course, would be a good outlet, as would just general statements here.

I mean yeah, we all see exactly what you have found as a downside, but some of us might like exactly that. Not saying I'm one of them, but I know what a "phone drawer" must look like for you, and a bit of a recycling may help make room for new toys to review. :-)

Anyway, I'm happy to continuously waste a bit of bandwidth reading your reviews, and I look forward to the Nokia N73.

Happily RRS'd,

John

Comment by John M on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 14, 2007 19:25:47 PM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

mike roselius

Julie,

Glad to hear you like the s620. You didn't mention it in your review -but just want to remind you that this does have wireless (802.11g) capability as well. Since your main ISP has been down, you might not have been able to test this - but it does have a pretty good wireless radio in it as well. I also believe that Skype has released a Windows Mobile version of their software so...

I, for one, think that Windows Mobile for smartphones is the much superior of the phone OS's. You get used to not having a touch screen - and the good software makers minimize the need for it anyway. In terms of being a phone OS - it does a pretty good job.

The biggest miss on it is not being able to edit Office docs - but I understand that WM 6 will address that.

Also - before you pull your SIM card - head over to www.google.com/gmm - Google just recently released a native version of their Maps program. VERY cool. For phones that have a GPS chip - it is even GPS aware. Probably the most frequently used software I have put on my phone. Gotta give it a try.

Comment by mike roselius on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 14, 2007 20:02:20 PM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

toto999

I used to use DayNotez on PalmOS, and missed it after switching to wm5sp (I use HTC Tornado/Qtek-8310). But then I decided to use my gmail account instead: I just email myself+log@gmail.com. There’s a filter that just marks all such mails with ‘log’. Later I just search for ‘label:log’ or ‘label:log text_to_find’. Since it’s a phone, gmail is ailways there, and I don’t have to bother with syncing.

Comment by toto999 on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 15, 2007 01:12:21 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Mark Troy

Julie

Glad to see that you have discovered the S620. This is by far my most favorite smartphone to date. I have owned everything since the first SPV's to the big PDA2k PDA phones and different iterations of the Treo. I currently also own the HP 6915 and the HTC wizard and never thought I could pass up on a touch screen device. That being said I have found like you that I have adapted quite quickly and can do almost everything I used to do with a stylus, more quickly with one hand. The only drawback is the lack of office documents and I am looking for the perfect solution for this. I like this phone so much that I just got one for my wife and told her to ditch her other ones. I use a nice little hack called BT Audio toggle to let me listen to podcasts and TV shows via my bluetooth ear piece. Not good enough for stereo music but great for that. Welcome back to Windows Mobile.

Comment by Mark Troy on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 15, 2007 03:02:12 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Bob Hamilton

Great review. Yes, this is a nice little unit, very small and very pocketable. I was a die hard Palm guy but the treo is just too thick and I wanted thin. I too, was skeptical about the lack of touchscreen but quickly adapted. I found it much easier with no touch screen. It really makes one handed use much easier and faster. My issue, as well, was with the lack of notes. I synk to Outlook and have a lot of notes. I use Smartphone Notes which is great. It syncs the notes from Outlook onto my device and I can create notes on my Dash and syncs back to Outlook.

OF COURSE, all my phones ( I also collect them and PDA's - what's wrong with me??) will go away when I get my iPhone. It reminds me of when I could not wait for the Palm m505 to come out (remember that anyone??)

Love your site, it's one of my daily reads. And liked the comment about happenings for last year on one particular event you could not understand. Could it be about the "other site??"

Comment by Bob Hamilton on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 15, 2007 05:47:26 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Julie

John M: Sometimes I will sell products after I review them. A lot of times I just collect things until I have no more room and then I bring sacks of things here to my day job to give to people. :o)

I plan to keep this particular phone because right now it's my only Windows Mobile for Smartphone device. So I will use it for testing. I also happen to like it a lot :o)

Gadgetfiles: You're right, I didn't really goof around with WiFi during the past few days. I rarely use WiFi with my phones. I don't live near any hotspots, and when I'm home, I'd much rather surf on my full sized computer.

FYI: I love google maps!

toto999: The gmail idea is an interesting one... But I think I would feel more secure if I had the actual notes / memos on the device. I only have EDGE in my area, so I'm not sure how quickly I could access emails when needed. I really prefer to have the text files on the device.

matex: Hmmmm... I wonder if the S620 has the AD2P profile that would allow stereo listening via BT earphones...? Hmmmm. I need to try this when I get home.

guy508: The notes issue is significantly harder since I'm a Mac user. I think I found the solution though... it was under my nose the whole time. MissingSync allows you to sync a folder to your phone. So, I'm going to recreate all my notes as either .html or .txt files and put them in this folder on my Mac and sync them that way. We'll have to see how it works out.

No, it's not the 'other site' that was/is the mystery. You are on the right track though. Let's just leave it at that :o)

Comment by Julie [Admin] on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 15, 2007 10:06:04 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Julie

Let me add another dislike to my mini-review:

There isn't a search feature built into Windows Mobile for Smartphone. At least it's not readily apparent if there is one. I even flipped through the S620 user manual and didn't find any mention of that feature.

In other news, the N73 that I was going to review, decided to completely freak out today. No matter what I do (even a hard reset), it says I'm offline. It's never done this before... and my SIM works fine in my other phones. :o( So, I'm going to take a look at the Sony W810 instead.

Comment by Julie [Admin] on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 15, 2007 18:55:20 PM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

mike roselius

Okay - in another new development - Microsoft released it's competitor to google maps. Similar functionality - but in a batter layout for Winmobile devices. I also think its faster and just slightly better overall. Hate to say that, because I love google software. Anyway.

It's Windows Mobile Live Search - you can download it for both Pocket PC and Smartphones at

wls.live.com - fantastic software for getting maps, directions, business infomation, even traffic for major cities. Worth a looksee.

Comment by mike roselius on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 16, 2007 14:34:29 PM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Xerxes

Julie,

You can add a nice little search function to WM5 Smartphone. It's called SmartphoneFind and it's made by the same guys who make Smartphone Notes. I used to use it on my C500 and SP5 before I switched to Symbian S60 (Nokia N73).

On the subject of the N73, make sure you have at least firmware version 3.0xxx. Mine used to give me a bunch of trouble before I upgraded from 2.0.1xxx, although iit never freaked out and went off line!

I loved the S620 review. You're making me think about trying one again even though I know I won't be able to leave my N73 at home. I have some special sw that doesn't have a port on WM plus the Nokia Safari browser is just so much better than PIE.

By the way, I use Gmail over standard GPRS (not even EDGE) every day and it works fine - and pretty quickly too. The way to do it is to use the Gmail mobile client (found at www.gmail.com/app) instead of an HTML browser.

Comment by Xerxes on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 19, 2007 15:10:12 PM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Mihail

I'm using the HTC S620 since November 2006 and I'd say it's a brilliant piece of hardware (owned few Qtek PDA's and i-mate's SP3, SP3i Smartphones before).

On the software side there are critical misses, which call for a few must-have 3rd party software:

Agenda One, as a more powerful PIM (Calendar and Tasks) incl. a PIM Search engine (will not search in files though)
Gmail and Google Maps Java midlets (free)
jMirc Java midlet for the IRC die-hards (free)
Smartphone Find and Smartphone Notes - again, Smartphone Find will search in PIM (Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes), SMS, Email and only i file names but not in file content
Orneta Notepad Mobile, as text editor
Pocket Controller-Professional (SP), for managing the Smartphone from your desktop PC, incl. file sync between PC and Smartphone (julie's wish, i guess).

I found two annoying slip-ups:

Can't figure out yet how to silence the ring when receiving a call. The options given are to Accept or Dismiss the incoming call, no way to mute the ringer
Cut/Copy/Paste feature for text fields. I found a piece of software called VitoCopyPaste.exe which can be launch at startup, it seems to do the job. Another option seems to be Orneta Scissors but i didnt test it yet.

Except for the ringer mute for incoming calls, it seems that there are some free and $$$ options for the software.

Comment by Mihail on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 20, 2007 06:08:04 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Kitalie

Hey Julie, just to let you know, there IS a program you can purchase that edits documents. It's called Documents To Go and it includes PDF to go, Sheet to go, Slideshow to fo, Word to go and Zip to go. I love this thing. I'm now writing a book on my Dash.

Comment by Kitalie on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 21, 2007 14:12:00 PM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Julie

I'm getting ready to mail off my S620 so it can get a brain transplant of WM6. After I get it back, I will most likely make it my main phone... (that is if I don't go back to the Treo 750v or even the 680).

I really have missed the S620 this week while I've been using the Sony Ericsson w810.

Comment by Julie [Admin] on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at February 22, 2007 06:45:43 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Joe C

Hi Julie,

Any update since the S620's transplant? Did you send it to HTC for this? Any chance there will be "Two Days with the HTC S620 - Part 2?

Comment by Joe C on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at March 17, 2007 00:39:06 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Julie

Joe C: I've not had the 'transplant' yet. I was hearing issues with the ROM update and decided to hold off a bit. When I do finally get this phone updated to WM6, I'll definitely consider an update to this article :o)

Comment by Julie [Admin] on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at March 17, 2007 06:14:17 AM

Re: Two Days with the HTC S620

Joe C

Sounds good - thanks for the quick reply and a great site!

Comment by Joe C on "Two Days with the HTC S620" in Julie's gear diary at March 17, 2007 13:32:58 PM