Text, Talk, or a Text/Talk Camel?
This note was stimulated by this link: Treo Stuff
The Treo keyboard and screen
are both too narrow for text intensive
applications such as email or IM.
There’s a fundamental clash between
mobile connected devices that are
“small and phone centric”
vs.
“larger and text centric”
The difference for text apps is not just
that a “larger” screen (with more resolution)
it superior, a major difference is between portrait
(phone) and landscape orientation (for text).
Lest we forget, any seriou samount of text usage
demands a QWERTY keyboard,
while a phone requires a real phone keyboard
(not just a lame overlay) plus a few special purpose keys.
Recent designs that use a slide out QWERTY keyboard
come close to being a good compromise for text.
But I have not held one of these devices in my hands
and so I have not been able to judge keyboard usability.
While I have abandoned my color Sidekick,
the newer Sidekick II comes quite close to being
a very good text machine. It is however still
rather akward as a phone. And they made
a few terrible cost and/or time to market decisions
including:
–no support for removeable memory
–no removeable battery
–no Javascript support (!)
–no Bluetooth
–did not bump up screen resolution
–processor is too slow
–inadequate built in RAM
–close OS means very few third party apps
However, Danger/Sidekick has a GREAT
keyboard layout, and includes the best AOL IM
client I’m aware of. Their email client is pretty good.
Sidekick II verdict: so close, yet so far (vs my
perfect device). Danger is running out of
runway. In my opinion, they may be TOAST!
Semi-related (just barely…;)
If you are about to buy a CDMA (Versizon)
phone my advice: do not buy anything that
lacks EV-DO support.
The US rollout of the VERY fast EV-DO
service is going quickly. EV-DO will ~almost~
much make you not care whether you are
near a WiFi hotspot or not.
How cool is that?