More Mobile Phone Chatter
Another friend responded to this email I sent about T-Mobile SDA and MDA smart phones:
[tease]
Jeffries said (lightly edited):
At T-Moble I got to handle the one with no Qwerty (That’s the SDA, right?). It’s a nice phone. It was not live so unfortunately I did not get to see the screen. My impression is the phone keypad buttons are very small.
The sales guy (unusually competent, by the way!) says SDA speakerphone is excellent.
Their MDA with Qwerty keyboard (see also Verizon’s 6700) is more my cuppa tea. But I really struggle with whether I can live without a righteous phone keypad.
I will wait and see the Moto Q, then (I hope..) make up my mind for this generation.
My nerdy friend replied:
Thanks for the insights on the SDA. I’m used to small buttons on my SE T610, so, I think I’ll be OK with that. A good speakerphone will be very nice to have.
I’ve gotten pretty good at using a phone pad with T9 predictive text for messaging, so I *think* I’ll be OK without QWERTY, but I may be wrong.
The MDA is really nice, but like you. I make a lot more phone calls than emails from my phone, so my phone has to have a dedicated keypad and the MDA doesn’t cut it for that.
I remember using the phone pad on the screen with my old Handspring Visor with VisorPhone (remember that?) and it was dorky.
You know, in some ways the Treo/Q keypads may still be the best approach. If I could get an unlocked Treo 650 for $200 I still may flop that way, but for now the SDA is on op.