HTC Shadow (2009)
Not a Bad Phone
Kind of funny how no one has posted on this phone. Suggests the phone is not very popular. But overall it is a pretty good phone.
I like new gadgets and have tried most of the phones. To me the G1 is not a business phone because the battery time is horrible and it does not ota sync with outlook although I know there are some new programs comming out that allows it too. The new shadow compares with the old one and the new blackberry curve and flip.
Compared to the old shadow the phone is slightly shorter and slimmer but it is considerably fatter. The major advantage of the new phone is UMA. If that is important to you it is worth the upgrade, otherwise probably not.
The Blackberry 8900 has a larger screen, a better camera and a faster processor. However, the keys are very small and I was constantly hitting the wrong button. I also did not like constantly having to hit the button on top to unlock it.
The new shadow has noticeably better reception than the 8900 both cellular and UMA. This phone picks up UMA and does not drop it. Also the UMA range is much farther. I am amazed how far I can drive down the street before the phone goes back to cellular.
The battery time is comparable to the 8900, is much better than the Blackberry Flip and will last a day.
The phone does lag a little when hanging up from a call and the screen is impossible to see in direct sun light. The phone also looks a little plasticky (if that is a word) when you open the slide but does not feel that way.
Overall I think the phone compares very closely to the Blackberry flip and you do not have to pay the extra $5 per month for the enterprise server to do the same thing. Compared to what is out there for T-Mobile, if UMA and corporate server is important to you, I think the 8900 and this phone are the best choices.
Keep looking....
All features considered, this is otherwise a pretty useless piece of hardware....at least from my perspective.
The phone has a fairly modern appearance, satisfying many needs for aesthetics you may be in search of.... However, since the body/casing plastic is so smooth, I liken the phone to a slippery bar of soap. This one's a little tough to hang onto without some sort of ribbing, rubber, or other texture to grip.
There is a convenient dual function button which serves as a shortcut to 1 of many various functions (short push or long push can select voice command prompt, contact list, etc). Unfortunately, there is no easy way to turn on/off the speakerphone, which is a common feature I like to use often. Accessing the speakerphone option requires a call to be in progress, then 4 button clicks (different buttons) to turn on; 4 more to turn off. This is most annoying when my bluetooth headset runs out of juice, and I want to use the speaker while in my car (keep 2 hands on the wheel!).
The phone uses Windows Mobile 6.1, and comes w/ Activesync 4.5. Unfortunately, I have only been able to sync some files to or from my work laptop or home desktop. I have never been able to sync any calendar entries from MS Outlook (on Win XP Home/Pro), making the whole decision of buying the phone a moot point (and that is with tech support gurus). So much for the PDA functionality. I will not plan to buy another WM system in the future.
One last feature: After having the phone for ~2 months, the mp3 ring tone I had been using stopped playing all the way through. I had synced it back to my laptop and confirmed it still worked. Tech support had no idea about this one, and I haven't found any change I made, or other aspect of the phone's ring setting to affect it.
I would recommend to keep looking past this one....
