Phone-likeness of TyTN?

[gregnash]

Gday TyTN folk.
I have an iMate PDA2k and am thinking of moving to TyTN, but being a bit frustrated with my current unit I'd like to know whether TyTN makes a better phone than BA does.

My specific botherments are:
- notification light (green/red/orange) where the functions over-ride each other. e.g. if I miss a call while its charging, it starts flashing red, but then it completes charging and goes green. Actually, even if it's not charging it seems to stop flashing red after a while. I want it to keep flashing red until I actually handle the device and should have noticed.
To me it makes more sense to combine the bluetooth light with the charge light, and leave the phone notification as a separate item.

- notification icon space in start bar. Currently it's ALWAYS showing a multi-message bubble icon (I'm always in CDMA 1x coverage, and also have an app running that puts its own notification icon up) so I don't see a new one for SMS or voice message. It looks like the best answer might actually be a 3rd party start-bar app, but still.. is it any better under WM5?

- waking up. Incoming calls, messages, and bluetooth connections, wake up the device completely. If it's in the pouch, or worse, in my pocket, the screen then gets bumped, thereby performing actions I don't want to. Even getting it out of my pocket without bumping the screen is a challenge. I tried setting an unlock password (some time ago) but that wasn't satisfactory; I don't remember whether the screen still unlocked on incoming calls, or if unlocking was too much a nuisance.
Ideally, it should wake up enough so that the firm hardware buttons are unlocked but the screen isn't active until you've used a button.
The voice-recording button used to annoy me with accidental presses when removing from pouch; I changed that button to do screen rotate which I find more useful, and no big deal when pushed accidentally - just push it again.

- Sound quality, especially for the person on the other end of a call. I've had people tell me I'm faint on the iMate. Positioning is a little interesting as I don't really want to rub my face all over the screen. Does the TyTN pick up any better?

- turning the phone off. (Like Windows' contradictory "click start to shut down") I really don't like the fiddly actions required to "turn on flight mode" on pda2k, especially when I don't want to get out the stylus. People with normal mobile phones can turn them completely off using one hardware button, and they don't have to look hard to see whether it's on or off. Some have mentioned wanting an easy way to switch to/from silent mode.
Is there a quick, sensible, easy way to turn the phone on and off, preferably also to/from silent?

Thanks

[TiMMah!!!]

- notification icon space in start bar. Currently it's ALWAYS showing a multi-message bubble icon (I'm always in CDMA 1x coverage, and also have an app running that puts its own notification icon up) so I don't see a new one for SMS or voice message. It looks like the best answer might actually be a 3rd party start-bar app, but still.. is it any better under WM5?First a corresponding icon (envelope, phone), after more notifications, you get a bubble (?). Not a bubble all the time.

- turning the phone off. (Like Windows' contradictory "click start to shut down") I really don't like the fiddly actions required to "turn on flight mode" on pda2k, especially when I don't want to get out the stylus. People with normal mobile phones can turn them completely off using one hardware button, and they don't have to look hard to see whether it's on or off. Some have mentioned wanting an easy way to switch to/from silent mode.
Is there a quick, sensible, easy way to turn the phone on and off, preferably also to/from silent?One hardware button for standby, hold it to turn the device off completely. You get a window where you can just hit the d-pad button.
There's also a button for comm-manager, there you can select silent/vibrate mode and flight mode.

[ChaoticDruid]

Hi, you speak of not wanting to rub your face on the screen, I actually use my TyTN in speaker phone mode to prevent this, I just quickly enable speaker on a call, and flip the phone to where the back is by my face, it puts the speaker in a good spot also, I know it sounds a bit weird, bit works pretty well.

Granted I don't do this with every call, mostly I use it when I know the call is gonna last for more than a few minutes.

[gregnash]

First a corresponding icon (envelope, phone), after more notifications, you get a bubble (?). Not a bubble all the time.

One hardware button for standby, hold it to turn the device off completely. You get a window where you can just hit the d-pad button.
There's also a button for comm-manager, there you can select silent/vibrate mode and flight mode.

You're right about the notification icon, but if I was watching the screen at the time of the additional notify then I'd already know what's there and wouldn't need the icon. On the pda2k cdma, being in a 1x coverage area generates a notification, plus mNotes puts one, so there's a bubble even before I receive any sms, voicemail etc. Combine that with the behaviour of the flashing light, it means if I missed something I may not know about it unless I go looking.

Thanks re the hardware button, that's good news.

[gregnash]

Hi, you speak of not wanting to rub your face on the screen, I actually use my TyTN in speaker phone mode to prevent this, I just quickly enable speaker on a call, and flip the phone to where the back is by my face, it puts the speaker in a good spot also, I know it sounds a bit weird, bit works pretty well.

Granted I don't do this with every call, mostly I use it when I know the call is gonna last for more than a few minutes.

Creative! I'll remember that one..

[nickpope]

Sounds like you should check out PhoneAlarm