HTC Prophet or HTC Herald?

[doomasala]

Hi.... I'm plannin to buy my first PPC. I'v been using an MPx200 (WM5) smartfon.

I'm confused between Prophet & Herald. I like the pull out KB of Herald. But the PPC is costlier than Prophet.

Does the absence of KB affects Prophet's productivity? I want to send SMS's & emails now and then. Is there a good alternative to the physical KB in Prophet? The on-screen KB seems to be quite small.

Have any one been using portable (foldable) KB, for the Prophet? Also I'v heard of an app called CalliGrapher. Is that good for jotting msgs quickly?

Please put in your valuable suggestions and help me...... :o

[victoradjei]

Hi.... I'm plannin to buy my first PPC. I'v been using an MPx200 (WM5) smartfon.

I'm confused between Prophet & Herald. I like the pull out KB of Herald. But the PPC is costlier than Prophet.

Does the absence of KB affects Prophet's productivity? I want to send SMS's & emails now and then. Is there a good alternative to the physical KB in Prophet? The on-screen KB seems to be quite small.

Have any one been using portable (foldable) KB, for the Prophet? Also I'v heard of an app called CalliGrapher. Is that good for jotting msgs quickly?

Please put in your valuable suggestions and help me...... :o

Another input option is the transcriber - handwriting recognition :p

[doomasala]

Is handwriting recognition feature as fast to use as physical KB? Is the inbuilt transcriber gud. Or shud i get 3rd party apps lol?? :o

[waterdeep]

handwriting is quite reliable, but you can also try this SPB software house fullscreen keyboard -- you can tap the buttons with you fingertips and this increases the speed significantly.

[coolfire74]

Your situation is similar to what I had about one year ago. I was wondering which phone I should get, a prophet or a wizard?

I hate the keyboard so much, since it makes the ppc phone bulky and looks stupid. That is why I did not get a T-mobile MDA (wizard) at around $99.00 (after rebate, with contract), but bought a prophet at $500 instead. (by the way, prophet and MDA are almost identical in terms of hardware, except for the kb). 2 years contract is not an issue for me, because after I bought my prophet, I also signed a two years contract with T-mobile.

To me, KB is just a stupid idea. I have my ultraportable laptop with me all the time, why I need to write long documents on my phone? All my friends who got MDA are jealous about my prophet now, and none of them found the KB with MDA is practial useful.

But it is totally depends on your life style. If you do not have a laptop, and you have to write all your word documents and long long emails with your phone, you might find the kb is useful for you.

Just my 2 cents.

[a340]

Having seen other Pocket Pc phones I look at the Prophet and really do marvel at it even though I no longer own one! For its size and packed features it is very impressive.

If you want a keyboard you will have to carry around a bigger sized phone. If you are not comfortable with a larger device and can manage with a touch screen KB its the Prophet.

A friend has an XDA IIs, nice as it is.....a little on the bulky side to use as a phone.

[waterdeep]

I agree -- KB does not do any good, makes device heavier and less reliable having too many moving parts which are gonna loosen one day and you will get funny creaking peace of plastic :)
IMHO keyboard is useful in devices not smaller than htc universal, and never in a cell phone with a lots of ways of screen input.

[neomagik]

If it were me I'd be debating between the Trinity and Herald, since the Trinity is the updated Prophet.

[doomasala]

@waterdeep
Thanx 4 rep pal... I think dat on-screen kb is a lil small on d 2.8" screen. As I hav 2 rely a lot on my PDA for data input, I thought a physical KB wud b gud. Now r u tellin dat a phy kb is a useless option? U r confusin me pal!

@coolfire74
Gr8 resp bro.. wel sadly I don hav a lappy n so hav to rely on my fon for SMSing n mailin. Esp wen on road...

@a340
Herald is the sam size of Prophet. Weighs mor though :(
But there's a solid semi-auto KB for Herald :)

@neomagik
Trinity: Way too costly 4 me, I don hav 3G, No need of GPS, I'm not a globe trotter, i think d 200MHz of Prophet/Herald wud do 4 me... :)

@ ALL .....
Does the Prophet hav a fully functional Crossbow update? Is there anythin on d Prophet dat doesn't work properly if I flash it to Crossbow?

Thanx again guys... :)

[thulsey]

For quick text input one other option is the PhonePad SIP. Great little app that, if it's not on your device when you get it (it's written by HTC, but my Chinese Language Dopod didn't ship with it) you can download from the forums by doing a search for Phonepad.

It supports full on T9, so I mostly use it for sms.

Haven't heard of fully functional Crossbow update, and I think prophet got skipped on the latest AKU update, but hey, what do I know? There's plenty available on these forums thanks to the great community!

[doomasala]

Hmmm PhonePad seems to be an interestin option... esp for typin short msgs... thanx thulsey! :)

I think I'v seen threads discussin Crossbow ROM on Prophets. Is it any gud, doin so?

Wats d graphics chip inside d Prophet & Herald? Wil i b able to play new generation PPC games?
Games lik, Call of Duty for PPC?