Should I Get An Orbit

[JimboXiii]

Hi all,

this is my first post on this site. I was planning on getting an XDA orbit through o2 this week as an upgrade to my current contract. This would be my first PDA phone and i was looking forward to it and all the possiblities it includes. However after reading the posts on here i'm having second thoughts. This is mainly down to the MicroSD memory corruption issue. First of all is the likely to happen to my orbit if i get one, will there be a fix for it and is it a big enough problem for me not to bother and look at an alternative instead.Also does anybody use there PDA though a mac instead of a PC and does it cause many compatibility issues?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance

James

[Philip]

However after reading the posts on here i'm having second thoughts. This is mainly down to the MicroSD memory corruption issue. First of all is the likely to happen to my orbit if i get one, will there be a fix for it and is it a big enough problem for me not to bother and look at an alternative instead.Much as I admire the technology and form factor of the Orbit, I certainly could not advise you to get one until the MicroSD issue has been resolved.

Can you really afford to have a device which functions as your telephone/calendar/to do list/phone book/navigation device, but which you never know whether it will be OK or corrupted when you need to use it? Read through the (> 46 page long) thread here and take a guess on how likely you are to experience this problem.

HTC were supposed to be developing a fix, but it has been a long time now and nothing has been forthcoming. There has also been speculation that WM6 will be provided free of charge to owners, but this is a HTC decision not an O2 one. If you buy an O2 branded Orbit, you will need to wait until O2 decide whether they will make WM6 available. If they do, it may or may not be a chargeable upgrade, and there will certainly be a further delay while they apply the O2 customisations to the build.

[richiev4]

Hi

I have had my Orbit for around 4 months now. I read the tread mentioned above and did worry about card corruption. So far it has only happened to me once (touch wood) but I had synced my whole SD card to my pc, so all i needed to do was reformat it using either my phone or a card reader an copy all the data back again, worked a treat.

have a look for 'Mob Sync' i got a free version from http://www.xda-orbit.com/

Apart from the card issue I have been really happy with mine.

[varvocel]

I strongly recommend you to wait with final decision until Windows Mobile 6 for this device. I bought HTC Artemis (unbranded) and I regularly read HTC's answers that they are working on SD card problem issue. If this bug will exist in HTC P3300 with WM6 I will return device. It's not possible to use this as "Personal Digital Assistant" when your data are gone from time to time.

@richiev4
I'm happy with all that great features of Artemis too and I wish you luck with your device, but remember that data corruption problem occurs randomly. My device worked flawlessly 2 weeks, other time 3 hours so you never know.

So stay tuned and save your money if you can...

Cheers

[jontymisra]

I was in that delimma 2 weeks ago, saw extensive support for P3300 with the HTC itself committing to releasing the WM6 ROM's as well for it, so I ended up getting the P3300

[Philip]

I was in that delimma 2 weeks ago, saw extensive support for P3300 with the HTC itself committing to releasing the WM6 ROM's as well for it, so I ended up getting the P3300Well that's a level of commitment that I certainly haven't seen from HTC! They have known about the Data Card Corruption issue for quite a long time now, and they still haven't actually done anything about it.

Also, the original question was about getting an O2 Orbit, not a HTC P3300. Even if HTC do release a WM6 ROM, there is no guarantee that it will actually fix the data corruption problem or that O2 will decide to release it. And even if O2 do decide to release it, there is no guarantee that it will be free of charge to their customers. Plus there would be (another) delay while they add the O2 customizations.

The lifetime of a Smartphone or PDA is probably below 1 year now. Why spend money on a device that you cannot rely on, in the hope that there might be a fix some time in the future? If I knew then what I know now, I would not have bought my Orbit.

[jontymisra]

Sadly, in Canada these phones are not available to buy thru a contract, you have to buy them unlocked and at full price.