Who thinks the Athena is good as a phone?

[spacecat]

One of my reasons for dumping my Athena was that i found it was a complete nightmare as a phone (amongst other issues)

Does anyone think it is a Good Phone, OK Phone, Crap Phone or Bloody awful Phone

This is about MAKING CALLS on it not the other functions

[touchlasvegas]

Ive only been using mine for a couple days, but its just fine for me. I'm not holding top secret phone conversations, and if I do need to keep a call under wraps, I just use my bluetooth.

[ClashOfThe]

To answer that you'd need some criteria as to what makes a phone good.

It can make and receive calls ok but after that there are many things that could be percieved criteria that make a phone good.

IMHO a good phone is one that you can put to your ear when it rings and talk to the person on the other end. It is small enough to comfortably fit in the pocket of a pair of jeans. Has good battery life. Has a good radio (phone signal reception).

These requirements are a must for a phone for me.

The Athena does not fit all of these criteria but then again it is not primarily a phone.

It is a top notch all round communications device/office and if you buy it expecting a "comfy phone" you'll be disappointed.

In a word, is it a good phone? No.

[iccy]

I love the x7500 best one I ever had. Love the GPS the huge screen and all the cool stuff and software that ís to come :)

[spacecat]

I suppose i should make it clear what i meant by this thread Ahem.

Im talking about Making Actual Calls on it not not the other functions :)

[Devany]

The problem with the Athena as a phone is that it takes a while to figure out how to set the volume control correctly.

It's better now that I know to set the phone volume to zero, and then hold the edge of the device to my ear with the little hole (which I assume is a mic) roughly in the direction of my mouth.

After doing that I can just about have a conversation (as long as I'm in a quiet room).

[francoke]

I,m REALLY HEAT THIS...too many words...about?

Whats made this post here..., plase get out... write in a PHONE forum !

This Forum in about POCKET PC..if some of all in this site...wants a phone...so simply....write in phones sites !
But...at anyone ...a simply phone is not we need!
Beacuse we buy..P O C K E T PC (Pocket PC) !


FranCOKE!



To answer that you'd need some criteria as to what makes a phone good.

These requirements are a must for a phone for me.

The Athena does not fit all of these criteria but then again it is not primarily a phone.

It is a top notch all round communications device/office and if you buy it expecting a "comfy phone" you'll be disappointed.

In a word, is it a good phone? No.

[ClashOfThe]

I,m REALLY HEAT THIS...too many words...about?

Whats made this post here..., plase get out... write in a PHONE forum !

This Forum in about POCKET PC..if some of all in this site...wants a phone...so simply....write in phones sites !
But...at anyone ...a simply phone is not we need!
Beacuse we buy..P O C K E T PC (Pocket PC) !


FranCOKE!

You sir need to learn how to read and count.

I think i made it quite clear the device is much more than a phone and also stated it was top notch.

Also I only wrote 12 or so more words than you and none of mine were wasted.

[HeartOfDarkness]

Athena's phone functionnality is OK, nothing more, nothing less.

BUT I find the integration into the entire environment pretty awesome, really.

[tfotherby]

I rate the Ameo 1 out of 10 for using as a PHONE.

Other uses (e.g. Mobile Internet, Sat Nav, Watching Video Blogs) I would rate it 10 out of 10 but for actually talking to people I have had so many problems:
1) The hands-free headphones+microphone that are supplied no longer work for me (my voice intermitedly cuts out - like a loose connection).
2) Whenever I use my bluetooth headset ("Discovery 655"), I get complains from whoever I'm trying to talk to about low volume.
3) And if I try to use the Ameo without plugging in some kind of microphone, everyone in the room gets to listen to my conversation.

The Ameo is not a good phone (in my opinion).

I heard The "LG style-i" is good but I can't get hold of one in England.

[leoni1980]

I,m REALLY HEAT THIS...too many words...about?

Whats made this post here..., plase get out... write in a PHONE forum !

This Forum in about POCKET PC..if some of all in this site...wants a phone...so simply....write in phones sites !
But...at anyone ...a simply phone is not we need!
Beacuse we buy..P O C K E T PC (Pocket PC) !


FranCOKE!

the athena isnt a pocket pc - its a phone. it is sold as a phone by phone companies in phone shops. it is a windows mobile phone and, by design, a convergent device. unfortunately one of its primary functions - the phone - is poorly designed and doesnt give very good clarity without the help of a bluetooth headset. sadly windows mobile doesnt like bluetooth headsets very much so i think overall the athena fails as a phone quite badly. other aspects of the device are not relevent to the question in hand.

[eaglesteve]

Athena is a primarily a mobile data device which also does phone, adding value to it as a convergent device. If you're looking for a phone, go somewhere else. This will not be the best size as a phone, but it is the best sized convergent device, with phone function.

As a VOIP phone it is excellent. As long as I use a headset and have good signal, I get quite good voice at mere 8 cents per call untimed to anywhere in the world. Using headset on it as a normal mobile phone of course gives very good voice quality.

The SMS aspect of the phone is absolutely top notch because of the large screen.

The debate always comes down to size. It is crazy to try to rate it only as a phone and proves nothing. It's like rating a PC with TV tuners as only a TV. Or Athena only as an MP3 player or only as a Camera.

If I have a TV tuner in my computer, I don't expect an intelligent guy to come up with a survey that says "who thinks this PC is a good TV". The result is meaningless. If a guy is looking for a TV and nothing else, he would of course dump this computer. But if TV is not his primary focus and computer is, then he is happy with the TV.

Similarly, if the future version of Athena decides to incorporate TV, it does not make it a TV per se. If you have a survey that says "who thinks Athena II is a good TV", its a meaningless question. The screen would be deemed too small by a guy looking only for a TV, much like Athena is viewed as too big by the guy looking mainly for a phone.

Does it mean that one should never incorporate phone feature into a convergent device? Or that one should never incorporate television into the PDA? By no means. There is a very niche market segment who longs for these all in ones. If you're not one of them, then this is not a product for you. That does not make it a crap phone or crap tv.

One of the key values of Athena lies in it converging all these technologies together. While it does not take the best picture in the world, the picture quality is okay. While it is not the fastest computer, it is okay. While it is not the best mobile phone in the world, it is okay. I've seen much worst dedicated Nokia phone than Athana.

Everything taken as a whole, it is stil the best.

Athena is closer to PDA than a phone. What's a PDA? I'd quote Gartner's definition:
Gartner defines PDAs as "data-centric handheld computer[s] weighing less than one pound that [are] primarily designed for use with both hands." The devices use "open market" OSes and can be equipped by the users with third-party applications. Additionally, PDAs "offer instant on/off capability and synchronization of files with a PC," in Gartner's view. Although the PDAs included in Gartner's data may offer voice capabilities, they are "data-first, voice-second devices."

DATA FIRST, VOICE SECOND. If Francoke's pocket pc means PDA, then using Gartner's definition, he's right. This is a pocket pc (PDA). In Gartner's eye, this is not classified as a phone.

[apd]

Athena is a primarily a mobile data device which also does phone, adding value to it as a convergent device. If you're looking for a phone, go somewhere else. This will not be the best size as a phone, but it is the best sized convergent device, with phone function.

As a VOIP phone it is excellent. As long as I use a headset and have good signal, I get quite good voice at mere 8 cents per call untimed to anywhere in the world. Using headset on it as a normal mobile phone of course gives very good voice quality.

The SMS aspect of the phone is absolutely top notch because of the large screen.

The debate always comes down to size. It is crazy to try to rate it only as a phone and proves nothing. It's like rating a PC with TV tuners as only a TV. Or Athena only as an MP3 player or only as a Camera.

If I have a TV tuner in my computer, I don't expect an intelligent guy to come up with a survey that says "who thinks this PC is a good TV". The result is meaningless. If a guy is looking for a TV and nothing else, he would of course dump this computer. But if TV is not his primary focus and computer is, then he is happy with the TV.

Similarly, if the future version of Athena decides to incorporate TV, it does not make it a TV per se. If you have a survey that says "who thinks Athena II is a good TV", its a meaningless question. The screen would be deemed too small by a guy looking only for a TV, much like Athena is viewed as too big by the guy looking mainly for a phone.

Does it mean that one should never incorporate phone feature into a convergent device? Or that one should never incorporate television into the PDA? By no means. There is a very niche market segment who longs for these all in ones. If you're not one of them, then this is not a product for you. That does not make it a crap phone or crap tv.

One of the key values of Athena lies in it converging all these technologies together. While it does not take the best picture in the world, the picture quality is okay. While it is not the fastest computer, it is okay. While it is not the best mobile phone in the world, it is okay. I've seen much worst dedicated Nokia phone than Athana.

Everything taken as a whole, it is stil the best.

Athena is closer to PDA than a phone. What's a PDA? I'd quote Gartner's definition:
Gartner defines PDAs as "data-centric handheld computer[s] weighing less than one pound that [are] primarily designed for use with both hands." The devices use "open market" OSes and can be equipped by the users with third-party applications. Additionally, PDAs "offer instant on/off capability and synchronization of files with a PC," in Gartner's view. Although the PDAs included in Gartner's data may offer voice capabilities, they are "data-first, voice-second devices."

DATA FIRST, VOICE SECOND. If Francoke's pocket pc means PDA, then using Gartner's definition, he's right. This is a pocket pc (PDA). In Gartner's eye, this is not classified as a phone.

Well said. And If I might say, asking a question where the answers are (1) crap (2) crap (3) ok and (4) best ever doesn't strike me as being particularly balanced!

[Digital.Diablo]

I don't make many phone calls, but those that I do are fine. Speaker phone is fine as long as you're calling a landlines (mobiles and handsfree kits tend to generate too much noise and confuse the phone as to if it should be 'listening' or 'playing' the sound). Wired / Bluetooth headset works perfectly. The issue that we've had time and time again though, is that its not really a 'pocket' phone, and unless you have a handbag or manbag, you feel like a bit of a twonk carrying round this brown wallet. I usually give the phone to the missus to carry then have a bluetooth in my pocket ready to shove in my earole.

[mahjong]

For me the diference between not using the X7500 at all as phone and using the X7500 as phone has been the LG Style-i HBM-700.

I tried an BT headset first but the trekky look is not for me then I tried the Style-i and now X7500 is my only cellular. :cool:

[GarfTheCat]

Athena is not a phone in a traditional way you could think it.
My experience is good even with cheap bluetooth headset (far better than Universal...)

[newuser888]

For me the diference between not using the X7500 at all as phone and using the X7500 as phone has been the LG Style-i HBM-700.

I tried an BT headset first but the trekky look is not for me then I tried the Style-i and now X7500 is my only cellular. :cool:

Completely agree with this post. If you use LG Style-I, you end up having the smallest phone in the world!

[Confucious]

As a phone by itself the Athena is Crap. The LG Style-i certainly helps.
I use the other features far more than just the phone which is secondary to me but as the T-Mob Ameo is sold as a 'phone' I can see the OP's point.
As eaglesteve points out it is far more than 'just' a phone but if you buy one primarily as a phone you would probably be disappointed.

[newuser888]

As a phone by itself the Athena is Crap. The LG Style-i certainly helps.
I use the other features far more than just the phone which is secondary to me but as the T-Mob Ameo is sold as a 'phone' I can see the OP's point.
As eaglesteve points out it is far more than 'just' a phone but if you buy one primarily as a phone you would probably be disappointed.

With LG style-i, it does not matter what the "host" is anymore. That's why I voted it to be as good as the phone best ever. Athena gives very good 3.5G reception, far better than any other phones I've used. Also, like eaglesteve said, it is very easy for me to create SMS messages on this device, which is another aspect of the phone features. I highly recommend that those who had found it tough to use this as a phone because of its size to consider LG style-I. I guarantee your opinion will change.

[HeartOfDarkness]

It is crazy to try to rate it only as a phone and proves nothing. It's like rating a PC with TV tuners as only a TV.

Excellent comparision, couldn't have put it better. :-)

And yet, I think some extremely useful (at least for me) phone-related functionnalities are very usually overlooked with PocketPC PDA-Phones in such polls.

What about seamless synchronisation with Outlook content ? This functionnality alone saved my *ss more than once when I had trouble with my phone. Instant search for directory numbers ? Etc. etc.

I once had a Nokia N92, an excellent multimedia device. Well, I returned it as soon as I saw that the "conduit" between the phone and Outlook mixed numbers up, and didn't synchronise properly (most of my contacts are business contacts, and have more than one phone number. The Nokia conduit handles this extremely poorly, mixing numbers for a same contact when they are synchronised on the phone until it is almost impossible to find a contact through his / her phone number).

As eaglesteve points out it is far more than 'just' a phone but if you buy one primarily as a phone you would probably be disappointed.

True. But I always have trouble imagining how ANYONE would get an almost one-pounded, 5-inch screened *phone*. Who needs a 5-inch screens only for phoning ? To see 1-inch wide numbers ?? :-S

[eaglesteve]

And yet, I think some extremely useful (at least for me) phone-related functionnalities are very usually overlooked with PocketPC PDA-Phones in such polls.

What about seamless synchronisation with Outlook content ? This functionnality alone saved my *ss more than once when I had trouble with my phone. Instant search for directory numbers ? Etc. etc.

I once had a Nokia N92, an excellent multimedia device. Well, I returned it as soon as I saw that the "conduit" between the phone and Outlook mixed numbers up, and didn't synchronise properly (most of my contacts are business contacts, and have more than one phone number. The Nokia conduit handles this extremely poorly, mixing numbers for a same contact when they are synchronised on the phone until it is almost impossible to find a contact through his / her phone number).


HeartOfDarkness,

You pointed out an excellent point, which did not occur to me until now. Your experience was exactly what my brother-in-law had experienced a couple of years ago. He had real tough time synchronising his contact. The last I heard, he manually maintains the two set of contact and just do his best to update both locations separately. I think that's crazy, but we do tend to take this for granted.

[leoni1980]

Regardless of its size, for most people it will be purchased to serve as a phone and internet device. It simply doesn't do this very well out of the box which is pretty unforgivable. In my mind HTC should have given matching BT earbuds or a style-I-type headset with it rather than the silly magnetic keyboard.

I don't wish to slate the device unneccesarily - I did after all have two in all and got my first within weeks of release, but I dislike unfounded comments about it. Just because you own the device doesn't mean you cannot find bits of it annoying.

There are many other HTC phones which are more than capable of the features mentioned within this thread: the only draw of the Athena - and for me - is the screen.

To compare with the outlook capabilities of a non-outlook device is unfair; comparing it with other phones IS fair. It was sold to me as a phone by T-Mobile and it has had to go through the same GSM licensing as any other phone. Also to quote 'Athena gives very good 3.5G reception, far better than any other phones I've used', obviously this is your opinion and you are entitled to it, but I've owned a Samsung z560, Nokia N95 and Sony K850 - all HSDPA devices and ALL better than The Athena in terms of signal strength and reliability, although I will admit that in my experience all windows mobile phones are a bit inferior in this respect.
My perception of the device steadily worsened as the months grew on and the novelty of the screen wore off.

The design is also underdeveloped: why didn't they develop Vuoflo to change the orientation of the device when you turn it round? Why not think a bit more about the placement of the mic? Surely more people would wish to hold the device to their head (however silly it looks) than make speakerphone calls - I don't know anyone who makes speakerphone calls.
Why integrate a VGA screen if you can't be bothered to develop software to enable VGA?

For a lot of the features I came to love about the device I had to rely on developers here: without them we'd have a pretty crappy device would we not?

[Confucious]

For a lot of the features I came to love about the device I had to rely on developers here: without them we'd have a pretty crappy device would we not?

Out of the box it was a great device for me. The developers on here have made it a fantastic device - that's the joy of WM - it can be customoised and people can add the bits they want.

Just my 2d's worth.

[eaglesteve]

Regardless of its size, for most people it will be purchased to serve as a phone and internet device. It simply doesn't do this very well out of the box which is pretty unforgivable. In my mind HTC should have given matching BT earbuds or a style-I-type headset with it rather than the silly magnetic keyboard.

I don't wish to slate the device unneccesarily - I did after all have two in all and got my first within weeks of release, but I dislike unfounded comments about it. Just because you own the device doesn't mean you cannot find bits of it annoying.

There are many other HTC phones which are more than capable of the features mentioned within this thread: the only draw of the Athena - and for me - is the screen.

To compare with the outlook capabilities of a non-outlook device is unfair; comparing it with other phones IS fair. It was sold to me as a phone by T-Mobile and it has had to go through the same GSM licensing as any other phone. Also to quote 'Athena gives very good 3.5G reception, far better than any other phones I've used', obviously this is your opinion and you are entitled to it, but I've owned a Samsung z560, Nokia N95 and Sony K850 - all HSDPA devices and ALL better than The Athena in terms of signal strength and reliability, although I will admit that in my experience all windows mobile phones are a bit inferior in this respect.
My perception of the device steadily worsened as the months grew on and the novelty of the screen wore off.

The design is also underdeveloped: why didn't they develop Vuoflo to change the orientation of the device when you turn it round? Why not think a bit more about the placement of the mic? Surely more people would wish to hold the device to their head (however silly it looks) than make speakerphone calls - I don't know anyone who makes speakerphone calls.
Why integrate a VGA screen if you can't be bothered to develop software to enable VGA?

For a lot of the features I came to love about the device I had to rely on developers here: without them we'd have a pretty crappy device would we not?


Athena is not only distributed by Telcos. Mine was from a PDA supplier, who does not sell phone plan. Where you bought the device has no bearing on whether or not it is primarily a phone.

The earliest Dopod U1000 was sold with a bluetooth headset packaged in. Mine was only with a wired headset, so I guess HTC does expect us to use them in making calls.

Not all HTC phone has HSDPA capabilities, so I guess newuser888 was justified in listing Athena as among the best in reception. Here in Australia, only phone with HSDPA capability can receive signals almost nation wide. The majority of the other traditional phones are either GSM only or CDMA only, and their coverage is very limited. If I bring my Nokia or Samsung phone and go outside the major cities, I would not get signal due to the inadequate gsm or CDMA coverage. However, if I use my Athena, I get coverage even in rural areas, because of its HSDPA capability.

You cited the big screen as the key attraction. I agree. However, it automatically means bigger size to go with the screen. We can't be liking the big screen and hating the big size. It's like wanting the cake and also to eat it too(is this a correct english expression?). This screen size is not a novelty. It is currently the most unique advantage Athena has over the other HTC PDA phone. I say this because Tobias' realvga can only be used property on Athena. On the lesser screen, many is us won't be able to use even the 128dpi, let alone the 96dpi resolution.

I agree that more could be done on the device at the factory. I like to see the stock ROM incorporated realvga, wktask, tengo, mosquito ringtones, wm5torage, throw on LG style-I, and a good belt pouch.

But I think it is unfair to say it is crapy out of the box.

[HeartOfDarkness]

Regardless of its size, for most people it will be purchased to serve as a phone and internet device. It simply doesn't do this very well out of the box which is pretty unforgivable.


I voted "OK" at the poll. But could you please give me specific reasons why the telephony part of the Athena "doesn't do well" out of the box ?

The Athena is sold by phone companies because it has phone capabilities. BUT it is also clearly stated everywhere that:
- there's no embedded earpiece;
- notably as a consequence of the previous point, a wired head-set is included;
- a bluetooth headset can (and of course, should) be used with the phone.

Is it because the Athena doesn't have an actual embedded earpiece that its telephony is bad ? If so, I disagree. I personnally would NEVER use it (the very idea of having the Athena to my ear is ludicrous to me).

What I mean is that this is a *subjective* point of view, and can therefore not be judged as a "universal" criterium to evaluate the telephony functions.

In my mind, such universal criteria would non-exhaustively be:
- network reception sensitivity;
- reactivity of the telephony interface;
etc.


In my mind HTC should have given matching BT earbuds or a style-I-type headset with it rather than the silly magnetic keyboard.


Once again, this is completly subjective. I, for instance, find a style-I-type thingy, altough "interestin", completly useless for me. I much favor a good and small bluetooth earpiece, or stereo earphones with phone capabilities. It's a matter of taste, and I think that the Athena (and most other modern PDA-Phones, of course) has the advantage here, since it allows for ALL types of phone-oriented devices, whether wired, bluetooth, earbuds or phone-like stuff...


To compare with the outlook capabilities of a non-outlook device is unfair; comparing it with other phones IS fair.


Why is it unfair ?? Now that's curious ! The Athena does something PHONE RELATED much better than other phones do, but since the others don't do it, it should be ditched ??

Contacts management is an EXTREMELY important phone-related functionnality for ANY phones IMO. And the Athena is far better for that than anything Nokia, Sony or others does, that's the bottom line.

Besides, Nokia DID understand that and tried to provide synchronisation functionnalities supposedly on par with PocketPCs. It IS relevant to the poll and the comparision that they screwed up quite nicely !


The design is also underdeveloped: why didn't they develop Vuoflo to change the orientation of the device when you turn it round?


Couldn't agree more. I think I know why, although this cannot be seen as an excuse.

As I said somewhere else, HTC is NOT a software company. They rely on Windows Mobile almost completly to make use of the functionnalities their hadware offer. And since Windows MObile doesn't offer, out of the box, support for such a thing as VueFlo, HTC provided the BARE minimum to *show* that it works. Do they expect that third-party software companies will capitalise on it ? Did they expect such integrated support in WM6 ? Dunno. But it sure is a shame... :-S


Why not think a bit more about the placement of the mic? Surely more people would wish to hold the device to their head (however silly it looks) than make speakerphone calls - I don't know anyone who makes speakerphone calls.


Me either. But as I said, I would never hold the device to my head. Would feel like holding my LCD screen to my ear. lol


Why integrate a VGA screen if you can't be bothered to develop software to enable VGA?


An excellent question, once again I think explained by the fact that they are not software makers. They rely on Windows Mobile to use the hardware they provide. Is that an excuse ? Of course not. So I completly agree with you that it clearly is a huge flaw of the Athena.

It is to note that WinCE is fully VGA-compliant (actually, it does not have any qualms about screen-resolution, it handles them all). Once again, it's the Windows Mobile team which is at fault, and I'd be hard-pressed to find them any excuse... >:-[


For a lot of the features I came to love about the device I had to rely on developers here: without them we'd have a pretty crappy device would we not?

Not crappy, no. But definitely far from how good it can really be. And I agree 100% with you that some of these shortcomings are unacceptable.

But once again, this weakness also shows one of its great strenghts: its versatility, its ease of customisation, its enormous user and developper community...

[eaglesteve]

I

Once again, this is completly subjective. I, for instance, find a style-I-type thingy, altough "interestin", completly useless for me. I much favor a good and small bluetooth earpiece, or stereo earphones with phone capabilities. It's a matter of taste, and I think that the Athena (and most other modern PDA-Phones, of course) has the advantage here, since it allows for ALL types of phone-oriented devices, whether wired, bluetooth, earbuds or phone-like stuff...
..

I guess I have to agree with you on this point although I mentioned LG style-I should be thrown in by HTC. I've up to now still been using the speaker phone, and with wired head set when making VOIP calls. Am still undivided which way to go. LG style - I is one possibility, blue voice wrist watch is another.

You are right, it's too subjective, so HTC should leave the decisionto us user.

[spacecat]

nice to see this thread is warming up nicely :) and as usual down the normal lines :)

however as thread starter the main point i wanted to ask was the ATHENAS ability to
MAKE and RECIEVE Calls and how CONVENIENT or INCONVENIENT people find that.

The Pros and Cons of this device are well known, so the focus was HOW it is when YOU are using the Phone functions do u find it easy or not, do u feel self conscious or not using such a large device to talk into, do u mind or not mind not having to use another device i.e BT headset/mini phone etc to make calls

[mahjong]

HTX X7500 Advantage... the way I use it...

Great for reading during my trips. PDFs mainly
Great for taking notes. Handwriting, typing and voice notes.
Great to keep track of my appointments.
Great to read my corporate mail using BB Connect.
Great for watching films when I'm tired of reading in a trip.
Great for listening music... I store tons of CDs in my microdrive.
Great as my main phone now that I own the Style-i (only 18 bucks at eBay!!)
Great GPS when I'm driving using my TT 6.
Great GPS when driving offroad using OziExplorerCE
Great when running presentations using the 4in1 cable and PocketPowerPoint
Great using it as USB storage using wm5torage
Great reading newspapers and some web pages... the speed is great (HSDPA)
Great external HDSPA modem if you use it with Windows PC
Great in videoconferencing... in Europe off course. This is very helpful for me to show my colegues some aspects of my job. Whenever I find a problem in a building I run a videoconferencing and shows it to my colegue.
Great camera... 3 Megas is OK. And the included program to generate landscape pictures is very useful for me.
Great screen to work with AutoCAD files... I can show people what we are doing in the field.

Gaming? I don't know I'm not using it to play games.
Excel and Word? OK... just to create simple files.
Price? Hmmm... I'm trying to forget how much I'd pay for it.
Other software I use? Webster dictionaries.

Before X7500 I traveled with my phone, camera, USB key, HDSPA modem and laptop... now I travel only with my X7500.

Is the greatest phone? May be not? Is the greatest device I ever got? Sure it is.

Best Regards,
mahjong

[leoni1980]

Maybe us Brits just don't like big phones.

Or it's just me

"Contacts management is an EXTREMELY important phone-related functionnality for ANY phones IMO":
does EVERYONE use Outlook? Microsoft invented it so it's expected on a pocket pc, but not everyone uses it.
If you're going to knock Nokia (no pun intended) because an outside software company created outlook syncing software that isn't up to much I think that's a bit unfair in this thread at least. Outlook isn't the be all and end all for me. I have rarely used outlook, but since this is also unrelated to the thread I don't wish to dwell on it!


It's fair to compare their abilities as phones in this thread as they are both undoubtedly phones. Functionality need not come at a cost of usability as many here seem to believe: in other words, because there are lots of 'bits' on the Athena does this excuse HTC for making the call handling qualities of the phone below par? WHY did they leave out an embedded earpiece? Is it better to have calls on loudspeaker? I think a choice would have been nice, or perhaps we'd all prefer a silly magnetic keyboard which wipes your hard disks instead.
That's much more handy isn't it.

I didn't get any joy from 'tweaking' my device since most of the time I was doing it for functionality rather then pleasure, then having to do it all over again when a new ROM came out!

In respect to before "X7500 I traveled with my phone, camera, USB key, HDSPA modem and laptop"
Well there are a number of small phones with better HSDPA capabilities, just as much memory and infinitely better cameras.

If you can make an Athena a good laptop replacement for a train ride then you're a better man than I. Sure you can edit word/excel documents and browse the web to an acceptable degree but it's not a laptop replacement, I'm sure even Eaglesteve will agree with that.
I took my Athena on the train loads of times and it wasn't a great experience. I travel in company so the screen is too small to share, even if the device could handle videos - which it struggles with. Browsing and document editing is spoilt by the keyboard limitations, particularly on a shaky surface.


I still think that the point I made holds true. ALL the arguments mentioned herein in favour of the Athena apply to ANY new HTC device - aside from the screen, which I agree is good but doesn't really have any bearings on the phone quality and usability which is the topic in hand.

I think the problem here is that tolerence is embedded into the psychology of most long-term Windows Mobile users. If you were to give an Athena to a typical consumer for a week they would hate it. They would see that the device performs below par as a handset; they wouldn't accept wired earpieces or bluetooth devices as a viable solution. Maybe if you spent 800 dollars on the device you unwittingly feel OBLIGED to get over these failings.

Let's get back to basics. No more Nokia software versus Windows software: this argument belongs in a different thread; find it and add to it but leave this thread for its intended purpose. SPECIFICALLY is the Athena any good as a phone?

[HeartOfDarkness]

Maybe us Brits just don't like big phones.

Or it's just me

"Contacts management is an EXTREMELY important phone-related functionnality for ANY phones IMO":
does EVERYONE use Outlook? Microsoft invented it so it's expected on a pocket pc, but not everyone uses it.
If you're going to knock Nokia (no pun intended) because an outside software company created outlook syncing software that isn't up to much I think that's a bit unfair in this thread at least. Outlook isn't the be all and end all for me. I have rarely used outlook, but since this is also unrelated to the thread I don't wish to dwell on it!


Outlook is but a means to an end. If Nokia provided an equivalent application that worked, I would have used it when I had a N92. BUT the only synchronisation software they provided was a conduit with Outlook, so it NOKIA who benefited from the existing application (Outlook), which they didn't not need to develop for themselves, and only provided a "link". And well, they DID screw that "link" up, somehow.

Bottom-line is: PocketPC phones, WHICHEVER they are, have much better functionnalities when it comes to contacts, and your argumentation doesn't show any evidence to the contrary.


It's fair to compare their abilities as phones in this thread as they are both undoubtedly phones. Functionality need not come at a cost of usability as many here seem to believe: in other words, because there are lots of 'bits' on the Athena does this excuse HTC for making the call handling qualities of the phone below par? WHY did they leave out an embedded earpiece? Is it better to have calls on loudspeaker? I think a choice would have been nice, or perhaps we'd all prefer a silly magnetic keyboard which wipes your hard disks instead.
That's much more handy isn't it.


As I said, I personnaly voted for "ok", because I believe there is still room for improvment. But at the end of the day, it seems that you consider the Athena's telephone functionality below par because:
- it doesn't have an embedded earpiece;
- it is big.

What you repeatly fail to consider is that having an embedded earpiece and being big is NOT what makes a telephone a mobile telephone, at least NOT OBJECTIVELY. The simplest argument to support this is that there are many, many people, myself included, who prefer bluetooth headsets EVEN with small phones, and just as many who don't really care abour size (or else, we'd all have Xun Chi phones.

http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/xun-chi138.jpg

What a mobile phone needs to do, in my opinion, in order to be a mobile phone, is:
- quality of network reception;
- quality of basic phone functionalities (contact management, call logs, etc.);
- etc.

The Athena may not sport an embedded earpiece, but it IS sold with a wired headset. So it DOES have all the appendices of a regular phone. That YOU may ind it less convenient to use, ok, but that doesn't mean that it is below par, not by a long shot. Not when Nokia, clearly your brand of choice, is only able to manufacture the E90 as a competitor to PocketPC devices, which doesn't even have a touch screen, and costs (around my parts at least) even more than an Athena.


In respect to before "X7500 I traveled with my phone, camera, USB key, HDSPA modem and laptop"
Well there are a number of small phones with better HSDPA capabilities, just as much memory and infinitely better cameras.


Yeah well, it is your choice to have a bagful of cameras, HSDPA phones, GPS devices, mp3 players, etc. etc. Which, by the way, is I think on the whole much bulkier and, well, MUCH more expensive than an Athena.


If you can make an Athena a good laptop replacement for a train ride then you're a better man than I. Sure you can edit word/excel documents and browse the web to an acceptable degree but it's not a laptop replacement, I'm sure even Eaglesteve will agree with that.


I can't deny the keyboard is extremely crappy. But I *DO*, personnaly, use the Athena as a laptop replacement on a number of occasions, because I have a foldable bluetooth keyboard and small bluetooth mouse. And yes, I do usually type my reports with that on the train, and I'm no greek God (although I do have good eyesight :-) ).


I took my Athena on the train loads of times and it wasn't a great experience. I travel in company so the screen is too small to share, even if the device could handle videos - which it struggles with.


Well, I've been an Archos user for years and years. And since I have the Athena, my Archos I use mainly as a bulk multimedia storage device from which I transfer, occasionnaly, items to my Athena for viewing. True, the Athena's not a DVD quality device, but I find, using TCPMP and encoding consistent with the screen-size, that it handles video quite nicely. And not many (and by that I mean none) multimedia players allow me to view a movie with my BT headphones on, without any wire, and to have it pause playback instantly when a call reaches me, and continues automatically when I'm done (if only to give an exemple).

But, as you said, we're here to talk about telephone capabilities. I'm not sure why you put this video topic on the table.

Or did you mean to talk about Visio-calls ? Something the Athena, by nature, has no competitor for whatsover ?

Sub-par, you said ?


I still think that the point I made holds true. ALL the arguments mentioned herein in favour of the Athena apply to ANY new HTC device - aside from the screen, which I agree is good but doesn't really have any bearings on the phone quality and usability which is the topic in hand.


Aside from the large amount of memory, be it hard-disk, bubble, or whatever ? Aside from compliance with a gazillion network protocols ? Aside from USB-Host ? Video out ?

Etc. etc.


I think the problem here is that tolerence is embedded into the psychology of most long-term Windows Mobile users. If you were to give an Athena to a typical consumer for a week they would hate it. They would see that the device performs below par as a handset; they wouldn't accept wired earpieces or bluetooth devices as a viable solution. Maybe if you spent 800 dollars on the device you unwittingly feel OBLIGED to get over these failings.


lol Well, contrary to you, it seems, I *did* test a large number of phones before I picked the Athena as my "do it all" device. I did it carefully, so it didn't seem to me like it grew inches overnight and suddenly became too big. Before the Athena, I had an Universal that broke down, and got replaced with a TyTN (HTC Hermes). Not a single minute passed without me cursing my fate for loosing my VGA screen to the tiny, tiny, ridiculously small QVGA screen with which web-browsing, GPS navigation and movie viewing feel like a joke, and not a good one, to me. So no, I do not feel OBLIGED to get over anything: what I get wit hthe Athena is *exatly* what I wanted.

Is it perfect ? No, of course not. Is it sub-par in anything I cannot, with at worse a little abnegation, improve ? You must be kidding.


Let's get back to basics. No more Nokia software versus Windows software: this argument belongs in a different thread; find it and add to it but leave this thread for its intended purpose. SPECIFICALLY is the Athena any good as a phone?

Yes, let's. I don't think I have anything else to say on the matter anyway. :-)

[eaglesteve]

Well said. And If I might say, asking a question where the answers are (1) crap (2) crap (3) ok and (4) best ever doesn't strike me as being particularly balanced!

This is also the most stupid, deceitful, and biased poll questions I have ever encountered.

Actually, I think this thread started out of the debates between Spacecat and me, with Leoni to a lesser extent. Spacecat repeatedly criticised me as a person as the only person not saying Athena is a crap phone, which I had disagreed like most of you. So I guess he wants something to justify his behaviour.

I voted ok. When I read the poll question, I took that question s as being the same distribution as excellent, above average, below average, and fail. I selected ok.

Now, on the other thread , spacecat says that the survey result supports his claim that Athena is a crap phone! He now says that a vote of means undecided and therefore means half of them supports his case!

How cunning can a question be! I certainly do not think Athena is crap as a phone half the time!

[spacecat]

This is also the most stupid, deceitful, and biased poll questions I have ever encountered.

Actually, I think this thread started out of the debates between Spacecat and me, with Leoni to a lesser extent. Spacecat repeatedly criticised me as a person as the only person not saying Athena is a crap phone, which I had disagreed like most of you. So I guess he wants something to justify his behaviour.

I voted ok. When I read the poll question, I took that question s as being the same distribution as excellent, above average, below average, and fail. I selected ok.

Now, on the other thread , spacecat says that the survey result supports his claim that Athena is a crap phone! He now says that a vote of means undecided and therefore means half of them supports his case!

How cunning can a question be! I certainly do not think Athena is crap as a phone half the time!

I thought You didn't like getting all emotional?

FFS dude its a phone/PDA we are talking about not the war in Iraq!

I started the poll because the reason i got rid of my Athena was because eventually i found it TOO annoying as a phone and also had lots of unresolved faults.

I particularly found the speaking part a chore and wondered if anyone else felt the same.

You know YOU dont have to answer every thread and even if everyone in the world thought the ATHENA WAS CRAP as long as YOU enjoy it , IT WOULD NOT MATTER so why are you so bent out of shape?

You seem a tad defensive maybe you should chill a bit

[apd]

I thought You didn't like getting all emotional?

FFS dude its a phone/PDA we are talking about not the war in Iraq!

I started the poll because the reason i got rid of my Athena was because eventually i found it TOO annoying as a phone and also had lots of unresolved faults.

I particularly found the speaking part a chore and wondered if anyone else felt the same.

You know YOU dont have to answer every thread and even if everyone in the world thought the ATHENA WAS CRAP as long as YOU enjoy it , IT WOULD NOT MATTER so why are you so bent out of shape?

You seem a tad defensive maybe you should chill a bit

Why don't you both just calm down....

And by the way - why did you bother starting a poll you don't own anymore! (this is a rhetorical question!)

[leoni1980]

Why don't you both just calm down....

And by the way - why did you bother starting a poll you don't own anymore! (this is a rhetorical question!)

What does that mean?

[spacecat]

(this is a rhetorical question!)

this is an unrhetorical answer


Cos I Felt like it

[leoni1980]

Outlook is but a means to an end. If Nokia provided an equivalent application that worked, I would have used it when I had a N92. BUT the only synchronisation software they provided was a conduit with Outlook, so it NOKIA who benefited from the existing application (Outlook), which they didn't not need to develop for themselves, and only provided a "link". And well, they DID screw that "link" up, somehow.

Bottom-line is: PocketPC phones, WHICHEVER they are, have much better functionnalities when it comes to contacts, and your argumentation doesn't show any evidence to the contrary.



As I said, I personnaly voted for "ok", because I believe there is still room for improvment. But at the end of the day, it seems that you consider the Athena's telephone functionality below par because:
- it doesn't have an embedded earpiece;
- it is big.

What you repeatly fail to consider is that having an embedded earpiece and being big is NOT what makes a telephone a mobile telephone, at least NOT OBJECTIVELY. The simplest argument to support this is that there are many, many people, myself included, who prefer bluetooth headsets EVEN with small phones, and just as many who don't really care abour size (or else, we'd all have Xun Chi phones.

http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/blg/cat/mobiles/xun-chi138.jpg

What a mobile phone needs to do, in my opinion, in order to be a mobile phone, is:
- quality of network reception;
- quality of basic phone functionalities (contact management, call logs, etc.);
- etc.

The Athena may not sport an embedded earpiece, but it IS sold with a wired headset. So it DOES have all the appendices of a regular phone. That YOU may ind it less convenient to use, ok, but that doesn't mean that it is below par, not by a long shot. Not when Nokia, clearly your brand of choice, is only able to manufacture the E90 as a competitor to PocketPC devices, which doesn't even have a touch screen, and costs (around my parts at least) even more than an Athena.



Yeah well, it is your choice to have a bagful of cameras, HSDPA phones, GPS devices, mp3 players, etc. etc. Which, by the way, is I think on the whole much bulkier and, well, MUCH more expensive than an Athena.



I can't deny the keyboard is extremely crappy. But I *DO*, personnaly, use the Athena as a laptop replacement on a number of occasions, because I have a foldable bluetooth keyboard and small bluetooth mouse. And yes, I do usually type my reports with that on the train, and I'm no greek God (although I do have good eyesight :-) ).



Well, I've been an Archos user for years and years. And since I have the Athena, my Archos I use mainly as a bulk multimedia storage device from which I transfer, occasionnaly, items to my Athena for viewing. True, the Athena's not a DVD quality device, but I find, using TCPMP and encoding consistent with the screen-size, that it handles video quite nicely. And not many (and by that I mean none) multimedia players allow me to view a movie with my BT headphones on, without any wire, and to have it pause playback instantly when a call reaches me, and continues automatically when I'm done (if only to give an exemple).

But, as you said, we're here to talk about telephone capabilities. I'm not sure why you put this video topic on the table.

Or did you mean to talk about Visio-calls ? Something the Athena, by nature, has no competitor for whatsover ?

Sub-par, you said ?



Aside from the large amount of memory, be it hard-disk, bubble, or whatever ? Aside from compliance with a gazillion network protocols ? Aside from USB-Host ? Video out ?

Etc. etc.



lol Well, contrary to you, it seems, I *did* test a large number of phones before I picked the Athena as my "do it all" device. I did it carefully, so it didn't seem to me like it grew inches overnight and suddenly became too big. Before the Athena, I had an Universal that broke down, and got replaced with a TyTN (HTC Hermes). Not a single minute passed without me cursing my fate for loosing my VGA screen to the tiny, tiny, ridiculously small QVGA screen with which web-browsing, GPS navigation and movie viewing feel like a joke, and not a good one, to me. So no, I do not feel OBLIGED to get over anything: what I get wit hthe Athena is *exatly* what I wanted.

Is it perfect ? No, of course not. Is it sub-par in anything I cannot, with at worse a little abnegation, improve ? You must be kidding.



Yes, let's. I don't think I have anything else to say on the matter anyway. :-)



Hey,


I experienced poor quality, echoey calls on the Athena when using it against my head. I had regular complaints about it and eventually It was what pushed me to get rid. I'm not vehemently against the Athena by any means and I had two of the devices with which I tried different radios and different ROMs, but they both had the same call problem. It is present also on my Hermes when using the speakerphone instead of the embedded mic. Unfortunately I don't like using BT headsets next to my head all day as it give me a headache, aside from which it's just another battery to keep charged.



"I find, using TCPMP and encoding consistent with the screen-size, that it handles video quite nicely. And not many (and by that I mean none) multimedia players allow me to view a movie with my BT headphones on, without any wire, and to have it pause playback instantly when a call reaches me"

My N95 does all of the above, without re-encoding (via coreplayer) including the playback pause thing. Maybe that's just on my device....oh and

"Yeah well, it is your choice to have a bagful of cameras, HSDPA phones, GPS devices, mp3 players, etc. etc. Which, by the way, is I think on the whole much bulkier and, well, MUCH more expensive than an Athena." doesn't my phone have ALL of those features?



I can see why someone like Eaglesteve would use the Athena and find it the best device for him based on everything he's said about his needs. I'm seriously not narrow minded. My N95 is flawed and I'm always on the lookout for new devices, but by the way you put across your needs you would have been just as well getting a Kaiser or an N95 (bluetooth GPS music player camera) and a memory card coupled with a subnotebook or UMPC (with a bluetooth dun for HSDPA). I only say this because you say you carry a mini keyboard and mouse with you. They both add to the bulk and necessitate a bag and they both need batteries.

I don't mean to rattle your cage, I am perfectly willing to help you if you have any questions as I used the Athena a lot and am pretty experienced with it. I appreciate that the device is new to you and 'your baby' as it were, so I sincerely hope you carry on enjoying it ;)

[newuser888]

I thought You didn't like getting all emotional?

FFS dude its a phone/PDA we are talking about not the war in Iraq!

I started the poll because the reason i got rid of my Athena was because eventually i found it TOO annoying as a phone and also had lots of unresolved faults.

I particularly found the speaking part a chore and wondered if anyone else felt the same.

You know YOU dont have to answer every thread and even if everyone in the world thought the ATHENA WAS CRAP as long as YOU enjoy it , IT WOULD NOT MATTER so why are you so bent out of shape?

You seem a tad defensive maybe you should chill a bit

Eaglesteve,

There is no need for you to respond to this. I've been following the thread where you guys were debating, and based on that, I could see that although you had tried to be reasonable, your opponent is not prepared to be reasonable and fair, as he likes to twist things to fit it into his narrow mind set and persepective. Yes, like you, I took the second question as having the same meaning as above averaqe at first glance, until our friend pointed to the second part of the second question. The question is a trick question in my opinion. With a normal bell shape distribution, our friend would be likely to claim that 75% of those polled think the phone is a complete crap.

[leoni1980]

"This is also the most stupid, deceitful, and biased poll questions I have ever encountered."


I'm not so sure: ask Zimbabweians or - dare I say - Americans if their Govenmental Leadership polls were fair.

Kidding.


Anyway despite the vehemency, hair pulling and cat-fighting I'm quite enjoying this poll. I'm sure there are no hard feelings. I still follow windows mobile and I still have a Hermes.

Perhaps I shouldn't have my own opinion though as I no longer own an Athena therefore cannot possibly judge its usability fairly (!).

[newuser888]

Anyway despite cat-fighting ...

I think you meant to say spacecat-fighting??:D

Just kidding. This thread is interesting.

[eaglesteve]

I still follow windows mobile and I still have a Hermes.


Leoni,

I suppose you would need Hermes if you need any of the ce based applications, which are going to take a while to replace with Linux based equivalents.

Do I understand correctly that you now uses four devices (eee PC + Nokia800 + Nokia95 + Hermes)? You mentioned that you also carry bluetooth keyboard in your bag?

How do you deal with so many devices on the road? I don't mean to question your decision to do this, as you seem rather happy with your choices. It's just very difficult for me to comprehend when Athena alone would meet all these needs reasonably well, although not perfectly.

[leoni1980]

Leoni,

I suppose you would need Hermes if you need any of the ce based applications, which are going to take a while to replace with Linux based equivalents.

Do I understand correctly that you now uses four devices (eee PC + Nokia800 + Nokia95 + Hermes)? You mentioned that you also carry bluetooth keyboard in your bag?

How do you deal with so many devices on the road? I don't mean to question your decision to do this, as you seem rather happy with your choices. It's just very difficult for me to comprehend when Athena alone would meet all these needs reasonably.


I think you misunderstand.

I had a bluetooth keyboard and mouse - much like many other Athena owners - for use with my Athena as I didn't like the Hardware keyboard to use. I also think the device looks a lot nicer and is more practical to use without it.

I still have a Hermes. It has a faulty camera so is not worth selling, plus I do tinker on it now and again at home.

I use an N95 every day at home and at work for call handling. I usually take my EEE with me which has a micro BT EDR dongle so I can seamlessly connect them. Because it boots so quickly I often use it on the bus or in transit - it really is a great device for me, and I need a bag for work so carrying it is no burden given its minimal weight and size.

The N800 is my toy really. It's slim and light and great fun to use. I regularly bring it out with me since i don't really notice its presence. It's a pleasure more than anything, though I admit I could live without it given that I usually have a bag and don't mind carrying the EEE.

I don't have a million gadgets on me at all times. If I want to browse and can sit I'll use the EEE, at all other times the Nokia N95 suffices for me. I won't attempt to promote the device excessively as Symbian is pretty unpopular around here. The screen is tiny compared with the Athena but the safari-esque browser does a fair job and renders pages quickly and well. I can get over the screen size as the primary functions of the phone for me are call handling and bt DUN with HSDPA.

On the rare occasions i need GPS Nokia maps works well, but there's also Google maps with GPS support, and I get my emails through the messaging client - which also supports attachments.
Mulitmedia is good as the handset has a (working) graphics chip and high quality sound. There's a great camera too. 'standard' mobiles aren't for everyone but I quite like it.

Each to their own.

I miss my Athena occasionally because there were bits of it I quite liked - If I'd absolutely abhorred it I wouldn't have stuck it out for so long, but I wouldn't go back as I really don't like bluetooth headsets, and the recurrent statement in all Athena-related threads about call handling - which i agree with - is that a BT headset of some type is more-or-less essential.

I fear I'm plummeting off-topic here.......but on the subject of 'topics', maybe the question at the top of this thread should have been about the Athena's keyboard, everyone seems to agree on that one!

[eaglesteve]

I
I miss my Athena occasionally because there were bits of it I quite liked - If I'd absolutely abhorred it I wouldn't have stuck it out for so long, but I wouldn't go back as I really don't like bluetooth headsets, and the recurrent statement in all Athena-related threads about call handling - which i agree with - is that a BT headset of some type is more-or-less essential.


Leoni,

Thanks for clarifying. I did'nt realise your dislike for bluetooth is the real stumbling block causing you to permanently stay away from Athena.

I personally do not use bluetooth, like I should. This is because I also did not like wearing that thing on my ear. However, I think the bluevoice wristwatch is a very good idea. The LG lifestyle-I is also very good. I hope bluevoice wristwatch would come down in price quickly.

[leoni1980]

Leoni,

Thanks for clarifying. I did'nt realise your dislike for bluetooth is the real stumbling block causing you to permanently stay away from Athena.

I personally do not use bluetooth, like I should. This is because I also did not like wearing that thing on my ear. However, I think the bluevoice wristwatch is a very good idea. The LG lifestyle-I is also very good. I hope bluevoice wristwatch would come down in price quickly.

I saw that before I sold my Athena but it was W-a-a-a-a-a-y too much. maybe in their next device HTC will give a device like that away instead of a keyboard (or as well as!)

Inherently it was the voice calling I had a problem with over everything else. It rattles me a bit when people say the sound is ok without an earpiece, as I know from experience of two Athenas that it really isn't. I ended up ignoring calls and replying by text in the end as I lost my wired headset.

[spacecat]

I dont know what all the moaners are bitching about

IM the only one who creates HALF DECENT THREADS that start a debate in this place and i dont even have a F**Kin ATHENA ANYMORE! :)

I couldn't care less if everyone in this place said that making calls on an ATHENA was so good they practically shit GOLD as a result

I found it the most sucky experience ever phone wise and felt a fool using the damn thing with or without a BT headset or Mini BT phone or a F**Kin 'Man from Uncle' talking WATCH!

With a nomal phone using BT device is a CHOICE with an ATHENA its a NECESSITY so basically YOU HAVE TO have 2 DEVICES to have a halfway decent phone experience. HAVING to use 2 devices blows the whole convergent BS right out of the window

I cant think of anything I regularly did on my ATHENA that i cant do a LOT better on my current mobile , albeit my uses are more multimedia based than work based.


If you love it great im happy for yah goodluck, but dont assume because you do that everyone else does.

[HeartOfDarkness]

Hey,


I experienced poor quality, echoey calls on the Athena when using it against my head. I had regular complaints about it and eventually It was what pushed me to get rid. I'm not vehemently against the Athena by any means and I had two of the devices with which I tried different radios and different ROMs, but they both had the same call problem.


Ok. But the thing is: from the start, and there can be no doubt about it, the Athena buyer *knows* that there is no embedded earpiece, just like he / she knows that it is big and heavy. You therefore cannot base your judgement on the entire telephony function of the Athena based on something that it isn't supposed to do. It's like saying a car's steering functions are crappy because it cannot turn at right angles ! Had you said that WITH the wired headphone, telephony was sub-par, THEN I would have understood your point, if not agreed with it.


Unfortunately I don't like using BT headsets next to my head all day as it give me a headache, aside from which it's just another battery to keep charged.


I now understand that. But if you were not willing to use the provided wired headset, do you realise then that the Athena was NOT designed for your needs from the very moment you read its technical specifications ?


"I find, using TCPMP and encoding consistent with the screen-size, that it handles video quite nicely. And not many (and by that I mean none) multimedia players allow me to view a movie with my BT headphones on, without any wire, and to have it pause playback instantly when a call reaches me"

My N95 does all of the above, without re-encoding (via coreplayer) including the playback pause thing. Maybe that's just on my device....oh and


I don't systematically re-encode everyting I view on my Athena either. I usually do it more to save storage space than anything else, and because for some things, I like things "optimised", lol. :-)

And by the way, that IS a great thing I like about the video playback functionnalities of a PocketPC device. Using TCPMP, you can throw pretty much everything at the goon and be able to play it "as is". Sometimes it may not come out perfect, but that is more exception than anyting else. On the other hand, even specialised devices like the Archos sometimes, or even usually, need re-encoding.

I don't know about the N95, but with the N92 I had a few days, I did have to re-encode most of my vids in order to play them on the smallish screen.


My N95 is flawed and I'm always on the lookout for new devices, but by the way you put across your needs you would have been just as well getting a Kaiser or an N95 (bluetooth GPS music player camera) and a memory card coupled with a subnotebook or UMPC (with a bluetooth dun for HSDPA). I only say this because you say you carry a mini keyboard and mouse with you. They both add to the bulk and necessitate a bag and they both need batteries.


I don't carry the keyboard and mouse with me all the time, and that's another great thing about the Athena: on a day to day basis, I usually don't even use the provided keyboard. I leave it at work to act as a stand for my Athena (a few tens of Euros saved, in my opinion, from being spent on a third party charging stand), and to type in SMS and other short messages for which it is largely sufficient.

But the Athena + mini-BT-keyboard + mini-mouse beats any laptop, even UMPCs, for functionnality, ease of use, and room when it comes to typing in reports "on the go", whether in the train or anywhere else. Do you realise what alternative you give me for that ? Subnotebook + Kaiser / N95 + dongles + memory cards ? How is that more efficient, whether for the room it takes, or how much it costs ? How about convenience: one "on" pressed on my athena, and everything works right away, compared to turning on all devices, waiting for the laptop to boot, connecting stuff and waiting once again, transfering data from here ot there, etc.


I don't mean to rattle your cage, I am perfectly willing to help you if you have any questions as I used the Athena a lot and am pretty experienced with it. I appreciate that the device is new to you and 'your baby' as it were, so I sincerely hope you carry on enjoying it ;)

Well, not exactly, LOL ! I've had the Athena for a little less than a year, and had a Hermes for a few months before that, and a Universal for about a year and a half before that, etc etc. Actually, my first PDA I got was around 1995, a state of the art and oh-so-slim Palm M500. Although arguably, the Universal was my first PocketPC PDA. I was a die-hard Palm addict up until then with my Clié TH-55, which I still use on occasion as it is still, 5 years after it came out, one of the best non-phone PDA I know of.

And as I said, having the Hermes after the Universal felt like long-winded and relentless torture to me. How people can browse the web (especially if it is rendered correctly), view videos, or use GPS software on such small-screened devices, with such low resolutions as QVGA simply is beyond me. You can't fit anything on the Today screen, you can't fit, all in all, anything anywhere on such screens, lol.

Got rid of it for an Athena as soon as I could.

lol Anyway, as you said, there's no hard feelings, everyone's entitled to his or her opinion. I just like to argue and love to prove people wrong. =P ;-) lol

[HeartOfDarkness]

I dont know what all the moaners are bitching about


Hummm, who's moaning ?


IM the only one who creates HALF DECENT THREADS that start a debate in this place and i dont even have a F**Kin ATHENA ANYMORE! :)


Well, this strikes me as a peculiarly pretentious, self-involved, useless and WRONG statement. If we take this poll as an example, from the start people agreed it was flawed. And discussion strayed from it quite quickly, even if it remained in quite the same "topic".


I couldn't care less if everyone in this place said that making calls on an ATHENA was so good they practically shit GOLD as a result


Well, don't know if you're the "only one who creates HALF DECENT THREADS", but you sure are the only one around here with a mouth as dirty as dung-beetle's.


I found it the most sucky experience ever phone wise and felt a fool using the damn thing with or without a BT headset or Mini BT phone or a F**Kin 'Man from Uncle' talking WATCH!


From your previous comments, I'd be inclined to say that the Athena may not have been the reason why you felt a fool.

I don't really understand why you barge in this way and start polluting your own thread with coarse and largely irrelevent non-sense.

Anyway....


If you love it great im happy for yah goodluck, but dont assume because you do that everyone else does.

You shouldn't assume either that everyone's willing to cought up hundreds of dollars / euros without even thinking a couple of minutes (and reading the functionnalities and specifications of the device they're about to buy) because you yourself evidently didn't.

Enough said.

[newuser888]

Wow, looks like spacecat-fighting is starting again :D

Half-decent thread = thread where there's lots of spacecat-fighting. :D

[HeartOfDarkness]

Wow, looks like spacecat-fighting is starting again :D


lol Sounds like a Tom Jones song-title. :D lol

[newuser888]

I don't really understand why you barge in this way and start polluting your own thread with coarse and largely irrelevent non-sense.


He shits at his own thread everywhere:D Look here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1817798#post1817798

Strangest guy I've ever seen, certainly the guy with the dirtiest mouth.:D

[eaglesteve]

I found it the most sucky experience ever phone wise and felt a fool using the damn thing with or without a BT headset or Mini BT phone or a F**Kin 'Man from Uncle' talking WATCH!

Spacecat,

You don't actually have to talk to your wrist. If you have done A LITTLE reading on bluevoice's website, you will see that the earphone can be unattached from the watch and put on your ear. When done, you put it back to the wrist. But please, stop talking like that for your own good.

[spacecat]

Well, this strikes me as a peculiarly pretentious, self-involved, useless and WRONG statement. If we take this poll as an example, from the start people agreed it was flawed. And discussion strayed from it quite quickly, even if it remained in quite the same "topic".



not pretentious dude fact ! in this section apart from the stickies this is by far the most popular thread and has actually got some debate going.

in the upgrading thread .. apart from the stickies and the real VGA thread .. my SHIFT thread is by far the most popular thread so what gives?

yeah i bought the wrong device i researched it b4 buying but i assumed the video would work, i assumed the mp3 playback might be better , I thought web pages might load within my life time and i thought video streaming would not buffer every 10 seconds
i at least thought the call quality via a BT headset would be good IT WASNT so sue me

I WAS WRONG!

I kinda expected the phone aspect to be a bit crap to be honest but thought that if the above worked well i could LIVE with it.



sadly they didnt and i couldnt.. At least im man enough to admit i made a mistake and move on. whereas your probably some gutless freak.

[leoni1980]

heartofdarkness, your description of using a phone as a modem with a umpc does not fit my experience. For one it is infinitely less fiddly than your (and what used to be my) approach. I turn on my mini laptop and it takes about 20 seconds to boot, it then automatically connects to my phone. No yes, no or connect button pressing required.

[spacecat]

Spacecat,

You don't actually have to talk to your wrist. If you have done A LITTLE reading on bluevoice's website, you will see that the earphone can be unattached from the watch and put on your ear. When done, you put it back to the wrist. But please, stop talking like that for your own good.


Oh silly me if only i knew that you had to detach something from your watch and stick it in your ear and then stick it back on the watch again i would have had a TOTALLY different answer.!

That doesnt sound like anything complicated at all and theres no chance of ever losing the earpiece is there? wow CONVERGENCE IN ACTION


as for my good , how does my talking on a PDA website affect my own good. apart from talking to humourless plonks like you ?

[spacecat]

ok i went to the bluevoice website ...............you gotta be f**kin kidding right

a cheapo digital watch which you have to dismantle to take out the earpiece and another
charger ...............................

[eaglesteve]

ok i went to the bluevoice website ...............you gotta be f**kin kidding right

a cheapo digital watch which you have to dismantle to take out the earpiece and another
charger ...............................

So, you didn't know a bluetooth headset requires it to be charged every few days? Or you are under the impression that you need to carry a charger with you all the time if you use bluetooth headset? I'm impressed with your hughly increased intelligence now.

[spacecat]

So, you didn't know a bluetooth headset requires it to be charged every few days? Or you are under the impression that you need to carry a charger with you all the time if you use bluetooth headset? I'm impressed with your hughly increased intelligence now.

of course i do u numpty but now i have to wear a cheapo digital watch , take it apart with some fiddly headset and charge it!

I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO USE 3 DEVICES ! so no convergence

3 devices are the ATHENA , the Crappy watch and a headset.

should i wear BT glasses as well

[eaglesteve]

of course i do u numpty but now i have to wear a cheapo digital watch , take it apart with some fiddly headset and charge it!

I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO USE 3 DEVICES ! so no convergence

3 devices are the ATHENA , the Crappy watch and a headset.

should i wear BT glasses as well

You forgot to count the Athena's stylus and keyboard which are all detachable.

Aren't you going to tell me that you need more bags to carry the watch if you use it? :D

[leoni1980]

ding ding, round two

[wgary]

OK, here's my $0.02 (US).

1. Of the convergent devices I have owned, this is the first one with phone functionality that is reliable. It actually works. Others have had frequent drops, freezes, and so forth. My last one (TMo MDA) would not reliably hold a call, conference, and many other features. So that's for starters.

2. MS VoiceDial works reasonably well on this device, at least as well as the voice dial on my wife's BlackBerry Curve, plus I don't have to tag entries. Also, the predictive entry by name or number in the dialer works well for me. Call logs work well. Summary: I can find and dial numbers easily.

3. Overall integration is also very good. For example, if someone e-mails or texts a phone number, I can click to dial.

4. The only downside I can see is not being able to hold it to your ear to talk. But that is not part of the design, so get over it. I have BT in my car, and a BT headset for elsewhere. They both work really well. In a pinch, I use the speaker for a short conversation or to say, hold on until I can get my headset on. No biggie for me.

Granted, I'm not a heavy phone user. I do much more with e-mail and text, both of which work very well. But increasingly I am forwarding all phone calls to my mobile because of the integration features, plus I *like* not holding a phone to my ear. If I regularly spent many hours per day on the phone, maybe I'd want a different device -- but I'm not entirely sure about that.

All in all, I'd give this at least a "B" in terms of meeting my telephony needs. Add to that all it's other features, and I am really satisfied. The first time maybe ever that I didn't buy a new phone and immediately start thinking about what I wanted next. I've had it for 7 months and I am happy (although it took a ROM upgrade and lots of tweaking to get to this point).

[HeartOfDarkness]

Well, don't know if you're the "only one who creates HALF DECENT THREADS", but you sure are the only one around here with a mouth as dirty as dung-beetle's.


At least im man enough to admit i made a mistake and move on. whereas your probably some gutless freak.

Well...

It seems that not only do you have a dung-beetle's mouth, you also have its brain-size.

Please go back to the hole you crawled out of to be "man enough" to please yourself with the number of views for the thread, for if the Athena didn't do for you, this indeed seems to.

And let the grownups have a real conversation.

[eaglesteve]

All in all, I'd give this at least a "B" in terms of meeting my telephony needs. Add to that all it's other features, and I am really satisfied. The first time maybe ever that I didn't buy a new phone and immediately start thinking about what I wanted next. I've had it for 7 months and I am happy (although it took a ROM upgrade and lots of tweaking to get to this point).

I also gave a "B", and with the edited post number 1 (reason for the edit was to clarify ), that means "ok" and nothing more nothing less.

But our friend in his SHIFT can make call thread says this means neutral.

I knownot all polls are meant to be fair, but this is like casting a vote for Hillary Clinton, and end up getting George Bush! :D

[eaglesteve]

ding ding, round two

It's only "humour". :D

Let's face it, you all got to love this guy . Just don't take him seriously. Otherwise you'll go crazy with his very strange logic :D

[HeartOfDarkness]

The first time maybe ever that I didn't buy a new phone and immediately start thinking about what I wanted next. I've had it for 7 months and I am happy (although it took a ROM upgrade and lots of tweaking to get to this point).

Exactly my case. It's probably the first time in a looong while, actually, that I'm not even looking at what goes on anymore in the PDA-Phone world with nothing more than mild curiosity.

But the reactions in this thread have me wondering why HTC, with its 7501, didn't choose to integrate an earpiece. I mean, seeing how vehemently some people here consider that it is a requirement for any phone, some people must have told them about it.

Actually, when I heard about hardware differences between the 7501, I was expecting integrated earpiece (however foolish it may look like to be holding such a device to one's ear) and, more importantly, a mecanic keyboard the like of the Hermes'... THAT was something of a disappointment, because although no reviewers anywhere considered the absence of an earpiece an actual problem, pretty much everyone dislikes, at best, the keyboard.

[HeartOfDarkness]

It's only "humour". :D

Let's face it, you all got to love this guy . Just don't take him seriously. Otherwise you'll go crazy with his very strange logic :D

lol Well, I do look kindly upon dung-beetles, after all, they're the great sh*t-eaters that, for instance, allow the savanah to work as an ecosystem.

But they usually don't call me names... :-S

:D

[spacecat]

Well...

It seems that not only do you have a dung-beetle's mouth, you also have its brain-size.

Please go back to the hole you crawled out of to be "man enough" to please yourself with the number of views for the thread, for if the Athena didn't do for you, this indeed seems to.

And let the grownups have a real conversation.

is that the best you can come up with? oooh i feel so put down err not

You know u dont have to post in the thread why dont u take the grown up way out
and not bother. in other words f**k off! :)

as for Eagle dont give up the day job for comedy mate !

yes my logic is really flawed a Phone the size of a book assisted by a Crappy watch and a headset is truly a description of CONVERGENCE IN ONE DEVICE!


I must have been mistaken when using my athena into thinking i was having a bad phone experience , all those missed calls, the bad reception, the BT headset cutting out, the poor voice recognition software, the slow internet , jerky video, crap video streaming
IT WAS ALL A BAD DREAM ...............wasnt it? NO it wasnt.


your logic of denying the GLARING faults of this device is ILLOGICAL
you seem to get very upset when someones says it is a bit crap in certain areas

you are DRAWN LIKE A MOTH TO MY THREADS you cant help yourself, how do you find the time to answer within minutes when your so busy checking stocks and shares on your ATHENA that NEVER LEAVES ITS HOLSTER ON YOUR SIDE !! now thats scary.


You are a bit of weirdo dude, unclip the holster ..PUT THE ATHENA DOWN take your meds
and have a lie down

[spacecat]

Hey Heartofdarkness (HODS) why dont you post in one of your 2 THREADS with a TOTAL of 27 posts between them


HODS posts about himself

1. why am i such a boring twat

2. will my balls ever drop?

answers who knows and NEVER

[HeartOfDarkness]

LMAO This is awesome, lol ! Would sound like my 3 year old nephew, if, of course, his vocabulary consisted of a few semi-english cuss-words.

[spacecat]

LMAO This is awesome, lol ! Would sound like my 3 year old nephew, if, of course, his vocabulary consisted of a few semi-english cuss-words.



Mon DIEU! MY LEETLE SARKOZY IDIOT

[Flar]

Hi Guys,

I can understand that when you start a thread asking for people's opinions you might get a heated debate. However this seems to me more like a pissing contest then a good discussion.

So I'd suggest, you guys all clean up your piss, put on your diapers and behave more like grown-ups and less like 3 year old cousins.

Greetz,

Flar
Site admin.

[mahjong]

I didn't get any joy from 'tweaking' my device since most of the time I was doing it for functionality rather then pleasure, then having to do it all over again when a new ROM came out!

In respect to before "X7500 I traveled with my phone, camera, USB key, HDSPA modem and laptop"
Well there are a number of small phones with better HSDPA capabilities, just as much memory and infinitely better cameras.


I'm using the WM5 oficial ROM in spanish and I don't "tweak" nothing yet and I'm still happy with my X7500 even as a phone.

For me is a replacement for a laptop in the tasks I use the laptop when traveling. I mean... powerpoint, email and storage. I agree with you (and I think I mentioned it) that Word and Excel are far from being perfect in PPC.

Anyway and paying attention to the general "weather" in this threat I must add that I'm happy with my X7500 and I don't want to offense anyone with this.

Peace all.

[HeartOfDarkness]

Thanks Flar !

heartofdarkness, your description of using a phone as a modem with a umpc does not fit my experience. For one it is infinitely less fiddly than your (and what used to be my) approach. I turn on my mini laptop and it takes about 20 seconds to boot, it then automatically connects to my phone. No yes, no or connect button pressing required.

Well ok, but that still is a very bulky, and less convienient solution than:
- press "on" on the 300g, 5" wide screen device.

And there you are.

Besides, I don't think you can say that what you describe as your "procedure" didn't require that you fiddle and tweak for a while before getting everything to work correctly, both on the laptop, on the phone, etc., can you ? :-)

In all honesty, the Athena is of course not perfect. But I *do* (still) wonder why you bought it in the first place, since you don't want to use the clearly stated as mandatory earpiece, be it wired or bluetooth. And since you could see that it was bigger than you evidently consider a phone must be.

[techntrek]

As has already been covered ad-nauseum, the poll here is heavily biased so I'll just weigh in with this. I have had a cell phone since 1993. My first was one of those Motorola gray "flip" phones. I think you were lucky to get 30 minutes talk time on one charge, and it had to be recharged daily. Over the years the phones I used grew in features and battery life, and shrank in size. Yet I never used them for anything but phones - entering contacts was a pain, and trying to keep a schedule was worse. I tried a PDA at one point, but it was useless without an Internet connection anywhere I was and I hate carrying more than one device. Then I learned about the Athena. I was hooked, and now have everything I've always wanted in one device. Yes its large - nearly as large as my first Motorola phone from 1993. But that size also gets a screen size thats actually USEABLE. Everyone here knows the rest of the positives, and the few negatives. I plan on using mine for years, until something finally comes out that still has all the positives and has taken away the negatives.

As for the phone part, overall I would also give it a B. Signal reception is the best of any phone I have ever owned - I'm guessing the large size allows for a large internal antenna. Areas near where I live which had "zero bars" (usually well over -100 db) and wouldn't allow a call to complete unless an external high-gain antenna was connected, now have 2 of 4 bars and good reception. Its nice to have a phone with a speakerphone. The large display (with related large keypad) and ease of maintaining/syncing contacts is wonderful. I do wish they would just have put a damn private speaker into it and been done with it, I don't like being forced to carry a BT around with me. This is the only reason it doesn't get an A.

[eaglesteve]

I'm using official DopodU1000 ROM, and also did not have to tweak in any shape or form as far as the phone aspect is concerned. I don't even use bluetooth. Even with speaker phone, I personally do not think it's so bad to the extent of being labeled complete crap. Perhaps I'm just a little more thick skinned than most people. For VOIP calls I always use wired headset and this gives good enough result.

Signal strength wise, this is the only phone that I've owned that keeps me connected when I go to rural areas in Australia. My Nokia phone which was only a GSM phone, would have zero ability to make call in most part of Australia as GSM is not widely deployed in the rural areas.

This is my only phone with video call capability.

I've installed a program that allows me to send SMS in mass mode, so I'm very pleased with that too.

When I make mobile phone calls, the voice quality is not as good as if I use the headset, but I just decided to accept it and but worry about it as I can still hear what the other guy is saying. I don't need crystal clear sound quality.

Size wise, it's big, but that does not really worry me personally. Yes, some may say I've committed the most unforgivable crime by not feeling any embarrassment. But, if I'm not bothered why should you? I'm not saying you should do what I'm doing. In fact, I think you should get yourself a headset, and that would be the best choice for most people. It's just me that feel ok with holding it against my face, and please don't let that bother you. You see, the thing is, I take Athena as a data device first and voice second. With this mind set I want the size to be this big. As long as iit is still pocketable, the size is right for the data part. When I'm not using my belt pouch, I'm always able to carry it in my pocket. Any bigger will become a problem. Too much smaller will mean realvga not being useful.

The speaker phone is excellent way to make call while driving. Some of my friends install a bluetooth speaker, not with Athena, you don't need to do that.

Searching for name is super easy compared to my previous phones. The intelligent search is fantastic.

Another really positive things about this phone, if we call it a phone, is that the same SIM card is also used for surfing the internet, getting push mail. I could never do that in any of my previous dedicated phones.

If the volume could be controlled to stop the broadcast of my conversation, I would have given it an A rating. For not being able to do this I gave it a B, taking into consideration all the other merits. This means I'm quite happy with it as a phone rather than no strong feeling either way.

[spacecat]

After all the back and forth yadda yadda yadda

The extremes of the argument appear to be those think that the phone is

TOO big and therefore compromised, this is further compounded by the many other faults that have arisen, poor keyboard,slow internet,poor video etc etc


Others feel that the device is a great size esp the huge screen, GPS, etc etc and are prepared to overlook the negative issues


so what would be the best solution to keep all happy?

IMHO I think HTC peaked in terms of size versus portability with the XDA Exec

it was quite biggish but not outlandishly so and also had a lovely big bright touch screen, the keyboard was well designed and could not only protect the screen but also could be swivelled to create a tablet.

If they could have crammed in the Athena specs HSDPA,WM6,GPS,and a micro SDHC slot (minus all the dodgy stuff) i.e. resolved the video and internet issues properly and in the land of dreams put in XP then that would have been the dogs danglies and it would have been worth coping with the larger size

the ATHENA was one design meeting TOO far and the SHIFT was about ten!

HTC have tried too hard and the awful implementation of the SHIFT shows what direction they are heading in

[HeartOfDarkness]

lol

Ever considered your Athena may have been faulty ?

Because when you're not yadda-ing, you keep rambling on about abysmal video playback, etc.

I am a long-time Archos user (since I'm french, as you so subtely interjected), and their players may not be the best in the world, but are supposed to at least be "solid". And well, since I've had the Athena, my Archos has been gathering dust most of the time on my desk. And I'm not easily satisfied on that matter: I have Shure ER5 earbuds to go with the Archos, and a home-theater system worth a few tens of thousand dollars, and a few years ago was the admin of a hi-fi oriented webzine that emphasized on sound and video quality. And yet, for on the go video without hassle, I find the Athena very much on par with many a video player out there, especially considering that very few of those players have screens even half the size of the Athena's.

Aside from the fact that you didn't care to read the full product specifications before buying, did you expect it to be top-notch in everything ? While a "standard", basic mp3-playing Sony Ericsson, for instance, costs almost as much, or even half its price, with barely a tenth of the functionnalities and none of its evolutivity ?

Anyway...

[leoni1980]

that's a bit of a loose argument. Were my two athenas faulty too?! I imagine most people the athena would not be an acceptable mp3 player substitute since the device is big, fragile and startup and track changing of songs leaves a lot to be desired. I believe you find mp3 playback fine, but the market for mp3 players demands slim performers with good battery life and intuitive gui. As an mp3 player athena does not fall into these paradigms, though for you it is fine and i respect that. Video playback out of the box is abysmal. With tcpmp it will play most videos but they will tend to go totally out of sync or be jerky. There is a thread entirely devoted to this problem which is still unresolved and whose blame lies for the most part with the unsupported graphics chip. This and the mic issues are the two major problems i had with the device. No-where in the blurb for this device did it say that there was no embedded mic. Either way the device only cost me 50gbp on contract so i thought i'd give it a shot, and give it a shot i did - for most of a year. I don't wholeheartedly dislike the device and i shouldn't be criticised for giving it a shot. I am perfectly willing to overlook problems and give things a chance, it just happens that in this instance the problems eventually destroyed my enjoyment of the device. I don't decry you for finding the device suited to your needs, but don't overlook the deficiencies of the device for the sake of confrontation. I have many different handsets and am perfectly willing to acknowledge their flaws where any exist.

[wgary]

I'm using official DopodU1000 ROM, and also did not have to tweak in any shape or form as far as the phone aspect is concerned. I don't even use bluetooth. Even with speaker phone, I personally do not think it's so bad to the extent of being labeled complete crap. Perhaps I'm just a little more thick skinned than most people. For VOIP calls I always use wired headset and this gives good enough result.

Signal strength wise, this is the only phone that I've owned that keeps me connected when I go to rural areas in Australia. My Nokia phone which was only a GSM phone, would have zero ability to make call in most part of Australia as GSM is not widely deployed in the rural areas.

This is my only phone with video call capability.

I've installed a program that allows me to send SMS in mass mode, so I'm very pleased with that too.

When I make mobile phone calls, the voice quality is not as good as if I use the headset, but I just decided to accept it and but worry about it as I can still hear what the other guy is saying. I don't need crystal clear sound quality.

Size wise, it's big, but that does not really worry me personally. Yes, some may say I've committed the most unforgivable crime by not feeling any embarrassment. But, if I'm not bothered why should you? I'm not saying you should do what I'm doing. In fact, I think you should get yourself a headset, and that would be the best choice for most people. It's just me that feel ok with holding it against my face, and please don't let that bother you. You see, the thing is, I take Athena as a data device first and voice second. With this mind set I want the size to be this big. As long as iit is still pocketable, the size is right for the data part. When I'm not using my belt pouch, I'm always able to carry it in my pocket. Any bigger will become a problem. Too much smaller will mean realvga not being useful.

The speaker phone is excellent way to make call while driving. Some of my friends install a bluetooth speaker, not with Athena, you don't need to do that.

Searching for name is super easy compared to my previous phones. The intelligent search is fantastic.

Another really positive things about this phone, if we call it a phone, is that the same SIM card is also used for surfing the internet, getting push mail. I could never do that in any of my previous dedicated phones.

If the volume could be controlled to stop the broadcast of my conversation, I would have given it an A rating. For not being able to do this I gave it a B, taking into consideration all the other merits. This means I'm quite happy with it as a phone rather than no strong feeling either way.
You raise two additional important points of merit:

1. Signal strength -- Yes! I get signals where my wife's Curve is flat.

2. Speaker phone -- Yes! This is actually very good. I've done impromptu conference calls in a meeting of 5-10 people with good results. Everyone could hear and be heard. FOR FREE! No extra fee!

I upgrade my rating to a B+.

[spacecat]

lol

Ever considered your Athena may have been faulty ?

Because when you're not yadda-ing, you keep rambling on about abysmal video playback, etc.



well actually i had 2 as well and both were the same.
As well as the poor video and mp3 playback issues there was the Slow internet, rubbish keyboard as well. BT was quite flakey as well.

The ATHENA is one of those devices that SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA
sure i was taken in by the huge screen but after a while ... in my case 7 months .. it just wears off and the irritating things you once ignored start to grate on your nerves.

So Aurevoir Mon Athena !

[wgary]

well actually i had 2 as well and both were the same.
As well as the poor video and mp3 playback issues there was the Slow internet, rubbish keyboard as well. BT was quite flakey as well.

The ATHENA is one of those devices that SEEM LIKE A GOOD IDEA
sure i was taken in by the huge screen but after a while ... in my case 7 months .. it just wears off and the irritating things you once ignored start to grate on your nerves.

So Aurevoir Mon Athena !
"You Will Be Missed!" (not)

Wishing you the best in the forum for whatever device you buy! I suggest Nokia! That would be great!

And, hey man, be a stranger, OK??

[spacecat]

"You Will Be Missed!" (not)

Wishing you the best in the forum for whatever device you buy! I suggest Nokia! That would be great!

And, hey man, be a stranger, OK??

actually I meant goodbye to my Athena not that I would be leaving this forum .... so MOFO u will see lots more of me .. i will stick around just to p**S YOU OFF!

[HeartOfDarkness]

that's a bit of a loose argument. Were my two athenas faulty too?! I imagine most people the athena would not be an acceptable mp3 player substitute since the device is big, fragile and startup and track changing of songs leaves a lot to be desired. I believe you find mp3 playback fine, but the market for mp3 players demands slim performers with good battery life and intuitive gui. As an mp3 player athena does not fall into these paradigms, though for you it is fine and i respect that.

But this is exactly my point: I think you guys have, compared to other devices on the market, way too high expectancies for the Athena.

I agree with you that there are better, smaller, easier to use mp3 players on the market. But there also are worse players, on many respects, GUI-wise, sound quality-wise. Same thing with video, same thing with phone functionalities, same thing with GPS (although I find, comparatively with other solutions, the Athena actually very good in that respect), etc.

With its price tag, it IS a feat to have a device that has such an array of functionalities, even if all of them are averagely implemented.

I think that the differences between our perception is that we who are satisfied with the Athena, on the one hand, had reasonable expectancies about its functionnalities, which is, we didn't expect it to be the equivalent, for each functionality, to the top-notch dedicated device on the market, but a reasonably correct implementation of the functionnality. And we are therefore extremely satisfied that it does all this reasonably well, and that it all fits into a reasonably compact casing.

On the other end, you compare the Athena, functionnality for functionnality, with dedicated, or almost dedicated, devices. Of course, in each case, the Athena may be "beaten", hands down. But where is the integration and the convergence ?

But thanks for explaining the circumstances of you trying on the Athena for size. I just couldn't understand why, with all that you'd said was important to you about a phone, you'd still picked such an expensive device. :-)

[HeartOfDarkness]

well actually i had 2 as well and both were the same.
As well as the poor video and mp3 playback issues there was the Slow internet, rubbish keyboard as well. BT was quite flakey as well.

ROFL !!

Sounds like "the man" got robbed with some kind of chineese copy of the Athena, lol !

Do you sometimes take the time to re-read (see, I didn't even say "think", which shows that I know that some things simply are impossible) the nonsense you write ?

On the same device:
- crappy phone;
- crappy video playback;
- crappy mp3 playback;
- crappy wifi;
- crappy bluetooth.

Wondrous indeed that the leader in PDA Phone manufacture ever let such crap come out of their plants, labeled it for a while its flagship device, not mentionning the fact that even a few people scattered around the globe actually seem to ENJOY using the device.

These couple of lines of yours are a caricature, just like you, in fact.

lol ! Thanks for one thing, at least: the laugh ! :D

[leoni1980]

flagship device it was not: the Wizard and its updates are the flagship line, Athena was devised to show what could be done with Windows mobile devices. A flagship device would never be aimed at such a small market.

No offence.


One thing I would say about the Athena: the black one is so much better isn't it?

It's amazing how a change of colour can change something from ugly (silver/white) to expensive-looking and desireable (shiny black). Whoever is responsible for T-Mobile's colour schemes needs shooting.

[HeartOfDarkness]

lol Even on that we disagree, lol ! But this time, there's no question about who's right or wrong. :-) The "flagship" term comes from the Navy.

In a fleet, the "flagship" is the ship used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships. Unless deception was of the essence, the flagship was the most precious ship, the most heavily armed, in general the most "state of the art" device in the arsenal, hopefully the one which, if pitted against an enemy vessel, would always prevail.

In that respect, and until, arguably, the appearance of the Shift, the Athena IS (or was when it came out, at least) HTC's flagship device, there's no question about that, since no other competing manufacturer has an equivalent, both in price range, intended target, etc.

The Hermes, and Kaiser, are more mass-market devices, lower priced, and DO have equivalents with competitors (Glofiish, etc.).


No offence.


None taken, of course. And... No offence. :-)


One thing I would say about the Athena: the black one is so much better isn't it?

It's amazing how a change of colour can change something from ugly (silver/white) to expensive-looking and desireable (shiny black). Whoever is responsible for T-Mobile's colour schemes needs shooting.

lol So, so true. :-)

[spacecat]

On the same device:
- crappy phone; YES i said
- crappy video playback; YES i Said
- crappy mp3 playback;The sound was ok Access was not
- crappy wifi; NEVER SAID THAT
- crappy bluetooth. BT lost signal sometimes so Not great
Internet access via HSDPA: Slow ,,locating page ..locating page etc

The Advantage as YOU say is pretty average at a lot of things

Maybe YOUR JUST AVERAGE!.........

some of us EXPECT MORE

[leoni1980]

lol Even on that we disagree, lol ! But this time, there's no question about who's right or wrong. :-) The "flagship" term comes from the Navy.

In a fleet, the "flagship" is the ship used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships. Unless deception was of the essence, the flagship was the most precious ship, the most heavily armed, in general the most "state of the art" device in the arsenal, hopefully the one which, if pitted against an enemy vessel, would always prevail.

In that respect, and until, arguably, the appearance of the Shift, the Athena IS (or was when it came out, at least) HTC's flagship device, there's no question about that, since no other competing manufacturer has an equivalent, both in price range, intended target, etc.

The Hermes, and Kaiser, are more mass-market devices, lower priced, and DO have equivalents with competitors (Glofiish, etc.).



None taken, of course. And... No offence. :-)





lol So, so true. :-)




I hate to disagree again (i really do) but the corporate meaning of a flagship device is its primary commercial moneyspinner. usually this device has many features but it is also intended to be driven at the mass-market. it is essentialy a bastardisation of the naval term that you cited which was, i grant you, very eloquently described.


let's agree to disagree on this one or we'll be here all night.

[techntrek]

You raise two additional important points of merit:

Actually that was me...

[wgary]

Actually that was me...
As Scoobie would say, Rut row.
So sorry.

[eaglesteve]

so what would be the best solution to keep all happy?

IMHO I think HTC peaked in terms of size versus portability with the XDA Exec

it was quite biggish but not outlandishly so and also had a lovely big bright touch screen, the keyboard was well designed and could not only protect the screen but also could be swivelled to create a tablet.



I'm not sure this would be my ideal device. 3.6 inch screen of XDA is WAY too small for realVGA to be useful. However, if the screen could cover the entire surface to have at least 4.5 inch size, then I'd go for it.

[eaglesteve]

I agree with you that there are better, smaller, easier to use mp3 players on the market. But there also are worse players, on many respects, GUI-wise, sound quality-wise. Same thing with video, same thing with phone functionalities, same thing with GPS (although I find, comparatively with other solutions, the Athena actually very good in that respect), etc.

With its price tag, it IS a feat to have a device that has such an array of functionalities, even if all of them are averagely implemented.

I think that the differences between our perception is that we who are satisfied with the Athena, on the one hand, had reasonable expectancies about its functionnalities, which is, we didn't expect it to be the equivalent, for each functionality, to the top-notch dedicated device on the market, but a reasonably correct implementation of the functionnality. And we are therefore extremely satisfied that it does all this reasonably well, and that it all fits into a reasonably compact casing.

On the other end, you compare the Athena, functionnality for functionnality, with dedicated, or almost dedicated, devices. Of course, in each case, the Athena may be "beaten", hands down. But where is the integration and the convergence ?

But thanks for explaining the circumstances of you trying on the Athena for size. I just couldn't understand why, with all that you'd said was important to you about a phone, you'd still picked such an expensive device. :-)

My sentiment exactly. I've already mentioned that other than not being able to control the phone volume, Athena is superior to any other phone is every aspect, IMO.

Next, come to MP3. I don't own an iPod and don't intend to, but I do have many other MP3 at home, one was supposed to be an iPod Nano that I bought for my son (it turned out to be a Chinese Copycat iPod Nano). Athena is superior to all these MP3 in every aspect. I find Athena extremely easy to use as an MP3, with the hardware buttons sensibly map to all the things you need to do (such as darken screen, go to previous song, go to next song, volume up, volume down, pause, play, bring up the playlist). Changing song is a real piece of cake. In my case, I use the joystick left right for Previous/Next song, Joystick up/down to control volume, Action to turn off screen, ok button to bring up the playlist so that I can choose a new song with a single touch, the internet browser button to Pause/Play. One thing that many other MP3 player could not do is to have a good speaker so that you can listen to it without headphone. I do this when going to sleep (did'nt want to have anything on my ear if you want to induce sleep, do you). Even in other occassion, I frequently use only the speakerphone to listen to my music. With Ipod, we often see close friends each using one end of the head set to both listen to the music. Of course it's mono for both. To listen Ipod via speakers, you need to carry a bag to bring them along, and people do that when going for picnic. No such issue for Athena. Most of the time, however, I use wired headset to give me clear music. I would give Athena's MP3 player an A rating anytime. The thing about the useability of Athena as an MP3 player depends on the software you're using. I use TCPMP most of the time for both video and music and it works very well for me. Another thing is to choose a good wired headset if you are really really particular about sound quality.

The same with GPS. It has the best size for GPS as compared to any other PDA GPS I had got before. I have had no problem with GPS signal myself, especially with iGO which get fixed very fast.

Camera is very good for day picture taking, but I conceed it is lousy for night scene and in places without adequate natural light.

I personally do not have any issue at all with video playback. I don't get any out of sync problem for some reason. This is one area where I have had some trouble understanding what the real issue is to be very honest. I've asked a poster with this problem to make available his video file for download so that I can understand the issue, but unfortunately I have not been able to get this yet.

Internet browsing is not as fast as I would like it, but I don't get the
locating locating problem that often. It happens once in a very blue moon for reason that I could not identify, but not frequently enough to bother me. When it happens, it could resolve it very easily. Simply exit PIE and go back in again. The inability to play youtube video and display Java based webpages is a limitation. There are also some web pages that do not display correctly in PIE. Sometimes webpages that PIE could not display could be handled well with Opera, so I use it for such occassion. With PIE Plus, I get multi-tab, dedicated icon for forward (any number of step forward), back (any number of step back), favourite, refresh, etc, so useability has vastly improved over the stock PIE and in fact far far more useable than Opera. The nicest thing about using Athena for internet is that it is instant on, availale anywhere, anytime, on a big screen. No need to set up a wifi hotspot with another device, no need to boot up another operating system, no need to carry multiple devices, no need to carry any bag. Just web and walk. Becasue of its small size, it is truely mobile. Unlike the subnotebook solution, which is too bulky, not instant on, not always availalble, and not being able to web and walk (that requires you to sit down). So, while the browser is not perfect and fast, it is still ATM the best mobile internet device on earth. No need to compromise on screen size, which is worth it even if it is just slightly slower than other smaller solution. Therefore, if you ask me to rate Athena as a mobile internet browser it would score a B+, not a complete crap, as that would be lacking in objectivity and fairness in my own mind. One day, when it gets faster, play flash videos natively, and deal with java web pages, it would get an A++ as a mobile internet browser.

Sorry, post is too long again so will stop here:D

[eaglesteve]

On the same device:
- crappy phone; YES i said
- crappy video playback; YES i Said
- crappy mp3 playback;The sound was ok Access was not
- crappy bluetooth. BT lost signal sometimes so Not great


I think the factual evidence, considering ALL aspect of the phone, make a crappy rating unjust. Use it with a bluetooth headset, the only issues which is size and sound quality, are history. Why such an vehement refusal to use it is beyond my understanding. So far, you berated it as having too many devices and therefore not convergent anymore. But I thought you don't want convergence so what's the problem? See the LG Style-I thread. Instead of an additional small phone, you have LG style-I, all problems gone.

See my post regarding video. Would be happy to look at my opinion if you could send me your video file for me to test as I really have no issue with this.

See my post regarding music Access. It's really very very good.

I don't use bluetooth yet, so can't comment. However, by just reading and also research, I understand that we need to look into headset compatibility. Don't know.

[eaglesteve]

As has already been covered ad-nauseum, the poll here is heavily biased so I'll just weigh in with this. I have had a cell phone since 1993. My first was one of those Motorola gray "flip" phones. I think you were lucky to get 30 minutes talk time on one charge, and it had to be recharged daily. Over the years the phones I used grew in features and battery life, and shrank in size. Yet I never used them for anything but phones - entering contacts was a pain, and trying to keep a schedule was worse. I tried a PDA at one point, but it was useless without an Internet connection anywhere I was and I hate carrying more than one device. Then I learned about the Athena. I was hooked, and now have everything I've always wanted in one device. Yes its large - nearly as large as my first Motorola phone from 1993. But that size also gets a screen size thats actually USEABLE. Everyone here knows the rest of the positives, and the few negatives. I plan on using mine for years, until something finally comes out that still has all the positives and has taken away the negatives.

As for the phone part, overall I would also give it a B. Signal reception is the best of any phone I have ever owned - I'm guessing the large size allows for a large internal antenna. Areas near where I live which had "zero bars" (usually well over -100 db) and wouldn't allow a call to complete unless an external high-gain antenna was connected, now have 2 of 4 bars and good reception. Its nice to have a phone with a speakerphone. The large display (with related large keypad) and ease of maintaining/syncing contacts is wonderful. I do wish they would just have put a damn private speaker into it and been done with it, I don't like being forced to carry a BT around with me. This is the only reason it doesn't get an A.


This is a very object and fair rating, and reflects my thinking exactly. I also don't like to be forced to carry a BT headset. So the lack of private speaker is the ONLY issue. For others, size is also the issue. But when put side by side with all the other aspects of the phone, you could see that it is unfair to make it a COMPLETE CRAP or CRAP.

Some say that we're prepared to overlook the flaws just because of some small merits. The opponents says there are just slight imperfection and overwhelmingly there are lots of merits. So who is right? I supposed your degree of satisfaction depends on whether you're looking at the 1/4 empty cup of 3/4 full water. :D

[spacecat]

I think the factual evidence, considering ALL aspect of the phone, make a crappy rating unjust. Use it with a bluetooth headset, the only issues which is size and sound quality, are history. Why such an vehement refusal to use it is beyond my understanding. So far, you berated it as having too many devices and therefore not convergent anymore. But I thought you don't want convergence so what's the problem? See the LG Style-I thread. Instead of an additional small phone, you have LG style-I, all problems gone.

See my post regarding video. Would be happy to look at my opinion if you could send me your video file for me to test as I really have no issue with this.

See my post regarding music Access. It's really very very good.

I don't use bluetooth yet, so can't comment. However, by just reading and also research, I understand that we need to look into headset compatibility. Don't know.

Without wishing to repeat myself over and over and i do take on board that you really rate this device, I basically could just not live with it anymore. Yes i loved the 5 inch screen and in a previous post
I stated I did everything possible to make it work, using all the roms
and DONATING to the makers of them.

However the SAME thing that attracted me to it i.e the 5 inch screen was a HUGE factor in why I had to get rid of it.

Yes i could have carried on with a BT headset but I would still HAVE to carry the Athena at all times. For me the only way to do this would be in a Bag which got to be annoying.
Voice activated dialing was at best haphazard and i used every software there is. The movies looked ok but inevitably jerked/de synced and internet pages and streaming via HSDPA was slow and buffered loads.
MP3s sounded ok but needed 2 handed operation to manage. Now i know that you dont think that makes a difference but it DID to me. Especially when you live in a City like London and travel on the tube everyday.

As i said most of my usage is Multimedia not work/office based and i cant think of ANYTHING I regularly did on my ATHENA that i can not do far more quickly,efficiently and efectively on my Viewty.

The only difference is the screen size which at 3 inches isnt bad for a mobile phone and im prepared to accept the trade off in size to get a device that is just so much more user friendly, light and useful.

I felt like the Athena was dictating to me how i did things, i had to compromise to use it too much. I do not feel that way anymore.



I also found WM6 to be a limitation for things i want to do when I feel the need to have a bigger screen or dont mind carrying a bigger device. Hence i went for an EEE pc which for the money i am amazed at what it can do and its incredibly small size for a laptop.
I can play loads of FULL pc games.pro evo,quake,HL1 & HL2 and loads of others, i can view any website inc youtube and run any app that i need: Bit torrent, Sopcast etc all at HSDPA speeds.

I DONT need to carry the EEE everyday though so i choose when and if i need it or not. With the ATHENA as my phone as well I have NO choice but to carry it everyday which doesnt work for me.

Like i said the XDA exec form factor was about the limit/biggest compromise i could have lived with, but too be honest now i can use XP where ever i want that is now a MUST requirement.

[eaglesteve]

Spaccat,

I'm not doubting that you have a very DIFFERENT requirement from the majority of the Athena owners, hence your needs are better met by a simple phone plus sub notebook.

But just because the specifications do not match your needs does not make Athena a crap. If what you need is a passenger car and by mistake bought a truck and then regretting it. You try your best to make the truck work as a passenger car but no matter how hard you try truck does not work for you. But it does not make the truck a crap. Similarly a guy wanting a truck can't say the passenger car is a crap. It's just a mismatch of needs against functions. Because you don't really need a large VGA screen running realvga like I do, it's hard for you to see how special and unique Athena is. No matter what you do, you will feel the the size is unwanted, unwarranted, provides zero values, and needlessly heavy. Whereas for me there isn't any option other Athena because I simply need the big VGA screen. But let's not say that Athena is a crap phone just because it is WAY too big. Can we agree at least on this point?

XP would never be the right thing for me, on the go. It's not instant on. It consumes too much power. It does not have good software in the area of my needs. The list goes on and on, but it's no crap. For others such as yourself, that's exactly what you want so it appears to be "superior" to WM6. Really they are different animals and serves very different needs. I would not pretend that Athena is a notebook replacement that works well enough on desktop, given the available desktop options. Similarly, we should not pretend that XP is a good mobile OS, given the available mobile options. Can we also agree on this?

If we can agree on both of these points, I think it should bring this debate pretty much to a satisfactory close from both side and we can all have a permanant truce.

[spacecat]

If you know anything about me by now you would know that i dont do truces! :)

HOWEVER .......................

like i said the athena works for you thats great goodluck.

ALL devices (like women!) are compromises
there is a trade off between form and function, i.e. in my case 5 inch screen and noticably heavy against 3 inches and very light.

Up until now i have tended to have larger phone devices because of the increased ability to do other things apart from call.

My recent phone history is SE P900-mini MDA Vario-XDA2i-Athena - LG Viewty

As i am not a prolific phone talker so i am prepared to compromise on size compared to the average person as i like all the multi media addons of bigger devices


Obviously i knew how BIG the Athena was before i bought it but i thought the trade off of the BIG screen and the expected Multimedia functionality would be acceptable.

The problem was the EXTRAS i was expecting , Video,Internet,Music,Streaming were just not GOOD ENOUGH to justify the carrying of such a large device.

I do not expect to pay £350 (on contract) for a device then have to rely on UNKNOWN HACKERS and MODDERS to make the thing half useable. Installing ROMS, loads of FREEWARE software and endless tweaking and DONATING !

This should have ALL WORKED out of the BOX for what some have called a FLAGSHIP device,i call it an experimental device.It feels half finished and underdeveloped and the appalling implementation of the SHIFT indicates to me a company that has lost its way.


SO much as i didnt like carrying a device I knew was BIG the fact that so much about it was also poorly implemented was what made it totally unviable for me.


i dont Know if you mean to be Sarcastic/patronising when you refer the LG viewty as a
SIMPLE PHONE but I feel you are wrong. In fact its a highly complex and well implemented
device that has been clearly thought through by the developer.

A feather light phone that can OUT OF THE BOX:

Playback DIVX flawlessly
play MP3's with album art perfectly
5 MP zoom top quality camera
HSDPA connectivity/ and use as a modem
display internet in seconds
stream video perfectly
120 FPS video camera
sync to OUTLOOK
read documents
watch and upload to YOUTUBE
Watch MOBILE TV
AND run JAVA applications
and more other things than i can remember
IS NOT A SIMPLE DEVICE!


So dont I think the ATHENA is a particularly good device especially for MULTIMEDIA it is really for me JUST a HUGE screen and the poor phone aspect is only compuounded by this

[eaglesteve]

Spacecat,

It's wrong for me to call viewty a simple phone. It's not.

It meets your need perfectly, not would never be right for me.
For example, there is no GPI and I can't run ce based application programs. This later limitation alone is fatal flaw, as running applications is what it is all mostly about. Outside winmo environment, there just isn't enough good application software for me to choose from.

I can live with a lesser Athena camera but not without GPS. You can obviously do without GPS but not without footy tv show. You also don't seem to run third party software applications.

So I need a truck, not a passenger car, whereas you need a passenge car not a truck. Both have their own strengths and shortfalls. Viewty is as crapy to me as Athena is to you. Fair?


Just for my own interest, could you tell me a bit more info about Viewty? Is it easy to transfer large sized movies and mp3 between Viewty and the PC? How much time to transfer a 1 GB file from pc to viewty? Does it have a good speaker for use inside the car? Does the camera work well indoor work poor lighting condition? I know it's a 3 inch tiny screen, but what's the resolution? Does it show just 1/4 of the web page area of what 96dpi Athena does, or less? Are there lots of games available and are they freeware? I might get my wife a Viewty, but also looking at iphone.

[Martincyborg@gmail.com]

its the same here as in the E90 vs Athena thread:

one cannot criticize the Athena just because one doesn't need all the specs!

now lets all be happy with what we have and move on

[spacecat]

Question
Is it easy to transfer large sized movies and mp3 between Viewty and the PC? AND How much time to transfer a 1 GB file from from pc to viewty?

Answer
You can connect the viewty via the USB cable in 2 ways one as data for synching and one as USB mass storage device. The second one is MUCH faster, basically its like transferring at USB2 to a portable hard drive. I transfer a film in about 2-3 mins.Similar to transferring over a lan


Question
Does it have a good speaker for use inside the car? Does the camera work well indoor work?

Answer
Like most mobiles these days the speaker is very loud and clear enough for general listening
The viewty is marketed as a Camera Phone i am NO photographer but the pictures i have taken are very nice. it has loads of settings ISO this and loads of techy stuff i dont know about:)

Question
I know it's a 3 inch tiny screen, but what's the resolution? Does it show just 1/4 of the web page area of what 96dpi Athena does, or less?

Answer
3 inches is big for a phone :) if you use opera mini it compresses the page so you read the whole thing in a column normal size you just scroll down, I think Athena did this as well. It works very well and you can read the whole page no problem. It works in portrait and landscape

Question
Are there lots of games available and are they freeware? I might get my wife a Viewty, but also looking at iphone.

Answer
The viewty is still quite new so there are some but not hundreds of games for it. I am not into mobile phone games , I have a PSP and a EEE!

Other things to consider and maybe I am biased :)
Viewty is HSDPA Iphone is not

Viewty camera is much better

Viewty can take a 8GB micro sdhc card,(memory manager will see 2GB but u can access and playback the whle 8GB)

[eaglesteve]

Question
Is it easy to transfer large sized movies and mp3 between Viewty and the PC? AND How much time to transfer a 1 GB file from from pc to viewty?

Answer
You can connect the viewty via the USB cable in 2 ways one as data for synching and one as USB mass storage device. The second one is MUCH faster, basically its like transferring at USB2 to a portable hard drive. I transfer a film in about 2-3 mins.Similar to transferring over a lan


Question
Does it have a good speaker for use inside the car? Does the camera work well indoor work?

Answer
Like most mobiles these days the speaker is very loud and clear enough for general listening
The viewty is marketed as a Camera Phone i am NO photographer but the pictures i have taken are very nice. it has loads of settings ISO this and loads of techy stuff i dont know about:)

Question
I know it's a 3 inch tiny screen, but what's the resolution? Does it show just 1/4 of the web page area of what 96dpi Athena does, or less?

Answer
3 inches is big for a phone :) if you use opera mini it compresses the page so you read the whole thing in a column normal size you just scroll down, I think Athena did this as well. It works very well and you can read the whole page no problem. It works in portrait and landscape

Question
Are there lots of games available and are they freeware? I might get my wife a Viewty, but also looking at iphone.

Answer
The viewty is still quite new so there are some but not hundreds of games for it. I am not into mobile phone games , I have a PSP and a EEE!

Other things to consider and maybe I am biased :)
Viewty is HSDPA Iphone is not

Viewty camera is much better

Viewty can take a 8GB micro sdhc card,(memory manager will see 2GB but u can access and playback the whle 8GB)


Thanks for the info.

One last question. My wife is very much into day trading of shares and watches share prices like a hawk. Most of them are Java-based webpages. Does Viewty handle this well?

[leoni1980]

Thanks for the info.

One last question. My wife is very much into day trading of shares and watches share prices like a hawk. Most of them are Java-based webpages. Does Viewty handle this well?

Give him an address to test.

The screen display of Viewty is 240 by 400; the iphone's is 320 by 480. Iphone should handle your wife's Java sites well but she'll be pulling her hair out at the slowness unless there's Wifi nearby! I can test her sites on an Iphone, an N95 and a Samsung F700 for you if need be. Personally I think the Iphone only really excels as a WIFI safari browser and multimedia player. It's got a nice UI but is marred by a poor camera, lack of mms support and crippled bluetooth profile.

You could always get her an Athena! ;)

[eaglesteve]

Give him an address to test.

The screen display of Viewty is 240 by 400; the iphone's is 320 by 480. Iphone should handle your wife's Java sites well but she'll be pulling her hair out at the slowness unless there's Wifi nearby! I can test her sites on an Iphone, an N95 and a Samsung F700 for you if need be. Personally I think the Iphone only really excels as a WIFI safari browser and multimedia player. It's got a nice UI but is marred by a poor camera, lack of mms support and crippled bluetooth profile.

You could always get her an Athena! ;)

Athena does not support Java based sites.:o

[leoni1980]

Athena does not support Java based sites.:o

My apologies I thought you were talking about JavaSCRIPT. I don't think ANY mobile OS's can handle Java as a Sun Microsystems would have to develop a plugin for each of the Operating systems and I don't think most could handle it anyway. To be fair I think most of these Java sites will move to Flash soon as it's a bit less clunky.

[eaglesteve]

[QUOTE=leoni1980;1823605]Give him an address to test.

QUOTE]


Spacecat,

try this:
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/forex-charts/
I can't give you the actual site my wife uses as they require user id and password to get in.

Can you see the streaming chart working on your viewty web browser?

[eaglesteve]

I think none of us has mentioned that Athena allows us to make calls using voice command. I've never got any phone before that does this. Does Viewty or N95 do this? My samsung SGH E370 which some of my family members use, are very very good simple phone (with camera, mp3, bla bla bla), but it does not have anything like this.

[leoni1980]

[QUOTE=leoni1980;1823605]Give him an address to test.

QUOTE]


Spacecat,

try this:
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/forex-charts/
I can't give you the actual site my wife uses as they require user id and password to get in.

Can you see the streaming chart working on your viewty web browser?



That site will be unreadable on most browsers owing to the fact that it requires a java applet.

The N95 has voice command facilities. If you need any function specifics I can look at the manual, but I don't use it so I couldn't tell you how good/bad it is. I know that if I press the 'answer' button on the headset it asks me to say a name, but that scares me a little!

[eaglesteve]

[QUOTE=eaglesteve;1823863]



That site will be unreadable on most browsers owing to the fact that it requires a java applet.

The N95 has voice command facilities. If you need any function specifics I can look at the manual, but I don't use it so I couldn't tell you how good/bad it is. I know that if I press the 'answer' button on the headset it asks me to say a name, but that scares me a little!

I find the voice calling feature very useful while in the car using the handsfree speakerphone. I just press a hardware button and say "call Leoni", Microsoft Voice Command will say out the name and ask me to confirm that this is the person to call. If he has more than one numbers (say mobile and home), it will ask me mobile or home. I just have to say either home or mobile, and the right number would be called. Don't need to bring up the phone application, search the contact list, etc. It's safe and fast. This is the very first phone in my life (started using mobile phone in 1992) that has such a capability. I do NOT need to place a voice tag on any of the contact.

My previous phone is a Samsung SGH E370, looks dated technologically speaking compared to Athena as a phone. I think it can also do voice dialing but I have to "train" the phone first by attaching a voice tag to each of the contacts before hand, which Athena does not require.

[eaglesteve]

I wish to share with all of you how I implement the phone profile on Athena.

I have installed a program called Profiles for Windows Mobile version 2.2.0 which occupies just one line on my today screen. Clicking and holding it will let me choose to go to the option screen, on which I can create a normal and a silent profile. The must suitable ringtone is assign to each profile there. For me, the silent ringtone is an ultra sonic mosquitoe ringtone which I can hear but some can't. Before a meeting, I touch the profile line on the today screen and the two profile pops up for me to select. There's also option to revert back to the other profile automatically in say an hour.

In this way, Athena is no different from any regular phone in its ability to be discreet during meeting.

Note that instead of the ultra sonic sound, you could also prerecord the sound of a vibrating phone as the ringtone of silent profile.

[leoni1980]

Hi Eaglesteve,

I've tested out the built-in voice command on the N95:

basically you either press and hold the right selection key or press the 'answer' key on your headset (wired or bluetooth) then say the contact's name clearly. So long as the contact is stored on the phone it will then repeat the name and after about 3 seconds begin dialling. If you say the name followed by 'home' it will call the home number.

You can assign applications to open when you say their name, along with profile settings. By default if I press the command key and say 'silent' the phone will repeat 'silent' then go to the silent profie.

It's pretty neat, but not much use to me as i dont drive!

[ollli3d]

I ve been using minis, ppcs since they exist, now the htc makes it (in combo with the jvc mp series, the ultimate flexible and mobile solution yet. take any providers umts and online options, and u are world wide available and mobile. yes there are drawbacks (like the making calls, but for that u setup the voice dials (works great for me)) ...
besides, when u talk while having a headset - bluetooth or whatever - with what other phone can u take notes, look up other stuff or even continue working - other than this baby.
anyway, u gotta love this thing and use all options available, that is what the htc x7500 is for, then u may even overlook the little disadvantage(s)... and hey, get a stereo bluetooth headset, there is nothing like stereo-phony cool:

ollli

[techntrek]

I think none of us has mentioned that Athena allows us to make calls using voice command. I've never got any phone before that does this.

If you are talking about voice tags, my last Nokia did it, 5 years ago. I think it was model 6010. If you mean true voice recognition, I don't know if any other has it.

[eaglesteve]

If you are talking about voice tags, my last Nokia did it, 5 years ago. I think it was model 6010. If you mean true voice recognition, I don't know if any other has it.

I meant voice recognition, sorry for not being clear enough.

Which also mean that not only you can dial a name, but also call a number, start an application, play a music, etc using voice.

[leoni1980]

I meant voice recognition, sorry for not being clear enough.

Which also mean that not only you can dial a name, but also call a number, start an application, play a music, etc using voice.

In that case the n95 has it. You don't have to programme each individual contact in - the application recognises what's in your contacts list. You can initiate any application - even individual bookmarks, or profiles with your voice. It would be very handy if i drove.

[eaglesteve]

In that case the n95 has it. You don't have to programme each individual contact in - the application recognises what's in your contacts list. You can initiate any application - even individual bookmarks, or profiles with your voice. It would be very handy if i drove.

Viewty shop not open?

[spacecat]

.........?

[spacecat]

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

22% felt it was the best phone ever

51% had no strong feelings either way and so could be considered neutral

If you combine the 2 negative choices into one , ie. you would assume that anyone who chose 'totally sucks ass' would have chosen 'pretty crap' then 27% thought the Athena was pretty crap as a phone.


Therefore 5% more of people on an Athena website thought it was pretty crap as a phone compared to this who thought it was 'the best ever' which i think is pretty high .

Obviously most people had no strong feelings one way or the other

[eaglesteve]

THE RESULTS ARE IN!

22% felt it was the best phone ever
51% had no strong feelings either way and so could be considered neutral
If you combine the 2 negative choices into one , ie. you would assume that anyone who chose 'totally sucks ass' would have chosen 'pretty crap' then 27% thought the Athena was pretty crap as a phone.
Therefore 5% more of people on an Athena website thought it was pretty crap as a phone compared to this who thought it was 'the best ever' which i think is pretty high .
Obviously most people had no strong feelings one way or the other

You have put two answers into B. One answer is okay and another is neutral. Your have explained item B as okay, not neutral in your post number 1. If the rest of B voters' intention were like mine, I voted okay, and not neutral.
The only crap here is the way this poll was conducted.

About 3/4 of Athena users think it is okay at least. Only 1/4 think it's crap. I should know the meaning of my own vote.

[spacecat]

i set the poll dude and my analysis is what counts

B= okay NO STRONG FEELINGS EITHER WAY so neither good not bad
If something is ok it doesnt make it GOOD or BAD So i would consider it Neutral.

Therefore if you come down to the extremes more people thought it was Crap than Good! and thats on an ATHENA SITE

I love the way you comeback here time after time DEFENDING the ATHENA its very funny. Its also funny that NO ONE ELSE DOES!

why is that?

ps i couldnt open that site re shares in XP let alone on my viewty, but i think if the Athena cant see it with all its abilities how could a 'SIMPLE' phone :)

still make her day and buy her one

[Confucious]

If you want a simple phone then buy one.

The Athena is OK as a phone but fantastic at most other things.
People don't buy just as a phone.
If you don't like it, fine, we do.

[spacecat]

The Athena is OK as a phone but fantastic at most other things.


Its average at a lot of things to be honest

[gtm55]

Its average at a lot of things to be honest

sell it my friend, you seem to be so unhappy with it...

[eaglesteve]

i set the poll dude and my analysis is what counts

B= okay NO STRONG FEELINGS EITHER WAY so neither good not bad
If something is ok it doesnt make it GOOD or BAD So i would consider it Neutral.

Therefore if you come down to the extremes more people thought it was Crap than Good! and thats on an ATHENA SITE

I love the way you comeback here time after time DEFENDING the ATHENA its very funny. Its also funny that NO ONE ELSE DOES!

why is that?

ps i couldnt open that site re shares in XP let alone on my viewty, but i think if the Athena cant see it with all its abilities how could a 'SIMPLE' phone :)

still make her day and buy her one


Your no feeling either way can also be interpreted to mean neutral to whether it is the BEST or the OKAY phone. You already have two crap in C and D, so you can't have another half crap in B.

It is the voters clarification is the meaningful of their own vote that counts. okay means the phone works. 75% of us think that the phone works. If you misinterprete it to mean most people think it does not work, you're putting words in our mouths.

If people don't think this phone is okay, they will sell it. Most of us are keeping it.

Most of us, and I'm not the only one have said good things about it than bad on this thread. This should tell you that answer B is a positive answer rather than a negative one.

Of course, you have from the very outset determine on fulfilling your life mission of proving that Athena is crap and so that you can feel good about your phone change and to feel good about Viewty. If viewty is really that good you should be able to feel good without having to tear down Athena by deceitful poll.

I'm sure you have read that I'm not the only one that says your poll question are biased and deceitful.

[spacecat]

What i dont understand , is why it bothers you so much? you have one .. you clearly love it ..

1.why do you care that more people think its crap than good (as a phone)?

2.why did you BOTHER to answer a POLL you thought was deceitful and biased? Why didnt you just ignore it?

As a famous British Prime minister once said
'There are LIES, Damn LIES and STATISTICS!'

you can interpret and analyse the results of any survey, study or poll in any way you want.

My poll had one positive answer , one neutral answer and 2 negative answers the negatives out weighted the positive FACT the Neutral out weighed both positive and negative FACT.


You talk complete crap where did i say that Ok mean't positive or negative. i said 'NO STRONG FEELINGS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER'
i.e NEUTRAL neither good nor bad!


remember the poll was as a PHONE not all the other functions so some people might put up with a CRAP PHONE but keep the device anyway.....i did for 7 months :)

Theres NO deceit i just gave people 2 levels of crapness thats all big deal.

pretty crap or totally sucks ass. lets face it if you didnt put 'totally sucks ass' you WOULD HAVE PUT pretty crap!

once again YOUR OBSESSION singles YOU OUT .... Its just a phone albeit a poorly implemented one in many areas..

anyway get your wife the Viewty she deserves something nice for living with a NUTTER!

[newuser888]

The overall sense I feel from reading the post is most have no negative feeling toward Athena as a phone.

Spacecat just want to twist the picture to suit his liking:D
His poll question, on the face of it means A and B answers are postive answers. The BIG PROBLEM with response B is that there are actually TWO completely different responses embedded in it. The first part of the response, OK usually means I have no problem with the phone although it may not be the best phone in the world. The second part of response B means "I don't know" or "not a crap, but not fantastic either". Spacecat, why don't know do this poll again with these answers:

Question: Taking into account all the phone related capabilities (such as reception, technology innovation, size, integration) and the fact that one has the choice of using bluetooth headset, how do you rate Athena as a phone?

A. Outstanding
B. Above average
C. Average
D. Below Average
E. Fail

I'm sure your result will be very different.

Eaglesteve, you obviously have very strong feeling that this is quite a good phone. I'm surprised that you voted B and not A.:confused:

[eaglesteve]

The overall sense I feel from reading the post is most have no negative feeling toward Athena as a phone.

Spacecat just want to twist the picture to suit his liking:D
His poll question, on the face of it means A and B answers are postive answers. The BIG PROBLEM with response B is that there are actually TWO completely different responses embedded in it. The first part of the response, OK usually means I have no problem with the phone although it may not be the best phone in the world. The second part of response B means "I don't know" or "not a crap, but not fantastic either". Spacecat, why don't know do this poll again with these answers:

Question: Taking into account all the phone related capabilities (such as reception, technology innovation, size, integration) and the fact that one has the choice of using bluetooth headset, how do you rate Athena as a phone?

A. Outstanding
B. Above average
C. Average
D. Below Average
E. Fail

I'm sure your result will be very different.

Eaglesteve, you obviously have very strong feeling that this is quite a good phone. I'm surprised that you voted B and not A.:confused:


My okay really means it may not be the best phone in the world, but it's still very good. I read post 1 and interpret the meaning differntly from spacecat. Anyway, why not you start a new poll?

[athenalover]

The overall sense I feel from reading the post is most have no negative feeling toward Athena as a phone.

Spacecat just want to twist the picture to suit his liking:D
His poll question, on the face of it means A and B answers are postive answers. The BIG PROBLEM with response B is that there are actually TWO completely different responses embedded in it. The first part of the response, OK usually means I have no problem with the phone although it may not be the best phone in the world. The second part of response B means "I don't know" or "not a crap, but not fantastic either". Spacecat, why don't know do this poll again with these answers:

Question: Taking into account all the phone related capabilities (such as reception, technology innovation, size, integration) and the fact that one has the choice of using bluetooth headset, how do you rate Athena as a phone?

A. Outstanding
B. Above average
C. Average
D. Below Average
E. Fail

I'm sure your result will be very different.

Eaglesteve, you obviously have very strong feeling that this is quite a good phone. I'm surprised that you voted B and not A.:confused:


I've created a thread to re-poll this question in a more neutral fashion.

Everyone, please cast your vote here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1832515#post1832515

[Janis]

Frankly, I felt a little odd, at first, holding my Tmo MDA to my head when I first got it, because everyone said it was a little bit big, so I got hooked on BT. I've gotten to the point where much of the day the actual unit is just sitting around somewhere, and with voice dial, I think of my headset as my phone. Certainly solves the "too big" problem.... (Anything men think is too girly but isn't drag is probably attactive to a lot of women. Have some balls; get a high-end man bag.)

In comparison to most phones: Who can complain about 3mp pics? And having any qwerty keyboard for texting is a must for me now. I miss not being able to hold the unit easily by the keyboard, though.

The speaker phone on my x7501 is well used, too. I can't imagine a better way to keep families a little more cohesive than to say "oh, sorry, I don't have anything but speaker." heh, heh. I love it. It sounds great, and I can use it in my Subaru without anyone complaining. (Subarus are known for their cab noise).

Maybe it's radio ROM, but it gets calls I think my wizard wouldn't have.

As a phone, I say thumbs up. Now, if I could get the microdrive, some 3rd party soft, and the 128dpi to behave....

[athenalover]

Frankly, I felt a little odd, at first, holding my Tmo MDA to my head when I first got it, because everyone said it was a little bit big, so I got hooked on BT. I've gotten to the point where much of the day the actual unit is just sitting around somewhere, and with voice dial, I think of my headset as my phone. Certainly solves the "too big" problem.... (Anything men think is too girly but isn't drag is probably attactive to a lot of women. Have some balls; get a high-end man bag.)

In comparison to most phones: Who can complain about 3mp pics? And having any qwerty keyboard for texting is a must for me now. I miss not being able to hold the unit easily by the keyboard, though.

The speaker phone on my x7501 is well used, too. I can't imagine a better way to keep families a little more cohesive than to say "oh, sorry, I don't have anything but speaker." heh, heh. I love it. It sounds great, and I can use it in my Subaru without anyone complaining. (Subarus are known for their cab noise).

Maybe it's radio ROM, but it gets calls I think my wizard wouldn't have.

As a phone, I say thumbs up. Now, if I could get the microdrive, some 3rd party soft, and the 128dpi to behave....


Hi Janis,

Nice post and point of view. Would you mind also casting your vote in this thread please? Thanks.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...15#post1832515

[joohan]

I cannot avoid reflecting over the poor phone functions in Windows Mobiles. I use my Athena extensively for e-gprs surfing. I did it as well with my old qtek 2020 many years ago. Both have the same problem: calls gets redirected to the answering service! It does not happen all the time. But many times a day. People have suggested it has to do with the network provider, but I don't think so. Nokias works well on the same network. I belive that the phones are so complicated, and runs so many services, that the basic phone functionality is as stable as normal pc services (not reliable).

To plague me even more, is the need to use a headset. The bluetooth headset of mine (ver 1.2) cannot connect reliably to the phone. Every so often it neglects to connect, especially when I receive calls. Very annoying. I have been using the Athena for 7 months, and will in the future only use it as a surfing device. No more calls on it.

I would assume that most people here in the forum, uses the Athenas phone functions rather little. It will be interessting to see if the Sony Ericsson X1 will get stable phone functions.

//Johan

[leoni1980]

I had two athenas and with each one I had sound problems when using the built in speakerphone. Perhaps it was my stubble rustling on the casing, or perhaps I was extremely unlucky. I had a bluetooth headset and a pair of sony ericsson bluetooth earbuds for handling calls, but I never found this convenient and didn't like having them around my neck or on my ear all the time.

Call handling was the primary reason I got rid of my Athena for good after seven months. Other people don't seem to have any problems though so sometimes I wonder if I just dreamed up all my problems!


To be fair when it came to call handling on my Hermes and on my Universal I had frequent problems of crashes and glitches when answering calls so I'ts more than likely a universal problem with windows mobile than the fault of the Athena. Like I said though, other people seem to be problem-free so maybe I'm deceiving myself and there weren't any problems at all. I still have my Hermes for certain applications but now have a Nokia E90 which is much better for call handling and texting than the Athena and has a fabulous widescreen for watching movies. It has a better camera, better video recording and a dual-screen layout which not only protects the larger display but allows full access to all applications, automatically switching dimensions and orientation when the lid is opened. It has bluetooth EDR too so I can either use bt or WIFI (with Joikusoft) to tether my HSDPA connection to my laptop.

There's great voice command features - it even reads your text messages out - and built in premium Quickoffice software, a PDF viewer, a push email wizard, live messenger with Hotmail

I do miss the touchscreen though, and there are certain applications I'd like on the E90 that are ony currently available on the E90. Suppose it works both ways though.

I'll take a look at the Athena's upgrade in the future and if they've ironed out the glitches i'll consider it, but at the moment I wouldn't go back.

[toyfreak]

There's no subtle way to put it... The speakerphone in the Athena SUCKS! It works fine in quiet environments but I defy anyone with an Athena to attempt a conversation with someone in a noisy place, like a nightclub. This is impossible without a headset.

The speakers and microphone seem to be interfering with one another. I have tried covering the microphone with my finger while not talking, covering the left speaker (nearest the microphone) etc. with no success.

The solution is simple: If the Athena is your primary (or in my case only) phone a BT headset is a necessity. I have a Motorokr S9, a scala500, an LG Style-I, and a Jabra BT-8010. I keep them all charged up and use whatever best fits the occasion.

[leoni1980]

maybe im not the only one who thinks that the Athena is pretty naff as a phone then. If it weren't for my problems with the speakerphone i genuinely wouldve kept my athena, but complaints were frequent and i couldnt stand having a headset in, or on standby all the time. I found it gave me a headache; and i also work with an electrosensitive so i felt it wise to curb my bluetooth usage where possible.

The touted upgrade for the Athena annoys me: all the technology within it is old news and could easily have been integrated by HTC in the first place. why didn't they integrate a touchflo menu with a HTC Touch style cube? I think the original Athena was half-baked, ill-conceived and should have been subsidised as a testers' device: htc put very little effort into its implementation and now decide to release an update which basically does what the original Athena SHOULD have done. I hope they offer a part-trade to Athena owners to make up for their negligence, and perhaps offer some of the developers on here jobs: they seem to have their heads screwed on more than their own bods.

[johnwalk]

Quite agree, My year is up with the ameo, now tmobile have sent me a lovely mda touch plus, soon got used to the size, and just to be able to slip it into your pocket without your trousers falling down is bliss.
but i must admit i miss the size of the screen especially at work, I might not have loved the ameo as a phone, but as a pda, its the dogs bollocks as far as im concerned, I will love and cheris it until somthing decent comes out.

[leoni1980]

Quite agree, My year is up with the ameo, now tmobile have sent me a lovely mda touch plus, soon got used to the size, and just to be able to slip it into your pocket without your trousers falling down is bliss.
but i must admit i miss the size of the screen especially at work, I might not have loved the ameo as a phone, but as a pda, its the dogs bollocks as far as im concerned, I will love and cheris it until somthing decent comes out.

I'm using a Nokia E90 Communicator and I really like it, though i'm due a contract upgrade in a few months and i'm considering another Windows Mobile device. The only thing putting me off is that they all (including the Athena) have basically rubbish cameras unless used in daylight, with poor video recording functionality. This coupled with the graphics accelerator problems on most HTC devices is putting me off for now. Unfortunately Nokia is the only major manufacturer not to have stepped into the Windows Mobile arena with any of their devices - meaning we'll never see a touchscreen N95 8gb with Windows Mobile. Shame really as for me this would be the perfect device for me and would utilise all the windows mobile apps that i'm not making the most of at the moment....