Hello Samsung i760, Goodbye Treo 650!

Around Black Friday I finally bought a new phone called the Samsung i760, after looking for about 6 months for a phone I really liked. For the past few years I've owned a Treo 650, so this is not my first hefty cellphone, or my first touchscreen phone. It is, however, my first Windows Mobile phone.



The hardware was one of the first things that made the phone seem attractive to me. With the Treo I had the QWERTY keyboard always at my fingertips, although the buttons were rather small. It was a useful phone but not entirely attractive or "cool." Only tech geeks said "ooooo" when they saw it. However, the Samsung looks sleek despite its size (although it is slightly smaller than the Treo!). It's a smooth black, with no antenna sticking out the top. The best part: it slides open. Not up like the Chocolate phones, but sideways...and when it slides, you find a nice QWERTY keyboard with comfortable keys inside! The screen even flips around so that you can hold the phone horizontally to type. Not only is this incredibly "cool," but it is also very useful; I have a decent sized screen without squishing the keyboard, but I also just have numbers on the main part for when I'm just using it as a phone! The phone is so fun, I love it! Sure, the LG Voyager and enV phones from Verizon both also flip open, but they only have a tiny screen to use with the keyboard.



Did I mention that it also has a 1.3 megapixel camera with a flash, as well as a battery that lasts me days even when I use it?? Or that it also came with an extended battery that is supposed to last even longer? The battery power is similar to what I enjoyed with the Treo, although since the battery is thinner it fits easier into my purse for when I want to carry an extra.

Of course, one the main reasons I got this phone as well is the fact that it's Windows Mobile, and I haven't been disappointed. I had many problems coaxing my Treo into syncing with my laptop, to the point where I just gave up and didn't sync for months. With Vista, I just plug my phone into the laptop (my laptop doesn't have Bluetooth built-in), open the Mobile Device Center, and it happens. No fights, no plugging and unplugging, no failure. It just works. Hallelujah!

Another great part aspect of the software is that the user interface is MUCH BETTER than the Palm interface. I don't need pretty graphics on my phone, but it sure does make using it a lot more fun! It also helps that I can customize my main screen to show my upcoming calendar appointments, tasks, missed calls, etc. I never had these types of options before! Now it's easy to see exactly where I'm supposed to be. Not to mention that I now have the wide world of Windows Mobile software at my fingertips! I even have a development kit for windows mobile from years ago, so it would actually be fairly straight forward to make my own!

Of course, the phone is not perfect, and some of the downfalls are so frustrating at times that I wonder for a few seconds why I bought it. For instance, the call button is on the side of the phone, approximately where one holds the phone when talking on it. If this button is pushed, it is not ignored, but instead starts doing this horrible beeping sound that interrupts the call so that neither person can hear the other. There is no way to stop this sound that I have found so far, but instead you must wait it out for about 10 seconds. So far that has not happened on any extremely important calls, but I'm just waiting for the day when it does and the person hangs up on me. The other little thing that annoys me is that it takes a microSD card instead of a standard SD card; for some people this is not a problem, but I have SD cards out the a**, whereas I have no microSD cards lying around. I've yet to make myself spend more money to get one.

Minor annoyances also include the fact that it doesn't flip screen layout as well as the iPhone does, as the screen is always vertical when it's open and horizontal when it's closed. But I can live with that!

So, moral of the story? Sometimes waiting for the right new phone is the best decision, because eventually something will come along that makes you really really happy.