After doing much research on SmartPhones, I decided to go with the new
T-Mobile Shadow. I am happy with almost everything about it, except
for 2 MAJOR things.

1. Battery life is utterly pathetic - this has been discussed
elsewhere, and T-Mobile acknowledges it is a known issue, but at this
point plans to do nothing about it. People are saying they need to
charge their phone twice a day with only modest use! That has been my
experience as well.

2. With ActiveSync and automatic Device Locking that is imposed by
Microsoft Exchange policy, you will need to unlock your phone via
password no less frequently than every 15 minutes. While this is true
of ALL SmartPhones using Exchange, the difference is that with the
Shadow, you need to open your phone's slider to get to the keypad to
enter the password. This completely defeats the benefit of having a
simple UI on the exterior. I cannot make a call, even from my MyFaves
list, without opening the phone and unlocking via password. The
nuisance, of course, is really when you're driving - and one can argue
that we shouldn't really be dialing and driving at the same time
anyway. But the whole point of a simple clean top-level interface
with basic functionality is that you should be able to USE the simple
clean top-level interface for basic functionality. Requiring this
password really kills this phone.

Given the two issues above, I am contemplating exchanging the phone
for either a Blackberry Pearl or Curve, or at least for the older T-
Mobile Dash, all of which at least have the keypad on the face of the
device, requiring fewer mechanical manipulations (plus, especially
with the Blackberry, they're know for better battery life).

I also found that the call quality on the Shadow was very poor. I used
it for 2 days in New York and it was terrible.



On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:27:45 -0800 (PST), RSS <rsilverst******.com>
wrote:

>After doing much research on SmartPhones, I decided to go with the new
>T-Mobile Shadow. I am happy with almost everything about it, except
>for 2 MAJOR things.
>
>1. Battery life is utterly pathetic - this has been discussed
>elsewhere, and T-Mobile acknowledges it is a known issue, but at this
>point plans to do nothing about it. People are saying they need to
>charge their phone twice a day with only modest use! That has been my
>experience as well.
>
>2. With ActiveSync and automatic Device Locking that is imposed by
>Microsoft Exchange policy, you will need to unlock your phone via
>password no less frequently than every 15 minutes. While this is true
>of ALL SmartPhones using Exchange, the difference is that with the
>Shadow, you need to open your phone's slider to get to the keypad to
>enter the password. This completely defeats the benefit of having a
>simple UI on the exterior. I cannot make a call, even from my MyFaves
>list, without opening the phone and unlocking via password. The
>nuisance, of course, is really when you're driving - and one can argue
>that we shouldn't really be dialing and driving at the same time
>anyway. But the whole point of a simple clean top-level interface
>with basic functionality is that you should be able to USE the simple
>clean top-level interface for basic functionality. Requiring this
>password really kills this phone.
>
>Given the two issues above, I am contemplating exchanging the phone
>for either a Blackberry Pearl or Curve, or at least for the older T-
>Mobile Dash, all of which at least have the keypad on the face of the
>device, requiring fewer mechanical manipulations (plus, especially
>with the Blackberry, they're know for better battery life).

Mine's great -- call quality is excellent. EDGE internet radio streaming
works better than any device I've used; bluetooth stereo sounds great. Yes,
the battery life isn't a strong point -- so -- it's a 2-battery phone.
Ideally, the phone would've shipped with a spare battery and a way to charge
just the spare battery when not in use. Other than that, it's a great
little device with a well planned, easy to use interface.

"RSS" <rsilverst******.com> wrote in message
news:a1307c5e-632e-45bd-924d-cb44db22c211@e25g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> After doing much research on SmartPhones, I decided to go with the new
> T-Mobile Shadow. I am happy with almost everything about it, except
> for 2 MAJOR things.
>
> 1. Battery life is utterly pathetic - this has been discussed
> elsewhere, and T-Mobile acknowledges it is a known issue, but at this
> point plans to do nothing about it. People are saying they need to
> charge their phone twice a day with only modest use! That has been my
> experience as well.
>
> 2. With ActiveSync and automatic Device Locking that is imposed by
> Microsoft Exchange policy, you will need to unlock your phone via
> password no less frequently than every 15 minutes. While this is true
> of ALL SmartPhones using Exchange, the difference is that with the
> Shadow, you need to open your phone's slider to get to the keypad to
> enter the password. This completely defeats the benefit of having a
> simple UI on the exterior. I cannot make a call, even from my MyFaves
> list, without opening the phone and unlocking via password. The
> nuisance, of course, is really when you're driving - and one can argue
> that we shouldn't really be dialing and driving at the same time
> anyway. But the whole point of a simple clean top-level interface
> with basic functionality is that you should be able to USE the simple
> clean top-level interface for basic functionality. Requiring this
> password really kills this phone.
>
> Given the two issues above, I am contemplating exchanging the phone
> for either a Blackberry Pearl or Curve, or at least for the older T-
> Mobile Dash, all of which at least have the keypad on the face of the
> device, requiring fewer mechanical manipulations (plus, especially
> with the Blackberry, they're know for better battery life).