In the following article, I describe acquiring Internet access on my Dash handset with no data plan, free of charge and without restriction. Since then, several kind folks have added to this discussion. Also, I have experienced an outage in my data access that spurred a phone conversation with T-Mobile. In this conversation, new information has come to light regarding a glitch in the way data-enabled phones from T-Mobile interact with the network. Apparently, some phones are granted untethered access to the Internet for short periods of time due to a
glitch in the system.
Read more…On the way back from our holiday excursion to the South, I left my not-so-beloved Motorola RAZR in a brown cab. Since there are thousands of brown cabs in DC and hundreds of cab companies, I decided to forego the search for it altogether and find a new phone instead. The contract was up on my RAZR and the insured replacement had a $70 deductible. New contract aside, I’m not paying $70 for another RAZR. The front screen went out after three months of use forcing me to have to open the phone to reveal the identity of callers. And the battery life was pathetic, at best. (Just so you know my beef with the thing.)
The Process
For a brief time, I considered a phone company switch. Verizon has great service here, but I’ve always had issues with their poor customer service. They even have poor sales initiative; I spoke to a lady by phone who wanted nothing to do with me when I asked her some questions about Verizon’s proprietary phone operating systems which are renowned for slowing down their devices. I just wanted to know if they had any “clean” phones. And that’s not the first time I’ve been rushed off the phone by a Verizon salesperson. It seems like they want the consumer who calls and immediately purchases something, not the consumer who has questions before purchasing. And, honestly, I just didn’t feel like pursuing anyone else right now. So, I decided to give T-Mobile one more year. Their network coverage of my life isn’t superb, but we have a great plan at a great rate and their customer service has always been good enough for me. They’ve even credited us a few times on issues where our bill was a bit high (and our fault).
I knew I wanted a smartphone or PocketPC. After doing some research, I liked the Treo line, the Motorola Q, the Blackberry Pearl and this phone they called the T-Mobile Dash. I lined the four (active) phones up in the store and gave them all a good thrashing. The Treo was pretty hot, but also expensive. The Q was okay, but I was still so depressed from my RAZR experience that I couldn’t bring myself to really like it. I also had issues with the overall feel and layout of the phone. The Q didn’t seem natural. The Blackberry was nice and priced to move, too. It was a tough call there. Once I got my hands on the Dash, though, I was very, very pleased. This phone felt right in my hands and I actually liked the layout of things. The OS seemed snappy enough and I was surprised at the $149 price tag. (That price was with a two-year contract renewal, but the T-Mobile agent, Taon, at 15th and H St NW, gave me that price at a one-year renewal on a new “customer loyalty” pricing scheme. Fine by me.)
I asked Taon lots of questions about the Dash and he answered them all pretty well. Then I found out that it was the phone he had used since it arrived in the smartphone line a few months ago. So I also got his perspective on “a few months down the road.” And he really wasn’t trying to sell me on any one phone, I really think I had already sold myself. (The Engadget review was positive.) Taon really gave a nice overview of what they had that could meet my needs, voice and data, and I appreciated that.
I bought the Dash.
When I got home, I unraveled the packaging and loaded my new SIM card in. (The other bummer of a lost phone is a lost SIM card.) Luckily, I had a backup of my old data as of about a month before the loss. I probably have about 99% of my data, which is quite good. There was no easy way of importing a CSV (Excel) file, so I went ahead and imported my content manually. (I really didn’t spend much time looking for an easy way for the import.) Because the Dash will sync with a PC or server, I just added my contacts to my Exchange list and synced the phone with my laptop to build my phone’s contact list. I’ve been meaning to get more of my personal contacts into my Outlook contacts for awhile. Perfect excuse for it. Now I have a beautiful system of data management. If I add a contact to my phone, it appears on my PC and vice-versa. It’s not exactly a new thing, but boy do I love it now that I can do it. It’s really, really nice.
The Phone
For the past few weeks, I’ve put the phone through it’s paces.
It has wi-fi, easily my favorite feature. I’ve never had any problems with the wi-fi and I’m almost always on a broadband connection (work and home both wi-fi enabled.)
It has T-Mobile EDGE, which is their answer to EVDO and other “broadband”-like mobile connectivity. It’s free, so I love that. And I use EDGE all the time when I’m out and about or not on a wi-fi network. I can browse the web, send and receive email (IMAP sync), and download data. Tonight, I downloaded an MP3 of the latest episode of This Week in Tech when I forgot to bring along my Nano for a drive out to Tyson’s Corner. It was an 8MB file and it downloaded in about six minutes. That’s not bad considering I was driving 70 (I mean, 55) miles per hour down I-66 at the time. (Not that driving really affects EDGE, I just think it’s way cool.)
It takes pretty decent pictures and the camera feature is much faster than my RAZR. It stores images quickly and lets me get on to the next shot. It’s no digital SLR, of course. But for a camera phone, it works quite well.
The Dash has Windows Mobile, so I’ve loaded a couple of cool apps and made good use of some default ones:
- I’m chatting with Skype Mobile and even making phone calls over the Skype network when I’m connected via wi-fi. I had a 20-minute call with my dad the night I brought home the phone. So it’s stable, too. (I haven’t tried a Skype call on EDGE. I’m not sure it would work—probably sketchy at best.)
- I’m browsing with Opera Mobile, though I’m on a beta build and I’ve encountered a few quirks that forced me back to IE. I hope to find something better from Opera or (hopefully) Mozilla. I had better luck with Opera Mini on my RAZR.
- Though the phone does calendaring, contacts and tasks all by default, simply using these features improves the value of the phone for me.
- The default IM application also works well enough. I use it for AIM only, though I can also log in to ICQ, which might be handy if I knew someone on ICQ.
- The media player seems okay. I’d always love to see something like VLC mobile. I haven’t tried any video yet.
All of the features I’ve mentioned are pretty broad. The Dash is really quite feature-full without getting in your way. I dig that. It’s slim and light which makes is pleasantly portable. At times, I can almost “miss” that I have it on me. And it works well all the way around. I don’t have any serious complaints. My wife, Missy, does have to keep me in check on it every now and then, but I haven’t allowed “work” email on it, so it only receives mail to my personal address. Though my tasks and calendar reflect work items, at least I’m not in demand via email.
The verdict on the Dash: I dig it. Dot-dash.
The Dash
The Dash Specs
Technorati Tags: t-mobile, dash, htc, smartphone, review, dc, productivity, mobile, web, data, EDGE, windows mobile, skype
Skype is ending their offer for unlimited landline calls to the U.S. and Canada tomorrow, January 31. Currently, you can get that package for $14.95, but the cost will double beginning February 1. I jumped on this earlier in the month and even signed up for a SkypeIn number. When I signed up, they also gave me $2.10 of free international calling—up to 100 minutes worth, depending on where you call—so you’ll really only pay $12.85 if you frequently call outside the U.S. and Canada.
