TMobile (US) Dash.
 

This is an upcoming Win Mobile 5 smartphone device from HTC that has a full one hand operated keyboard. Anyone have any hands on experience with this yet? Thanks.

Great looking device. Lots of bugs right now causing the launch date to be pushed back. I have played with the product several times and love the engineering of it. The product once perfected is in the same class as the BlackBerry PERL and blows away the Motorola Q. Unfortunately, there are alot of issues with the present software load. Once they fix these slowdown and lockup issues, you will have a fantastic product.

T-Mobile Dash Specs
MSNBC Review
ABC Review
PhoneScoop Review


Out of courtesy to T-Mobile, I will gladly answer follow up questions by PM only. This is a pre-release product and while I do not work for T-Mobile anymore, I work closely with them and respect their trade secrets.

I had some trouble with the device too, but think the launch will not be pushed out much.

I am surprised there are not too much fanfare about this phone. I went to a Tmo store 2 days ago to play around with it and it is surprisingly very very small, for a Windows Mobile phone. Since tmobile always had horrible phones the 7 years I have been with them, I always bought my phone elsewhere. But I chose to order this, will see how it goes when it arrives next week.

T-mobile doesn't get the marketing buzz some other operators do. When the "Q" was released the press went insane over it, like it was the best thing since sliced bread. The Dash is another well thought out device, adding WiFi was brilliant, and the scroll bar is surprisingly good.

good points. I thought about the HTC TyTn, but paying another $450 to add 3G is just not worth it at the moment

It isnt just 3G. It is a completely difference OS. The TyTN will gives you a touch screen and the ability to run more programs and read, edit and send Microsoft Office documents as attachments among other things. They are very different things really. If you dont need those things then the Dash will likely be great. After a while of using an SDA, same OS as the Dash, I went to a TyTN for the added features. Ive had the TyTN for less than a week but first impression is love at first sight.

Scott, what do you think of it as a possible replacement for the MDA?

Long time Tmo customer and been thinking about getting one of these or the MDA Vario or waiting until the next version of the MDA Vario.

How does the dash blow away the Q?

How is it better than something like the Treo?

How well does the sling player work? Will the kick me off the account if I watch video a lot?

I would think a touch screen would be an important thing to have in a device like this. I imagine using it mostly for email, web browsing (flight status, FT and other message boards, and IM), reading RSS feeds.

I'll tell you later ;)

Yup, you hit the spot, not in that sense :D

But I do not need to edit Office documents on the move in the near future. I appreciate the small form factor, the qwerty keyboard for IMing/SMSing on the move, and ability to browse internet pages. Oh also to watch Top Gear on WMP, but it's already in my video Ipod (that discussion is for later ;) )

Perhaps in 2-3 years when I become a more impt person in a company :D

Got mine yesterday
 

Feedback based on limited use (so far):

1. keys are a little small and close together. Easy to type the wrong letter. Not a big deal, as this is the price to pay for a small package and I will live with it.
2. Setup was fairly easy, except for some reason I can't respond to any emails on my corporate outlook account, keep keeting an error that the email address does not exist at the receipient location, but when I send it direct, it works just fine. Probably a set up problem on my side that I will figure out tomorrow.
3. Phone quality is great! So veeeery much better than the MDA! I think I will be able to use this thing without the bluetooth headset (which was a gotta have on the MDA).
4. Form factor is good. Not sure about the rubber back though, but time will tell.

So far I'm thinking that this is a definite replacement for my MDA, and my Blackberry may be in danger of being replaced as well. We'll see.

But then again, I really loved my MDA when I first got it.... :)

I spent all afternoon today in SAN trying to buy one of these. Nobody had them in stock except for the T-Mobile-official stores, and they refused to sell it to me without an activation. :mad:

It takes a few days for the indirect dealers to get them in stock, as they have to manually order them and wait for receipt. In contrast, the direct stores are on auto-replenishment.

Indirects almost never sell phones without a contract, you need a corporate store for that, and even then if stock is low they'll refuse to sell unless you take out service with them. They make their money selling service, not phones. It took corporates almost 3 months to get enough mda's and sda's in to sell unconnected.

The same advice that works for airlines also applies for wireless carriers. I went back to the same store today, verified that the guy who slapped me down yesterday wasn't working, and five minutes later walked out with a Dash. The only thing was that he said they couldn't unlock it for me. Not a problem. :)

So I got my hands on the Dash yesterday and here is a quick review of my usage so far.

The phone is sleek, small and very nice to hold. I actually like the rubber casing, just feels comfortable. Also the screen is bright and easy to see. I did some registry editing already and will add more programs later tonight.

Functionality was very good. The RF is excellent, BT 2.0 beats my crappy old Moto E680, and battery life is very good. I spent all morning trying to get my GPRS/EDGE working to access web pages and it is still at 82%. Keyboard was a little small for my big fingers but I made like 3 typos in the past 18 hours so not a big deal. There is no push email but pull in emails every 15 mins from my gmail and office POP3 account.

The processor speed could improve a little bit as toggling between applications can take 2-3 seconds. The start up and shut down is also very slow. One thing that happened was I left the phone on overnight and when I woke up this morning, I could not connect to my email accounts. I had to restart the phone. We will see if that continues. Wifi works well too.

The only cons I see so far are the following:
-Possibly resetting the phone daily?
-Unable to access web pages using $5.99 TmobileWeb (will install a couple of cabs tonight to see if that changes anything)
-Unable to edit Office documents

Other than that, it is a great phone for someone who does not need to check email 24/7 but want the functionality of a Smartphone.

I think I will be keeping the phone unless more issue come up.

I found it to be fast enough - much faster than my STRTRK.

Not sure what you mean about no push mail? I'm using Exchange Push and it works great.

You can't access push email services using the cheapo data plans, just the semi-push SMS triggered email T-mobile offers. If you want web and real email you'll need the $29.99 plan.

Yup this I know. I am contemplating getting that plan since it comes with HotSpots too.

And I just noticed you have 33k posts. OMG :D

Day 2 of heavy usage
 

This thing may actually replace my beloved Blackberry.

-Push email works great. Once the email actually showed up on my Dash before it did in Outlook!
-Phone quality, even without headset, is exceptional
-the screen is unredeable in direct Phoenix Arizona sun, but my Blackberry is almost unreadable as well
-Wish I could figure out how to turn off the stupid "sure type" that keeps trying to guess what I am trying to type (and is almost always wrong)
-battery life is acceptable.


I've had it on for 2 days straight now and only had to reboot once on Monday and I'm not sure it wasn't a stupid error on my part that caused the problem.

My beloved blackberry is very nervous that it may be sent to the "drawer of unused electronic devices...." :)

I gave up on my Blackberry ages ago in favor of WindowsMobile...

Are there third party programs that will let you read and edit office documents?

Press Alt-Space

Before you bury the Crackberry, make sure you get your hands on a BB Pearl 8100. It is visible in the bright neon-enhanced Nevada sun and has improved functiuonality over the previous models. Nonetheless, the Pearl is not as sexy nor functional as the Dash.

HOFO link on Dash

mods on the Jogger seems pretty useful.


Dash vs MDA

After having this handset for about a week now, I can honestly say that I LOVE THIS PHONE! Great screen, outstanding build quality, good keyboard, and so far very stable.

The only complaint is that there is no easy way to type an ñ. If I could figure that out I think I will have found my perfect phone.

I wish I could say that. I refuse to rely 100% on a device that I have to reboot 2 to 3 times a day.... :)

just picked up another
 

having had the dash now a couple months, I decided to pickup one for #1 1K GF, found a deal for 99$ AR direct through t-mo.

She's going to love the size of it, compared to the BB which she never uses.

I got one of these from the TMO store last night and paid $319 + tax and one year contract extension. Today I found that $99 deal and am returning the one I got.. Just saved ~$200!

I can't get my push mail to work though. My company has their exchange servers locked down. :(

At least I can pop my personal mail and sync mail from my computer.

Any info on this $99 deal?

Haven't rebooted mine in 4 days :D

Haven't rebooted mine ever. I absolutely love this thing.

Try this:
http://microsoft.com/windowsmobile/t...3/default.mspx

And This:
http://extranet.t-mobile.com/tmobile-exc/epp/home.do

I found out that my company only allows BlackBerry devices, even though they have Exchange 2003 /SP2 and can turn on the push mail.

Is there any alternative way to wirelessly sync my corp exchange mail, calendar and contacts?

Sign up for an account with 4smartphone.net and set up email retrieval to pull in your corp mail using POP or something. Not exactly elegant, but if they won't turn it on for you, what can you do?

FYI - a buddy of mine told me yesterday that if OWA is enabled, chances are good that pushmail is turned on as well. Just punch in your OWA server name when setting up the handset and see if it will configure itself. It's worth a try.

I think they also have POP3 and IMAP turned off. OWA is setup and works. I can even get to it from the phone's IE. But when I enter the address to configure the Outlook Email on the phone, it gives a 85010004 error. "Your account in MS exchange server does not have permission to synchronize with your current settings. Contact your exchange admin..." :(

I sent a nastygram to our IT departments suggestion box.

Thanks a ton!

Wow... do you use any third party apps?

Hubby bought a Dash the day they were released. He returned it less than a week later. I couldn't hear him at all when he called, the volume buttons drove him crazy, and he hated its web surfing speed. He decided to wait for the alleged iPod phone of the future. ;)

GG