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Mobile Gadget News :: Making Your Mobile Life Simpler _ HTC Hurricane, Robbie & Tornado _ T-Mobile USA - SDA - REVIEWS

Posted by: The Undude Jan 25 2006, 10:59 PM

Has anyone seen reviews of the new T-Mobile USA implementation of their SDA?

Posted by: The Undude Feb 7 2006, 05:38 AM

T-Mobile SDA Review
T-Mobile says that this is more than a business device, and we agree. It's a great way to carry around your calendar, play music, and find the nearest Mexican restaurant—all with the aid of the built-in Web browser. At the reasonable price of $299.99, we expect the T-Mobile SDA to appeal to more than just suits.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1918655,00.asp

Posted by: The Undude Feb 12 2006, 08:22 PM

http://reviews.cnet.com/T_Mobile_SDA/4505-6452_7-31678157.html?tag=pdtl-list.

"The SDA in T-Mobile SDA stands for Smart Digital Assistant, and overall, the device lives up to its name. With its compact and sleek form factor, it may look like any other candy bar cell phone, but the handset runs Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone Edition, arming you with the tools to stay productive on the go. It's loaded with all the wireless connections (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and EDGE) you'd want, as well as multimedia flair and a 1.3-megapixel camera. "

http://reviews.cnet.com/T_Mobile_SDA/4505-6452_7-31678157.html?tag=sub.

Posted by: smeg36 Feb 12 2006, 09:04 PM

I always love the c|net videos. I must have watched the Dell Inspiron 700m one 1,000 times while I was waiting for it to arrive. That's great the the T-Mobile version will have wifi. I'm kind of disappointed that Cingular removed it.

Posted by: Sean Feb 27 2006, 01:13 PM

http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/T-Mobile-SDA.htm

Folks, we've got a phone with multiple personality disorder here, and that's not altogether a bad thing. The T-Mobile SDA (not to be confused with the older Euro T-Mo SDA, but rather their SDA II) was released in the US in Feb. 2006 and it wants to be your everything... almost. While it lacks the serious editing skills that its QWERTY keyboard-ed, touch screen-enabled big brother the MDA offers; the SDA wants to be your pocketable phone, business tool, PDA, WiFi hotspot surfing buddy and MP3 player. Oh yes, and your camera phone, your streaming video player and your GSM world phone. Cross the older Audiovox SMT6500 with a Sony Ericsson W800i and throw in a little Pocket PC and you've got the multi-faceted SDA.
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/phones/T-Mobile-SDA.htm

Posted by: The Undude Feb 28 2006, 02:06 AM

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1160063,00.html

T-Mobile SDA Smartphone - Could it be a Blackberry killer?

Posted Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006
While mobile e-mail fanatics are discussing the BlackBerry-killer software introduced by Microsoft at the 3GSM mobile-phone conference in Barcelona, I want to talk about an e-mail-ready phone that's just hitting the market — T-Mobile's SDA. The carrier launched it this week, along with a big brother, the MDA Pocket PC. Both phones run versions of Windows Mobile 5.0, though the SDA is no larger than a typical candy-bar phone. Like standard phones, it has no touch screen — you operate it with buttons; unlike standard phones, it has an HTML browser, can juggle multiple e-mail accounts and can be filled with store-bought applications. The SDA is a platform for complex useful software, and not, like some phones, merely a way for a carrier to sell you overpriced, oversimplified downloads.

A case in point is GPS navigation: I tested ALK's CoPilot Live 6 for Smartphones, which comes with a Bluetooth GPS receiver that sits on your dashboard. You slip a MiniSD card into the phone (annoyingly, under the battery) and after a quick software install, the program runs. It communicates wirelessly with the GPS receiver, and quickly discovers its location. The turn-by-turn navigation experience was fairly positive, although on occasion it did point me in the wrong direction, as if a U-turn was part of the itinerary. It's no Garmin, but it passes the basic tests. The software costs $300 with the Bluetooth receiver. That may sound expensive along with a $300 phone, but it's still cheaper than most full-featured plug-and-play GPS navigators.

SDA is a useful platform for software such as CoPilot. Though the system occasionally strains when it's given too much to do, it manages to pull through without freezing up. The battery life is pretty good, too: During a two-hour round trip with the screen backlight on and the speaker barking navigational instructions, the SDA didn't even lose a bar of battery power.

Although the Windows Mobile software comes with Pocket MSN for handling Hotmail and MSN Messenger, T-Mobile had the sense to include additional instant-messaging software for AOL, ICQ and Yahoo! It also has a non-Microsoft e-mail system for most POP3 accounts, as well as AOL. I like, from a cold start, spelling someone's name, picking their e-mail address out of my Outlook contacts, and then deciding, in a click, whether I want to e-mail that person from my Hotmail or AOL accounts. I can't even do that on a PC!

The SDA does, however, have some software idiosyncrasies. When I plug it into my laptop, for example, it crashes the computer's Wi-Fi connection. The only solution is a full reboot. Even when it can't connect to the Internet, because — for instance — it's in Flight Mode (no radio, for use on airplanes), it tries anyway, and then gives you error messages, rather than alerting you to switch modes. Incidentally, during my test I put the phone in Flight Mode, then couldn't figure out how to get it back to a normal calling state.

My favorite head-scratcher occurs when I open a Hotmail message. I read down until I see a link to download the rest of the message. I click it, and the link generates this alert: "Message will download next time you connect and receive e-mail." Excuse me? I want the rest of the message now! It's remedied fairly quickly by a "Send/Receive," but it's a good example of the digital red tape you might encounter.

Though the SDA's Microsoft operating system may at times be frustrating, the Microsoft connection may pay off. If your e-mail is managed via a Microsoft Exchange server, your SDA could become one of the eagerly anticipated BlackBerry killers. According to early reports, Microsoft's Direct Push e-mail system will be available as a free download on Windows Mobile devices, first from Cingular and then later from other carriers.