Since my dog Zeus ate my BlackJack, I decided to go out and purchase the new Pantech Duo, the latest Windows Mobile 6 Smartphone from AT&T (Cingular).  Here are my thoughts on this device:

 

 

1) I have to be able to read the text on the screen (I am going blind in my old age).

2) It must have a full text keyboard (not one of those 10 key ones like the Touch Duo)

3) Battery life must be able to last a whole day at work.  Typically 2 hours talk time, 10 hours standby, mild data usage.

4) Must work well as a phone (ie. loud enough, clear enough, good signal strength, etc.)

5) Nice to have: No proprietary data connectors (standard mini-usb would be nice)

6) Nice to have: Scroll wheel

 

The reason I went with another Smartphone over a PocketPC phone is primarily based on manual phone dialing.  I do a lot of driving so being able to touch dial a phone number while driving is crucial.  I just don’t think I can do that on a touch screen based phone.  I went with the Pantech Duo because I loved the fact that it had a separate slide out phone dialing control pad and a full text keyboard.  Also, it was $100 cheaper than the AT&T tilt.

 

When I first opened the box and turned the phone on, the first thing I noticed was the screen was a bit small.  I compared the Duo side by side with my Cingular 2125 Smartphone and the screens were exactly the same size.  Yes, this helps keep the phone small but for a guy that sits in 3 hours of traffic everyday, I want to be able to read some emails while I am stuck in gridlock (I know, probably not safe but hey, I am driven to be productive!).  I knew right away that the small text on the screen was going to be an issue for me but I decided to give it a try anyway.

 

I let the phone charge for a good 4 hours without using it (which took a lot of self-discipline).  One thing I definitely frowned on was that the power adapter and the data cable had a proprietary connector.  Also, like on the BlackJack, there is a flimsy cover for the power/data port at the bottom of the phone.  Experience tell me that cover will fall off in 3-4 months of regular use since I charge my phone every night.

 

I liked the general feel of the phone although I wish it had a scroll wheel.  Entering text and dialing phone numbers was very easy using the two different sliding control pads.  I felt like the keys on the keyboard should have been raised just a bit more to keep from mashing too many at the same time but this is probably impossible due to the sliding design (had to be kept flush).

 

One thing I noticed is that the phone did not have WiFi.  I am sure this was because of battery life as I found out the next day :).  Also, the 1.3 megapixel camera is OK.  Make sure you remove the impossible to see clear plastic protective coat from the lens or all your pics will be blurry.

 

Phone calls are pretty clear on the device however I did have a couple calls that sounded "tinny".  This could have been bad connections though.

 

Battery life on this device seems to struggle.  I left it off the charger overnight to test the standby time.  The next day after about 60 minutes of talk time and 4 more hours of standby, I received a low battery warning.  It was only 3PM CST so this would be certain death for me if I was in the field.  I turned the screen brightness all the way down as a test the next day and that seemed to help a lot. 

 

One other issue I had with the phone is the memory.  With no applications open, there is 43MB out of 54MB consumed so you only have 11MB to work with.  Smartphones are notorious for keeping apps open so I received many out of memory errors forcing me to use task manager to close everything out.  This was pretty frustrating.

 

Overall, I think this is a good phone for a light email reader/medium cell phone user.  It’s nice to have your calendar on and read emails from time to time but if you are a conference call junkie that reads email all day on your phone (like during a 3 hour per day commute), I would go with a different device.

 

I am going to give the AT&T Tilt a try.  I noticed that they highlighted the number pad on the keyboard for phone dialing so this may be a good workaround for me when manually dialing a number.  I’ll post another review when I try out the device for a good couple days.