Freak of Nature - Luis Lobo Borobia

Introduction

I used to have a Treo 650. I used to be a happy phone user. I knew it almost all from it, have used Palm devices since my Palm 105m, then a Treo 300, and later a Treo 650 (well, two, one I lost, the other I bought again).

I have always observed the Windows Mobile phones. I knew it was a very different platform. I always tried to stick with the same friendly Palm platform.

I don’t have any trouble on not having a Windows like interface. Actually, I really like the Palm user experience. Its pretty straigthforward, no hassles, no problems. Very rare reboots.

Now, I used to have one trouble with my Treo: handsfree didn’t work. So, since I pay my mobile company an insurance, I went to their offices, and wanted it to be fixed.

I knew that most of the times, this kind of devices are not fixed, but exchanged by a new one.

It was not a surprise for me that they didn’t have another Treo 650, since its a pretty old model right now.

When the customer representative came back, she offered me a Benq P50. I didn’t know anything of it, if it was good enough, and I was open to try the Windows Mobile platform.

Benq P50 had one of the most wanted features I was looking for to add to the set of functionallity I wanted for my smartphone: wifi.

First impression

Benq P50 has a nice clear and bright screen, its 240 x 320, and my old Treo had 320 x 320. I could live with the difference.

The first thing I tried was the phone itself. You know, smartphones has to play their main role: to be a good phone!

The result was alright, I even had more signal than with my Treo. That’s a good point.

Then I reviewed the buttons and keyboard. The main difference is that the Treo had the 5-way button, a big one, very simple, and responsive. It is “internally”, 5 buttons. The BENQ is different: it works as a stick, you have to move it to the four directions, and if you need, you can press it. I don’t like that, since i have to “press” to the sides, and in the Treo I just had to worry about pressing, as always. But OK, it works.

I have a strange problem in my right hand, that made it grow more than my left one, so, tiny keyboards are one thing I have to pay attention to. BENQ P50 keyboard is not bad, but again, I liked more the Treo 650. The keys are harder to press in BENQ P50 device.

One good point on BENQ P50, is that you have a button to take a photo (I like photography, as some may already know), and the camera has a flash. I didn’t test much this feature anyway.

BENQ P50 has a standard mini USB plug that allows you to connect it to your computer and synchronize. It also charges the battery from it. This is good, I don’t have to carry my charger everywhere, just my sync cord is enough.

It has an awesome IR signal: it even comes with a software to control several devices, and it works great! I know this is not what I demand to a phone, but, I realized I liked it, when I was laying on my bed, browsing a page with the phone, didn’t have the RC near, and I just switched to the RC program, and used it! Ah, and of course, you can transfer data using the IR, I have used it in some occasion.

One of the worst things I noticed is the user experience: the integration between the hardware, and the software, and with the software itself.

User Experience

Gosh! I never felt as uncomfortable with a phone as I did with this one!

This is my first Windows Mobile phone, and my first “Windows CE”-like device I used. So, maybe some things can be attributed to the Platform itself, some to the integration between the hardware and the software.

Power On - wake up!

First of all, when the phone turns the screen off, its a nightmare to turn it on. You have to keep the power button pressed for several seconds, and it turns on. Awful.

Numeric and Capitals Lock

The phone has a “numeric” keypad that can be activated with the function button, to allow you to dial. On the phone application it works OK. I really miss the feature Treo 650 had, that you could start typing the email of the person you wanted to call, and it uses the mail as your “search” pattern.

When I’m typing a SMS, if I want to type a number, as in the Treo, I have to press twice the function button so that it locks the numbers… but there’s no user interface icon or something that tells you: “hey, you are in function mode”, the same happens with capitals locked. You have to guess. Treo has an icon for this. A very usefull one!

Applications running

BENQ P50 comes with 64MB RAM (to make it simple). It has free about 30 MB. This ram has to be distributed between the “RAM” ram, and the storage RAM.

So, having much applications running can make you run out of memory.

The problem is that if you close your application from the X button, well, it minimizes. It does not close. I know there are tools that allows you to change this behaviour, and even show you which applications are running, right from the main “Today” screen. But, come on! X always means Close, not Minimize.

Keyboard, and buttons integration

I can’t understand. Do the BENQ P50-Windows Mobile-whoever “eats their own dog food“?

In Treo, i could do everything with the 5way button. I could access to almost all features with only one hand, and didn´t have to take the stencil out, unless I had to do special things.

I cannot do this with BENQ P50. I always have to use the stencil or my “big” fingers on the screen.  A  nightmare!

The are several samples of bad integration… I just get upset on thinking of them.

I hope this is not Windows Mobile… Or I will never ever again use it.

Conclusions

You realize the good things you have when you don’t have it anymore. I was happy with my Treo 650. It had what I wanted. It didn’t have wifi, ok, I could live without it. It didn’t have the handsfree, ok, I could talk anyway. BUT IT WORKED. It was intuitive. Easy to use. I was very accustomed. I could do all the main things

And the main reason wasn’t solved! it does not have handsfree!

I know now, that I will go for a Blackberry. A friend of mine, Pablo Corral works for this mobile company, and adviced me to get the Blackberry 8300. That will be an other article on this blog!!

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