New Phone!

Yes, I got my new phone. AT&T Tilt running Windows Mobile 6 and Goodlink 5.0. It's much faster than my old Treo 650 and the Windows OS is a bit more friendly and accessible than Palm OS ever was. There also seems to be a ton of software available, but I haven't dented this yet.


Size

The size and shape of this thing would be one complaint for many people looking at this phone. Of course any phone with a full qwerty keyboard will be of substantial size, there are many layout options out there now. What I did like about the Treo was its vertical layout which provides a relatively narrow keyboard. I could hold the device in my right hand and type with my thumb -- all with one hand. While I can't recommend emailing/texting while driving, it was possible to do with the Treo because of this property. A slider phone like the Tilt has a much wider keyboard. Even with my long skinny fingers, I just can't reach both sides of the keyboard with my thumb now. This layout seems to be better used sitting on a surface and poking one-handed with fingers, though I haven't really tried that.

Weight

It's heavy at 6.7 oz. It's a bit heavier than my old Treo 650 (6.3 oz) which puts it much more massive than the Treo 750 (5.4 oz). Carrying this or a Treo in the pocket of shorts with an elastic waistband often lands you in an uncomfortable position where the thing is banging around in there trying to pull your pants down. Much different than anyone used to light-weight phones like the Razor (3.4 oz) or even the Motorola Q9m (4.8 oz). It will be best suited to a belt holder, though I never used one of these for my Treo because I'm more likely to bang it into things. When traveling, it's either in my bag, on a table, or in the seat back of an airplane - no weight or size worries there, or need for a case.

Goodlink

We use Goodlink to connect to the work exchange server for email. However, the 8925 isn't currently officially a supported device. I have read though that people got Goodlink version 5 running on it. Determined, I set out to get this going which proved more challenging than I thought. First, it was not easy to navigate the Good website, and I ended up have to Google the right keywords to uncover the hidden download link. The main page is the Tech Support Download Page. There's lots of stuff there, and what you want is at the bottom, so install from an SD card, sdcard_5_0_0.exe. DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS ON YOUR PHONE. This is a 26MB zip file with several supported platforms including PalmOS, SmartPhone (SM) and Pocket PC (PPC) and several different languages. To install this, I just copied the GetGoodLinkPPC2005.cab from the 'en' folder to my device using ActiveSync. Running this, you need a valid Goodlink account with an email address and pin. If you're replacing an existing device, you'll need your IT guy to reset the account. So you'll have an email from them in hand with a pin and work email address. Plug those in and the install goes smoothly, resetting the device once or twice. I haven't seen much difference between 4.9 (on my Palm Treo) and 5.0 (on Windows Mobile 6). Many of my settings were remembered which impressed me a bit. In short, while not officially supported and the device doesn't come with a "GetGood" app, it's pretty easy to set up and use on this device. After getting Good set up, make sure you configure ActiveSync not to sync Outlook email, calendar, etc. or else you'll end up with double copies of everything. Re-sync and it'll automatically delete all that if you synced it up before (which I did to get my contacts in there quickly).

Summary

It might sound like this is a big, heavy phone that is annoying to set up, but I've only highlighted some of the common things. Surfing the web using this phone is fast and amazing. There's support for WiFi, which means at home you can use your wireless router and land connection to surf even faster. It's got GPS, though I haven't played with this yet. It's supports 3G (though we only have Edge here) and BlueTooth. It really is an amazing device given some of the installed applications. I'm a happy camper!

Anyone want to buy a slightly used Treo 650?