I’m a programmer and I’ve written a few compilers, but maybe my expectations are too high? Here is some PHP code that doesn’t work. But if you report it as a bug as I did they say, “that’s how it’s supposed to work”. I think they think if you document a bug it’s not a bug any more. This is what gives open source a bad name… lack of responsibility.

Here’s the code. Pretty simple stuff

$myarray = array("one","two","three","four");

foreach ($myarray as &$x) {
   $x = "$x -";
   print "$x\n";
}

print "\n";

foreach ($myarray as $x) {
   print "$x\n";
}

You would expect it to print this:

one -
two -
three -
four -

one -
two -
three -
four -

Actual result:

one -
two -
three -
four -

one -
two -
three -
three -

As you can see – not what a reasonable person would expect. Not only am I shocked that PHP fails this simple example, but when I went to report it the response is “that’s not a bug – it’s supposed to do that”. It supports my claim that the VI editor causes brain damage.

So – I bought it and as most of you predicted – I love it! It took a while to get used to not being as simple or intuitive as the Palm 700p, but once I caught on, it was very easy to use and unlike Windows Mobile – it actually works! Is it the iPhone killer? I don’t know but I bet it will be the windows mobile killer because if I were a cell phone manufacturer I would pull WM from all my products and install Android.

Having said that, you can tell that it is a young operating system in need of more work. First, and this it Motorola’s fault, the wallpaper it comes with is hideous. Who uses a gray background for a color phone? The navigator is cool, but will need some work. It would be far better if apps had a help selection with online documentation.

Just playing with some of the cool stuff, like there is a bar code reader app that ties into the camera so you can scan a bar code and look it up on the web. I found a cool compass app.  Voice recognition is good. I can say “navigate to sushi” and it will pull up a list of sushi places close to me. When I pick one, it then tells me how to drive there.

Things the iPhone can’t do are impressive. I like having a real keyboard option. The SD card can be upgraded and the battery can be changed. In other words – the back opens up.  The audio is clear and loud when making phone calls and using the speakerphone, but you also notice the multitasking. I can be talking on the phone, checking my email and running SSH on a server all at the same time.

There are a number of things I want to do but haven’t figured out yet. I’d like to:

1) Get root access to a command line.

2) Be able to turn the phone into a WiFi hotspot.

3) If an email has an attached WAV file I want to click on it and have something play it.

4) Need some sort of good file browser.

5) Like to have some setting program that sets stuff other stuff that they don’t normally give you access to.

6) Recommendations for some must have applications.

Bottom line – I love this phone. I recommend it.

I’m thinking about taking another shot at replacing my old Palm 700p cellphone and am looking for something that is at least as good as what I bought 5 years ago. As many of you know, I tried the HTC Touch Pro2 and ended up returning it because it was so dysfunctional. I went to a Verizon store and was somewhat impressed. The thing actually seems to work. I didn’t see any kind of stylus with it which may be a good thing. Perhaps you don’t need one.

So – should I buy this phone or is there yet a better one about to come out? Should I wait for the Droid 2?

I have a few questions.

1) Since it’s a Linux box – is there a Bash command line?

2) Need an SSH client.

3) Would like to be able to turn it into a hotspot like I could do with the Windows phone I took back. Can that be done?

4) Youtube video was pretty grainy. I’m wondering why?

5) Where are good sites to get apps for this platform.

What else should I know or consider before buying this phone? Is it mature? There are no honest reviews out there for any phone and unlike most reviewers I am interested in how well it makes phone calls. One thing I almost never see in a review is the phone app. I’m also interested in the email app. If an email has an attached WAV file, can I play it?

Thoughts?

This is my third article in the series from purchasing the phone to evaluating it. I have finally concluded that the phone is unusable and I’m returning it. Basically nothing on this phone works right and I am really disappointed.

I had high hopes for this phone as it looked totally cool. I’m a Windows user and I don’t care about operating systems. To me it’s whatever works. So I thought that the current Windows Mobile will be at least as good as my 3+ year old Palm 700p. Boy was I wrong!

First of all, Windows doesn’t work with the fingers and requires a stylus. But even then it’s broken. It also really needs a 4 way rocker switch to scroll through items to select. Most menus have no scroll bars so you have to flick the stylus just right to get it to scroll to the exact spot on the list you want. If you go to far you have to flick to back up and if you flick wrong you end up selecting the wrong item.

The phone itself was almost useless. It shows recent calls just above the number touch-pad and if you accidentally hit one, it dials that number instead… or if you accidentally hit the green key twice, it dials your last call and nothing about this can be configured.

When talking, the phone times out and goes dim (which is fine) but as it moves, touching my face, it lights up again because it thinks it’s been touched. So you have what seems to be a flashing light in your eyes. It has a feature where if you lay it down on a desk it will do a speaker phone but if you put it on a soft surface like a bed or couch then the speaker phone switches on and off.

When the phone rings, there are answer and ignore buttons but you can’t touch answer, you have to slide a bar to answer with your fingers and half the time it doesn’t work because it has to slide just right. So it doesn’t even work as a telephone let alone anything else.

I spend almost $200 buying software upgrades for better shells, better email, and other applications. I got the SPB shell that everyone talked about and it was great eye candy but it was also unusable, although not quite as bad as the original.

I could go on and on about what wasn’t right on this phone but the bottom line is – the phone doesn’t work, so I sent it back today. Luckily Verizon has a good return policy. I’m back to using my old Palm 700p hoping it will hold together till I find a phone that actually works. And that sucks because I was looking forward to owning this phone.

This is going to be a two part article because the phone is (hopefully) arriving later today. So this is about what I’m expecting and when it arrives we’ll see if it meets expectations.

I am currently a Palm 700p user but my old phone is falling apart, apps no longer work, support sucks and it’s time to get out of the PalmOs world. I considered the iPhone but decided not to for several reasons. I like Verizon and didn’t want to go back to AT&T. I need multitasking which, from what I read, the iPhone runs one app at a time. Having played with software keyboards, I decided I wanted a real keyboard. I need tethering without having to “jailbreak” the phone. I didn’t want a phone that was “jailed” in the first place and I don’t want to do business with a company that might turn my phone into a brick if they don’t like what I’m doing with MY phone. (I buy it – it’s MINE!) And I don’t need a million apps, I need 10 apps that actually work well.

I also decided I wanted a big screen so a full screen phone with a slide-out keyboard looked like the best of both worlds. I also want a stable platform that is going to be supported, lots of apps and isn’t going away, so I went with Windows Mobile. Not as sexy as the iPhone but I always seem to come back to Windows because Windows actually works. (I’m picky about the “actually works” feature. And I don’t have to join a cult to own it.)

Customer reviews are good so my expectations are very high for this phone. I’m thinking this is a phone I’m going to be really happy with so if it doesn’t work really well then I’ll be easily disappointed. The most common complaint is that the phone is big but I actually want a big phone. I’m a beefy guy and capable of lifting an ounce more than most people. And if I had a choice, I’d rather have something that was even bigger, like a netbook, but 1/2 the size. So I’m looking at this as a portable computer as well as a phone.

Will I be happy? Later today, when I get, it we’ll see. They are sending it to me with a new phone number so I’m going to need to get them to move my old number to it so that will be the first test to see if Verizon gets that right. So – will I be happy? What do you think?