Too Many Usability Problems
Written: May 24 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Wireless email, although limited
Cons: too many to list
The Bottom Line: Get a TREO 600 or Bluetooth phone to use with PC or PDA.
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| wcaswell's Full Review: Toshiba 2032SP Smartphone |
LOUSY PHONE – You can’t make or receive calls with one hand, and it’s incredibly dangerous to use the 2032 in a car. Even to answer a call requires two hands.
RING VOLUME & TONES – The ring is too quiet and, with no ring tones, you must have the 2032 on your person to feel the vibration (not in you briefcase) or you’ll miss calls. Missing calls is a BIG detractor for anyone running a business.
DROPPED CALLS – Signal strength varies from 1 to 4 bars in my home office, and calls are often dropped. This forces me to "always" make local calls on the landline at home. It also limits the use Sprint for long distance calls because of the risk of losing the call – a BIG detractor for continuing with Sprint in my small business.
SPEAKER PHONE – The 2032 can’t be used like a regular phone and can only be used in speakerphone mode or with a headset. This again limits its usefulness as a phone. It takes way too much effort to receive calls with good enough sound quality for business use, so I usually just leave the phone and ear bud at home, meaning that I’m not available to others.
FORM FACTOR – The relatively large size of the 2032 and the awkwardness of its belt-attached carrying case contribute to its poor fit as a phone, so I often leave it at home.
BATTERY LIFE – When having phone conversations with the 2032, I get only about an hour of talk-time before getting critical battery warnings. This is absolutely horrendous! Even carrying a charger with you won’t address this issue, since there’s often no place to plug in during the day when moving about.
DOCKING – The PC docking device will charge the unit but won’t keep it charged, so I revert to plugging power directly into the phone, which means that it’s not always in sync with the PC. This again limits its usefulness as a PC extension when traveling, since I must always remember to dock in order to get the latest mail and calendar info.
EMAIL – The only thing I did find useful with the 2032 was its ability to receive email over the Sprint PCS network, but even this has severe limitations. I must maintain three separate email services (Sprint PCS, ActiveSync, and RoadRunner) and remember to check them individually. Unlike other phones that can receive messages, you must manually check for them, meaning it’s usually too late.
OUTGOING MAIL – Sending email messages can only be done from the Sprint PCS service, and not from the RoadRunner service. So, to respond to a RoadRunner email with the original text intact, I must first "copy" that text to the clipboard, switch to the Sprint PCS service, and then send from there, "pasting" the original text after my reply. That process means I often have to write down the person’s email address or first copy it to a "note."
ATTACHMENTS – What attachments? The 2032 can’t display email attachments (e.g. Word or Excel format) and also can’t display HTML mail documents, which is about 10-25% of what I receive.
ALTERNATIVES
BLUETOOTH – Sprint doesn’t offer a Bluetooth phone that can link to a PDA or PC, but all Sprint phones “should” have this feature so they can connect to 3rd party devices to let existing home phones receive and make cellular calls. This would let consumers disconnect local phone service and save $50-100/month. One such product is Dock-N-Talk.
TREO 600 – My son has had a great experience with this PDA/phone from Handspring. It serves equally well as a phone and PDA, has a built-in camera as well, and suffers from none of the problems I’m having with the PocketPC-based Toshiba 2032SP.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 399
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Epinions.com ID:
wcaswell
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Location: Austin, TX, USA
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Home Networking pioneer and management consultant offering strategic marketing services.
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