Smartphone Thoughts: Thoughts on T-Mobile Shadow After Day 1 of Use

My first 24 hours of Shadow use is coming to a close and so far, this phone has been nothing short of great. I won't lie to you, there are some issues, but the overall experience for me at this point is awesome. The phone is super small and very light. It fits nicely in my pocket and I don't even notice it. This was the same with my old BlackJack and it's something I'm missing with the s710. In regards to the slide out mechanism, it is actually really good. The slider on the s710 is a little on the soft side, like there's nothing holding it shut. The Shadow is not like that at all. It's a solid feel when the device is closed and it pops open with a quick flick of your finger.

The overall responsiveness of the Shadow is good. Data is slow that's thanks to the GPRS/EDGE connection. But the phone is still quick and nimble when it comes to navigation around the OS or launching applications. A number of times I was in the middle of an email or surfing and I closed the phone. Instantly the screen jumped to the lock screen and it took effect. Something that just wasn't that easy with the devices from yester-year.

So what's not so good? Well, the battery has me worried a little. I didn't spend more than 20 minutes talking on the phone today. I did mange to spend a lot of time surfing, doing email, and even general playing around with the device. In fact at one point I spent a full hour reading and surfing the web. I also have 2 email accounts set to sync email every hour all day. The battery was at 100% this morning and as of the time I'm writing this, it's down to 40%. That's still a lot, but remember, I didn't make more than 30 minutes of voice activity. It could be hard for some people who are using Exchange to make this phone live through the day.

Twice, I caught the Shadow searching for signal while in my kitchen. I've never had any problems with the s710, BlackJack, or any other Windows Molbile phone for that matter. So I'm not sure if this is related to everyone's Shadow, or if this is just my unit. If anyone else sees this with their device, please let us know.
Now, the one thing that everyone is going to be thinking - How is the SureType keyboard? I can truly say it's great. I found it easy and accurate when typing emails on the device. I was worried at first about how well it would work. It didn't take any real time to get used to the layout since it's pretty much the same as the keyboard you use every day. If you can get past the idea that 2 different letters are on the same key, then you're good to go. However, since it's a reduced keypad, there's no easy access to / and - without digging around the symbol menu. Both of these keys I use on a regular basis. The other thing is that it's not the best way to type in email addresses or URLs.

There's some quick thoughts for today. Let me know if there's anything specific you want me to answer about this device.