My mobile phone provider has been bugging me lately to get an upgrade, so eventually I have caved in and gone and had a look at what’s around. I have a few basic criteria in my phone:
- Bluetooth integration with my car.
The BMW professional navigation system is a bit fussy. It doesn’t work at all with S60 Nokias. My full contacts list must be imported to the car (automatically) - Exchange sync.
I use exchange 2007 for my email/contacts/calendar and have come to rely on it. - The usual.
Wifi/bluetooth/3G (HSDPA) etc
As I mentioned, I’ve tried Nokias and gave my N70 to my wife, going back to a 6123, then onto a Vodafone v1615 (HTC Tytn II – Kaiser). I’ve been very happy with the WinMo phone, as it does all of the above, but its getting a bit long in the tooth and I felt like a change (but not an iPhone!). So in to the Vodafone store I went and out I came with an HTC Magic – “Google phone”.
I’ve been very impressed with the phone so far (24 hours), however a note of caution for potential buyers – requirement 2 is not currently met regardless of what HTC’s site says. Vodafone have removed the Exchange sync component! This means that you have to use one of the paid for options from Android Marketplace – not in my plans. I’ve had a rant on the Vodafone forums along with everyone else about this – lets see what happens.
On the positive side, the browser is excellent, the interface is slick and smooth, the connection to my home wifi network was a breeze (once I located the MAC address of the phone), and most importantly it works perfectly with my car!
Given that the phone has only been available for 9 days, I’m sure that any little niggles I find will be resolved. I now know what the iPhone mob have been going through with the App Store. Fortunately, the Android store (through Vodafone) only has free applications at the moment, so no damage done yet!
I’ll post updates regarding the exchange sync if I hear anything.