Spotlight Customer Reviews
Customer Rating: 
Summary: cheap slow PDA phone requires several workarounds
Comment: This is the first affordable ($50) feature-rich phone to replace the phone/Palm PDA duo. After removing deletable files and adjusting the size of the PAGE file, this phone has adequate RAM, but is too slow to get 4 stars and emits a high pitch when overclocked.
Syncing contacts, tasks, and calendar events from a computer to the Wing requires Outlook. The workarounds aren't as comprehensive. Syncing Thunderbird contacts requires importing into Outlook Express, then to Outlook, and formatting. This can takes hours. Outlook is relatively much slower, especially with search and synchronized folders enabled. Individual "Tasks" can't be categorized and flagged as they could on a Palm, and I eventually abondoned using it. As for alarms, WM6's requires delving too deep into submenus and way too many clicks to set one. An alarm set in the calendar program is a workaround but will ring only a few times and can go unnoticed.
There's no good way to have all contacts on this phone with only some showing up on the phone list. With too many contacts, this phone will pause for a couple seconds after the first numbers are inputted while it compiles a list of matches. During this time it is unresponsive to other buttons presses. You'll have to disable "smart-dialing" if you enjoy dialing numbers quickly, but will now only be able to search for contacts via the "contacts" button not by the "phone" dialog. This can make it difficult for others to use your phone. The built-in keyboard is nice, but the accompanying screen rotation is too slow to be useful for anything but long messages. I miss the dedicated writing area of other PDAs.
Browsing the net on the Wing is a few times faster via Wi-fi, loading pages at 20kB/s versus a few kB/s on EDGE. This is bad for viewing larger web pages, great for google maps. I get 2-3 days of battery life with normal use, but having a spare battery provides plenty of juice for heavy use. Counterintuitively, turning the phone feature off (airplane mode) quickly drains the battery unless it is rebooted afterwards. Doing this can take up to a minute.
Overall I'm happy with this phone is an inexpensive all-in-one device, but I find myself wanting to switch away from Outlook and the clunky programs that handle the phone menu, contacts, tasks, and alarms on the phone.
Customer Rating: Summary: Boo! Only if you will use it to its full potential.
Comment: I really, really don't like this phone. I paid a lot of money for it b/c it looked cool and did a lot of cool stuff, but after the newness wore off, it's a disappointment when all I really do is make calls, text and use the calendar and notepad. I have yet to ever plug this in to my PC. I suppose if you want to get this phone because you "need" all the features it offers (outlook sync, web browsing, email, etc...) it's probably going to be great for you. But, if you are looking to get it for basic use, but want it for the QWERTY keyboard and a few of the other cool things it does, look somewhere else.
The touch screen is a big hassle as you can't just close this and toss it in your pocket/purse. It consistently makes calls on its own and is always bringing up screens that I didn't ask for and then requires 4 touch commands (if you can figure the right sequence) to get the random screen to go away. Oftentimes, it simply locks up and I have to take the battery out to get it to reset.
Additionally, it rings out loud when set on silent (not ok in my office) and the speaker works intermittently.
Lastly, I have not had this phone for a year and the colored finish on the outside buttons is chipping off and it looks ridiculous. TMobile offered to send me a new phone, but advised that after they received the original back, they may determine this was normal wear/tear and charge my $100 deductible. I paid too much for the phone to begin with, I didn't want to pay another $100, so I guess I'll walk around with a very expensive phone that looks like I picked it up from the pawn shop that I can never get to work right.
My husband swears I just don't know how to use it, he could be right.
Regardless, I am looking to replace this ASAP because I'm fed up. Maybe my rocket scientist husband can use it since he's so smart. ;)
Customer Rating: Summary: The best Pocket PC for your buck
Comment: At the time of purchase I had done my research, and for my specific use T-Mobile was the best deal for total data and voice. I have the 1000 my-faves plan with complete data add-on with a few extra features and it's 112 dollars a month. It's for business, and it works quite swell. There's a few issues I had with this phone at first, but they were quickly resolved.
1. At first, like everyone else, my camera wouldn't want to start up because of low memory. One thing I found that really helped was to delete the temporary files from Internet Explorer. Also, get a microSD card to store your pictures on.
2. The phone got very slow after about 3 months of use. It was doing funky stuff and just being slow in general. I always sync my phone with Outlook for my contacts/calendar/tasks so I just did a hard reset on the phone. Start>Settings>System>Clear Storage. Make sure you have your contacts and other important files backed up before you do a hard reset. Once you clear storage the phone operates so much faster. Everything loads quick, and overall the phone is just really fast.
3. Extra Apps: After doing a hard reset, it's best to install all additional applications on your memory card. I use a 512mb microSD and I've got about 10 extra apps and 200 2M pictures on there.
4. The best thing about this phone is the wifi connectivity. It's so simple to connect and it even has support for WPA2 now.
5. Stay updated with Windows Updates. The Office Mobile updates were free and now I have Office Mobile 2007 on the phone.
That's pretty much it. I really like the phone, and this thing has taken some serious abuse. I've dropped it probably 50+ times and nothing has happened. It's scratched, scraped, dented, paint chipped, and stained but the darn thing keeps running.
I'd like to upgrade to a newer Pocket PC probably within a year just to keep up to date and maybe the new Pocket PC OS will be out then. Overall, I gave this phone a 5 out of 5 because it deserved it. You have to be a little tech savvy to truly operate and effectively use this phone. I'm a tech nerd, and it works perfect in every way it's meant to be.
Customer Rating: Summary: Horrible customer service and BAD phone
Comment: We had a similar problem...my girlfriend's wings screen went out after 10 days or so. The screen is totally blank. There was no external damage to the phone or screen. She got charged $100 for the warranty exchange, stating they found physical damage to the phone and is not covered by warranty. She contacted customer care and requested they return the phone and was told the phone has been destroyed.
Destroyed...really? I doubt they destroyed the phone. They just want to make $100 profit. If they return the phone they got no profit. They probably just replace the screen on my old phone and sell it for $200 or so.
I believe it costs them less than $100 to make the POOR quality Wing because it costs Apple only $100 (you can find this info. By searching online) to make the new 3G iPhone which is a lot more advance than the Wing.
Customer Rating: Summary: I love my t-moblie wing
Comment: it a great phone if u like 2 text ..... but the only problem i have with the phone is the battery .... but other then that this is a great phone to have
