T-Mobile Shadow Rated 3.5 out of 5 by Wireless and Mobile News Review of Reviews
Although not all the reviews are in yet, the T-Mobile Shadow from HTC does have a shadow of a chance of becoming popular if people can get used to the Windows Mobile interface, its different keyboard and navigation wheel (also referred to as rotating or spinning jog wheel).
Reviewers praised the sleek design, Quad-band GSM, Edge Wi-Fi capabilites, and the way the Windows operating system is made more user-friendly, while it takes time to learn the reduced two-letters to a key keyboard. Some reviewers liked the new slider and the function buttons while others found them slippery.
The worst problem commented on by two reviewers is that the call quality is poor and makes voices higher-pitched, a bad sign for sopranos and tenors.
If more exciting stellar reviews appear we may improve the rating. For summaries of the reviews and links continue reading.
Bonnie Cha at CNET liked the T-Mobile Shadow’s affordable price tag, beautiful display; Bluetooth and
Wi-Fi; 2-megapixel camera; and messaging capabilities while the poor call quality, slippery nav wheel and slow performance with mutiple apps, made it a not-ready-for-full-biz-phone choice for entry-level smartphone buyers, rating it 7 of 10.
Sascha Cohen at PC World; refers to the Shadow as a higher-end, messaging-oriented phone for people into e-mail and multimedia.The Shadow’s major hurdle is getting past Windows Mobile’s added
complexity.
Melissa J. Perenson for PC World in the Washington Post praised the T-Mobile Shadow’s intuitive navigation, pleasing design, the smooth slider, crisp screen, while she downplayed the keyboard that is not ideal for long messages. She was dissapointed by the poor call quality and slow camera. “With the Shadow, calling a Windows Smartphone friendly is no longer an oxymoron.”
John Biggs at Crunch Gear’s review relates the Shadow to the Pearl and found the keyboard hard to get used to. “The media functions are strong and the built-in instant messaging is a
huge bonus in a market of IM-less smartphones. Is it an *-killer? No,
it’s not. It’s an inexpensive slider phone with messaging capabilities.”
Additional Phone Features:
- Slide out QWERTY-like keypad
- Speakerphone
- Voice-activated calling
Stereo - Bluetooth®
Direct access to multiple personal and work e-mail accounts. - Four instant-messaging clients built in: Windows Live Messenger™, AOL® Instant Messenger™, Yahoo!® Messenger, and ICQ®.
- 2.6 inch display, 320 x 240 pixels, 65k QVGA GSM/GPRS/EDGE/Wi-Fi display.
- microSD expansion slot supporting up to 4 GB of optional removable memory.
- Quad-band world phone (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
Windows Mobile® 6® - Microsoft® Internet Explorer® Web browser
- Microsoft Office document viewing and editing
Microsoft Vista® compatible
Wireless Exchange synchronization with Microsoft Exchange 2003 - Easily syncs with Microsoft Outlook on a PC.