Office Mobility Blog

I must admit that when I first saw and played around with the 9300 (and before that, the much larger 9500), I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. Being a Treo user for many years, I felt much more at home with the Treo's candybar form factor, smaller size, integrated thumboard and great one handed experience.

However, I recently had a chance to spend some time living with the phone and I have a much different opinion of it after having done so. The communicator does indeed serve up both its functions well. A venerable Series 40 phone on the outside with great reception and clarity and big keys for dialing. A very well done messaging, browsing and office experience on the inside - using a nice keyboard that works well after a little getting used to.

Someone in the market for a device like this is certainly looking for more than just a simple "talk oriented phone" and it's the "inside experience" where this device shines.

Full disclosure requires me to point out that in testing this phone, I was primarily testing out a product produced by my company, DataViz, called RoadSync which is an Exchange ActiveSync client for the Series 80 devices like the 9300i, 9300 and 9500.

RoadSync allows you send and receive email and attachments directly from Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 using a "Direct Push" method similar to the experience found on BlackBerry devices and Treos running GoodLink. The difference is that with RoadSync and other Exchange ActiveSync clients, there is no middleware server required.

Email is synchronized in the background automatically, so your inbox is always up to date whenever you open the device to check messages. It worked great on the 9300i, both using the GRPS data connection as well as over WiFi.

One thing that I found really nice with the phone is that the multitasking capability that allows you to have multiple applications running at the same time, works in a way that the last application you were in is the same one that comes up when you open the device. For me, it was most often the messaging application and specifically my RoadSync inbox, showing all my Exchange email.

It was really convenient to simply pop open the device and take a quick peek at the inbox. Audible alerts and icons on the outside screen indicate when new, unread mail has been received. The lack of a vibrate mode seems to me an odd omission since I rely on it so much with my Treo, and was one of the few downsides of the phone in my real world tests.

I found typing on the keyboard with two thumbs was a little awkward because the keys are much more widely spaced than on a Treo or a BlackBerry. I've read that people use the device while holding it with one hand while typing with the other, or by laying it flat and typing with a few fingers.

I had success with both methods and I'm not a real keyboard snob since I can't touch type anyway. My strange "few fingers and thumbs" approach to typing on my laptop keyboard works well on the communicator device. Anyway, after using different mobile keyboards over the years, I have come to the realization that you get used to them after really living with them for a while. It's really hard to form an opinion after only a few hours or days of use, and you become biased to the one you're currently used to.

I found the web browser to be one of the better browsers I've used on a phone - and I've tried a lot. The speed was more than adequate for the things I was doing (Google searches, Yahoo services like mail, news & sports scores) and I think the widescreen orientation of the 600 x 200 pixel screen had a lot to do with making sites readable. The square and vertical screens of Treos and other phones make widescreen viewing much more difficult because you have to scroll and the "optimized" modes don't always work well for some sites. The widescreen was helpful for reading email and document attachments as well.

I didn’t mind the joystick and found I used it less than the contextual menus that appear on the right edge of the screen anyway. Most often, the choices I needed were there. For navigating menus, I used the arrow keys.

I think reviewers who are constantly playing around with the next cool devices can pan devices that don't measure up to "tomorrow's" specs, but even though the 9300i lacks some of those (like high speed data radios with 3G EVDO bandwidth and super fast processors), it is still a worthy business phone and messaging device and one of the better combo devices I've used.

With Cingular poised to launch the 9300i here in the US and with messaging applications that work directly with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync already available in the market, this phone warrants consideration for organizations looking for alternatives to BlackBerry and other middleware solutions.