Day 2: The MDA and N80ie as a daily commute tool. Real World Testing.

The T-Mobile MDA is also known as the HTC Wizard (it's built by HTC, and rebranded by various other companies), the QTek 9100, MDA Vario, iMate k-jam, and the Cingular 8125, among other names. The MDA's 200 Mhz TI OMAP processor is fast enough to handle the tasks I ask of it: text messaging, web browsing, contact and calendar, Zagat to Go (hey, I eat out a lot), and occasional video playback from the memory card or using SlingPlayer Mobile. I could set the MDA up with Exchange Push mail, but I'm really not ready to be a slave to the instant email overlord.

Surfing Wikipedia and other text-heavy websites over EDGE is a breeze, but a website with too much graphics or rich content will bring the MDA to its knees. I can't access YouTube or other Flash-heavy sites, but that's OK. EDGE is barely fast enough to stream live TV from my Slingbox, but it's watchable most of the time. Putting the MDA up to my ear for phone calls is passable, but much less comfortable than with a voice oriented phone. I'm used to the touch-sensitive screen for dialing and phone keypad functions, but I can see others being annoyed with it. The MDA excels at text and instant messaging with its slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

The Nokia N80ie can handle all of the primary smart phone functions, like calendar, contacts, text messaging, voice calls, and syncing with Outlook. Internet web browsing using the built in Safari-based, full-featured web browser was a joy. It trumps IE mobile on the MDA in look and feel, as well as on intelligently reformatting pages to fit the screen. The N80ie isn't compatible with Zagat to Go (yet), so I can't bring that tool with me. SlingPlayer Mobile is supposed to ship for Symbian sometime later this year, so I'll have to wait for that as well. And the N80ie's 3G radio is tuned to the European 3G band, so I've turned the 3G radio off to save battery power. Both the MDA and the N80ie have WPA-compatible WiFi, and I could access both protected and open access points at broadband speeds. Texting on the N80ie is fast on the phone's standard numeric keypad, though not quite as fast as on the MDA's QWERTY keyboard. I quickly adapted to the N80ie's accurate predictive text engine.

Both phones last about 2-4 days before needing a charge, though if I use either phone heavily with EDGE or WiFi I have to recharge nightly.

Come back on Monday for the next installment of my saga.