HTC Kaiser review

Tom Dunne

... here.

Very positive from an initial reading of the review.

mkennedy

tom dunne wrote:

... here.

Very positive from an initial reading of the review.

I've heard nothing but praise of this device in all the reviews i've read. Reviewers are salivating over it.
The only problem is it's weight.
That tilting screen looks cooler every time i look at it though.

In the us forums it's matching the n95 and iphone in the anticipation stakes .. not much talk about it here though.

Any news on what operators will be doing it here.
T-mobile are doing it as the Vario III afaik.

mik_da_man

mkennedy wrote:

Any news on what operators will be doing it here.
T-mobile are doing it as the Vario III afaik.

Prob none for about 9 months and maybe then Voda will do it, they have the V1605 (HTC's TyTN) already

I Know I'll be gettin it sim (and vat) free when it comes out

Mik

Tom Dunne

mik_da_man wrote:

I Know I'll be gettin it sim (and vat) free when it comes out

Bas***d, twice over.

I'' probably change from my Atom some time next year, this is up there in the contenders list, but I am still not sold on the keyboard. I would rather sacrifice the keyboard for size.

And it doesn't have an FM radio.

quintron

looks nice, but.. 320 x 240? thought we were past all that! and no FM is a bummer, no std headphone jack is also a bummer....

Hobbes

Old thread but rather then creating a new one. I got the Kaiser today. Very nice. Your correct about the weight. But everything worked right out of the box. Keyboard is easier to use then I expected. I would say it is more a PDA with phone, rather then a Phone with a PDA.

thenakedchef

got mine about two weeks ago and have to say its lived up to my expectations so far:)

mkennedy

thenakedchef wrote: »

got mine about two weeks ago and have to say its lived up to my expectations so far:)

Apparently though there's some problem with the video driver. XDA-developers have some sort of pledge going to sort it out it seems. If ye didn't need the keyboard ye could've waited for the HTC Touch-Cruise to be released imminently. Specs-wise it's a lot thinner and lighter, has the TouchFLO interface and has an fm tuner- otherwise same specs as Kaiser (HSDPA/HSUPA/wifi/ bluetooth/GPS/micro-sdhc/good processor/WM6/3mp camera). Don't think it has the video problem though.

Actually Stephen Fry (a smartphone junkie and afficionado by all accounts) reviewed the Eten X800 for the Guardian recently. It's basically another WM6 rival to the Kaiser and N95 (ie has everything the others have except hardware keyboard and is a lot thinner).
Best device he's ever used apparently.
BTW the Eten M800 will be the keyboard version of the X800- that should be quite interesting..

thehomeofDob

How much did you pay for it?

flogen

I've been looking out for a PDA/phone combo for a while and the Kaiser seems like the best going - that said I don't think I could afford it at the moment!

I'd like to have the hardware keyboard even though it does add weight - certainly if the only other option would be a touchscreen keyboard.

Does anyone have any other suggestions along the lines of the Kaiser - something that is a fully-fledged PDA with a phone built in?

eirlink

i got one just before xmas, and im not that gone on it. Agreed it has everything you would want, but to use as a phone;its quite cumbersome.

at this stage im thinking strongly of selling it and getting a n95. so pm me if youre interested. i will have to look up what it cost and take a bit off!

mkennedy

flogen wrote: »

I've been looking out for a PDA/phone combo for a while and the Kaiser seems like the best going - that said I don't think I could afford it at the moment!

I'd like to have the hardware keyboard even though it does add weight - certainly if the only other option would be a touchscreen keyboard.

Does anyone have any other suggestions along the lines of the Kaiser - something that is a fully-fledged PDA with a phone built in?

If you can do without the hardware keyboard, the HTC Touch-Cruise looks like the best specced device out there at the moment.
If you don't have a hardware keyboard, there are plenty of software touchscreen keyboard solutions out there that you can add (Tengo etc).
They're not ideal but they're a compromise.

Can never understand why a manufacturer can't produce a slider/tilting qwerty that is negligible in weight yet still fully functional-they always seem to nearly double the weight of the device when they put these keyboards in: So it's always a "light device minus keyboard vs heavy device plus keyboard" decision.

flogen

eirlink wrote: »

i got one just before xmas, and im not that gone on it. Agreed it has everything you would want, but to use as a phone;its quite cumbersome.

at this stage im thinking strongly of selling it and getting a n95. so pm me if youre interested. i will have to look up what it cost and take a bit off!

Thanks but I'm not in the market right now, just window shopping!

mkennedy wrote: »

If you can do without the hardware keyboard, the HTC Touch-Cruise looks like the best specced device out there at the moment.
If you don't have a hardware keyboard, there are plenty of software touchscreen keyboard solutions out there that you can add (Tengo etc).
They're not ideal but they're a compromise.

Can never understand why a manufacturer can't produce a slider/tilting qwerty that is negligible in weight yet still fully functional-they always seem to nearly double the weight of the device when they put these keyboards in: So it's always a "light device minus keyboard vs heavy device plus keyboard" decision.

Touch-Cruise looks decent alright, although I'd have to give it a whirl myself to see how the touchscreen keyboard felt - that's the kind of thing that could make or break a device.

I know what you mean about keyboards adding so much to a device but it wouldn't bother me too much once it isn't a ridiculously thick device - I have a Nokia N80 for God's sake!!

ollyk1

"More pda then phone" summarises the Kaiser for me. It's the balance that I wanted when I purchased it and I'm very happy with it but I think I'd go for the touch or N95 8gb for the more general user (non business). And having a foldable bluetooth keyboard in your briefcase/manbag/purse might be an even better solution anyway. :rolleyes:

I've become addicted to my stereo bluetooth headphones with fm tuner built in so I really can't bemoan the lack of fm tuner as the wires in general annoyed me a lot (especially in this cold weather).

The camera is pretty poor so if thats anyway important to you don't get it.

eirlink

i might be wrong, but i think the cruise and touch lack wi-fi?

ianblyth

I got mine the month they came out.. cost me a bit but worth every penny.. wifi.. hsdap 3.6meg... email internet... works as a great hsdpa modem connected to laptop... GPS for getting lost while in London.. stereo bluetooth works a treat you can wack a 8 gig card in it.. it may be a little heavy.. but no where near as heavy as my first Motorola brick was 12 years ago... was in london for a long weekend.. took my laptop.. and phone.. hardly used the laptop at all...

before the Kaiser i had the Vodafone 1605... pretty much the same as the Kaiser but without the GPS, Tilting Keyboard, and with 1.8 Meg Hsdpa.

there's no way I would go back to a normal phone with 3 letters to every key.. it's just so much easier to write e-mails, sms's etc..

mkennedy

eirlink wrote: »

i might be wrong, but i think the cruise and touch lack wi-fi?

No both have wifi.
Touch-Cruise
Touch

eirlink

I think i might hold off on selling the kaiser, now that i found this !!!!

who ever knew that WM5/6 supported finger gestures like the iphone.

and folks its FREE

www.pointui.com

have a look at the youtube video demo in the link

mkennedy

eirlink wrote: »

I think i might hold off on selling the kaiser, now that i found this !!!! who ever knew that WM5/6 supported finger gestures like the iphone. and folks its FREE www.pointui.com have a look at the youtube video demo in the link

Yeah there's a fair few WM5/6 apps knocking around that emulate the iphone UI.
Admittedly probably not as good but atleast it's a start.

I'd say it's only a matter of time though before Microsoft get the finger out and give their customers a more usable UI rivalling the iphone.
I hope so anyway.

Agonist

flogen wrote: »

Does anyone have any other suggestions along the lines of the Kaiser - something that is a fully-fledged PDA with a phone built in?

My new Kaiser is arriving in the post tomorrow! I'm so excited. I've been a fan of qwerty PDAs right back to the Psion 3mx in '97. I kept upgrading the Psion and then moved on to Symbian and the Nokia 9110 -> 9500 and then the E90 up to today.
I once veered off the path to the Xda Exec but hated it. I can't remember why exactly so I'm a bit worried that I'll have similar issues with the HTC and the Windows OS.
I'd really recommend the Nokia E90. The screen is wide enough (800) to view the full width of web pages. It has everything and does everything.
The reason I want to change from Nokia is that the e90 moved away from previous PDAs by becoming more like a phone and less like a computer. It has far fewer customisable options than I need. One example is that I can't choose to type standard text. It insists on capitalising the first letter after a full stop. It's impossible to train myself not to press the shift key when I'm using a full keyboard on the laptop half the time. Another example - this will sound petty but it is a good example of a million restrictions in the phone - is that I can't change the default alarm time for appointments. I want the alarm to sound 1 hour before appts by default but it's set to 15 minutes. It's a cool phone with a keyboard stuck on instead of a mini computer with call capabilities.
The image browser is crap. It's slow and unwieldy - doesn't keep the photos in their actual folders but wants me to move them around manually. I like the to use the standard file explorer but its functionality has been limited.
The PC Suite software has improved massively and is a pleasure to use, with a few caveats. When I was transferring my data on to the E90 from the laptop I discovered I couldn't drag folders with subfolders onto the phone. I had to dump all my files into one big folder on the phone.
I haven't used a top end phone like a Blackberry or N95 but the E90 has unlimited storage capabilities for texts which I don't think other phones have yet.
I'm optimistic about the Kaiser, especially because of the vast range of 3rd party apps but if anyone knows of a true pocket computer with a phone and Wifi let me know. Is the Eten M800 equivalent to the Kaiser??
This post is a little garbled (hey, it's 5:15 am) but if anyone wants to know anything specific about qwerty PDAs I could try to be more informative.

ollyk1 wrote: »

I've become addicted to my stereo bluetooth headphones with fm tuner built in so I really can't bemoan the lack of fm tuner as the wires in general annoyed me a lot (especially in this cold weather).

I hadn't known about these. They sound very interesting. I have to choose between a little wired radio to attach to my iPod or this bluetooth idea now. Why can't they make one device with everything??? Or is there a program out there that replicates the iPod cover flow and other cool iPod features for Windows Mobile 6?

Cantab.

Lost my HTC P3600 which I paid €550 for last Oct (yes, in a bar!)

I'm tempted to go for the HTC touch cruise now... Might keep the brick for a bit till the Google Android comes out!