Customer Reviews

T-Mobile Shadow Phone, Sage (T-Mobile)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I bought this device three months ago and love it. This is a great phone. It has a large screen without being large in size overall. It looks great and the slide up is a great feature. There are so many features in the phone I am still finding new things. Because its a Windows Mobile device I can use my Excel and Word documents from work to carry with me. It has a PDF viewer that is ok, but I fault Adobe for not finding a better solution for the scrolling problem on small screens.

The features I've used so far are the Internet Browser, Bluetooth to my GPS, Yahoo and Hotmail email accounts (I have both), IM, etc. I've installed my one CE applications using ActiveSync, installed Google Maps appl (superb). The phone uses Windows Mobile 6 (CE 5 OS) so a lot of software will work. It has configurable predictive text typing that almost makes the multi-letter keys a non-issue. All you have to do is touch the key once and keep typing. It figures out what you intended to type by how the rest of the letters combinations fit together. You don't need to press the DF buttom twice to get the F character. Its not always perfect, but is 98% of the time! rarely gets it wrong and is easy enough to correct when it is. It was a feature I originally thought I would turn off, but it was way better that my last phone.

Wifi support is amazing. I have mine set up to connect to my wireless WAP when I am at home. You can set all the WEP key and IP info as expected. Very cool and many times faster that surfing on the phone network. The only way to download software for sure.

Get an extra microSD card so you can put all the mp3s on it instead of your phone memory. The internal memory doubles as application and running multiple applications will use this space too. I have a lot of music on a 1GB microSD and still have 300mb free. Thinking about getting a bigger one simply for storing larger GPS maps. They are cheap so go big I say. It uses an miniUSB adapter for data/PC connectivity and battery charging. Oh, and it uses the battery up, especially when you leave an application running in the background that does internet communications. Fortunately it tells you very clearly how much is remaining (like a laptop does) and alerts when getting low. I think this is all configurable too, though I stuck with the default settings.

I loved the ability to set up multiple email accounts. And this type of use does not classify as messaging in a text message plan sense. So it goes under the unlimited web plan classification. The Windows Live Messanger was very cool too, since I use that at work and home too. I can see my same contacts list and everything. They see me as (On Mobile) when I'm logged in to IM on the phone. It also doesn't classify as text messaging in the phone plan sense. So I needed far less text messages per month that I originally thought I would to use IM on the phone. If you use the Text Message function built in the that will be classified as text messaging as it is phone to phone. Which I don't do much of frankly.

The 2 meg pixel camera is great too. It orients sideways when you take a snapshot so it actually works more like taking a shot with a regular digital camera instead of a phone. It will also let you send photos to your Windows Live Spaces site if you use it. Which is very cool on vacations where you want to provide immediate feedback on what you are currently seeing. The pictures all go into a Mobile photo album it creates automatically. Easy stuff.

Basically the phone is packed full of usefulness. Partly that comes from the Windows Mobile aspect, which is familiar for a windows user. Heck I've even order something on Amazon using the phone. That's a pretty complete package. It is basically like having a complete PDA only smaller and easier to carry around. I use it for everything now.

PROS
WIFI, Bluetoth, Windows IE, Multiple email accounts. Video, MP3 Player. Speaker phone, predictive text typing, Camera, Windows Mobile Smartphone.

CONS
no built in GPS. I got a bluetooth gps so I solved that problem. No touch screen (cool but not a show stopper)

This phone is gold! everything I want in a phone is here. I can access my email, get on myspace (lol), instant message, txt message fast and accurately (love the keypad), and play Nintendo games on my phone when im bored. To all complaining about battery life, turn wi-fi off when your not using it and open the task manager to shut off programs that your not using. My battery life is waaaay better than my old RAZR. Call quality is better than what various reviews suggest; this was my main concern when purchasing this phone. I Definitely recommended this phone!

t-Mobile Shadow

I have had my t-mobile shadow now for 4 months. I absolutely love this phone in spite of its shortcomings (which are significant). Let me give you the simple break down.

Pros:
-Form factor rocks! I have yet to find a smart phone on the market that comes even close to being as comfortable to use and easy to function with one or two handed operation. The size, look, and feel of this phone rocks in every way. It also seems like it is holding up fairly well considering how hard I am on equipment.

-Screen brightness and readability are superior to any phone I have used before.

-Phone Call Clarity is very nice on this phone. I have no complaints about volume or audio quality, and the phone seems to get fairly good reception.

-The custom interface that t-mobile has included for the MyFav's is nice but I disabled it since I prefer the standard Windows Mobile interface and I don't use my favs.

-MicroSDHC support. The phone uses the MicroSD cards and supports the HC cards so I currently have a 4gb card that works great. I haven't tried the 8gb cards yet.

-Qwerty Keyboard is awesome. I have had not problem at all with the fact that there are two characters per key. The recognition system is awesome and after a week of use I am actually faster on this keyboard than I was on the full Qwerty keyboard on my BlackBerry.

Cons:
-Battery Life is my single largest complaint about this phone. If you plan on using a phone for two days or more without charging then this is not the phone for you. I use my phone to check email about 20 times a day and I make about 15 phone calls per day, I send about 10-15 text messages per day and that pretty much burns the entire battery by Midnight each day. For how much I use the phone I can expect about 18 hours of use before a recharge is required.

-Scroll wheel. The scroll wheel seems like it would be a nice addition but you have to turn it almost half a rotation to get it to scroll one position, so it is faster just to use it like a d-pad than a scroll wheel. I am hoping that a firmware update someday will fix this.

-Slightly slower performance. I have noticed that the phone does not handle some of the bigger applications I use as well. I use terminal services to remote manage some Microsoft servers that I have and it doesn't work very well on the phone. Most of the standard mobile apps work just fine though.

I hope this was helpful. Good Luck!

Not only are other reviewers correct: it freezes, programs keep running until you go to the task manager and exit them each individually, and battery life is beyond awful, but the list continues. If using the calendar aspect, as I was syncing with Outlook, when the alerts come up and the phone is shut, opening it makes them disappear. The only way to acknowledge them and snooze or dismiss is to wait another few minutes (with the phone open) until they appear again. Worst of all my battery would hold NO charge after about a week and a half. I was able to use it for about another week, as long as it was plugged in, but then even that stopped. So in less than 3 weeks it was completely non-functional, trash, a complete waste. Amazon's return policy was already past. Oh, and it didn't come set up for new service either. I waited 3 hours for the text with my phone number (as the included paperwork described), but finally had to phone the provider, T-Mobile, who had to start from scratch for the service which took over an hour. Now I have no phone, but still have to pay for the service!!!

When I first received this phone for a birthday gift, I thought "WOW what a great gift/awesome phone etc." It worked fine initially...fast forward to the present and 4 phones later...I am about to get my 5th phone as the fourth phone stopped working.

I put up with the terrible battery life and all the other cons. I even loved it in spite of them. However, going on to my fifth phone...I have to say, I will never buy another HTC product again.

Let's list the problems with my last phones (keep in mind I have never dropped them, spilled anything on them and I treat them with the utmost care) [I work customer service at a tech place so I know about hardware]:
- Buttons mysteriously stop working....permanently
- It stops being able to make phone calls....permanently
- The screen goes black and you cannot get out of this
- After some error, you cannot exit a call by hanging up...only restarting the phone (really now)
- It can no longer locate "signal" despite the fact I have not gone anywhere...it claims the sim card does not work (works just fine tried it on another phone)
- AND MORE!

I am so fed up with this phone that I would have literally run it over with my care by now if T-Mobile did not need me to send it back to get a replacement.

What a piece of crap. F you HTC.

I've gone through two of these which I got from a t-mobile store. The first was riduculously laggy and certain themes showed up as blank white boxes when activated. So, I took it in for an exchange. This one Seems to be OK until I noticed how slow it still is. The phone would almost constantly freeze up if you're running more than one app at a time. I;d either have to turn it off or take the battery out just to get it going again. The phone also seems to refuse to lock its keys after closing the slider to end a call. Under the right settings you could close the slide and the phone would ask you if you want to lock the keys, then, after a time-out period, it'll lock the keys. So, there's always a pretty good chance the keys will fail to lock if you do not lock them manually.
The battery life is horrid, as well. A full charge would last me about 6 hours with wifi and bluetooth off and little to no usage.

following all the "hype" around the new Shadow, I thought I would give it a try. I was planing to upgrade for a while, but wanted to wait until the "right one" comes along. I thought the shadow would be it, but I was dead wrong.
Yes, it looks very impressive. yes, it's "neo" interface is cool and even easy to navigate, and yes - on paper its list of features is impressive. But that is pretty much it.
Before I decided to get the Shadow, I did my research - I think I read everything available on line about this phone. Two main issues kept coming up: slow processor and very short battery life. Wanting to get the shadow, I convinced my self that other reviewers just didn't know what they were doing: they left their WiFI and blue tooth on all time, they left many processes running in the background, in short - self convincing at its best.
I took the Shadow for the 14 days trail period, and after less then a week it was clear that it was going back.
I wont even go into all of the problems (and there are quite a few), just that after a few days I had to say to myself "hold on buddy, you need to clear your head from all this gadgets stuff and go back to basics", which was true: I am a serious tech fun, but at the end of the day I wanted first and for most a phone! and at this point the Shadow simply does not deliver!
I want a phone that I can put in my pocket and know that it is there when I need it, without being concerned all the time if I can make it to the next plug to recharge (Yes - the battery life is ridiculesly short). I want to be able to hear the person on the other end of the line clearly, without turning the volume all the way up, and even then looking for a quite corner (and yes - I did take the plastic cover off the earpiece)
I talked to T mobile reps. several times and hit a wall. obviously, they are aware of these problems, since they are pretty much on every review, but all they did was to try and explain to me that "if you want a small smart phone, you need to compromise" are you kidding me? I am not interested in the physics behind the issue! if you can't make it to work properly, don't market it and that's it. A phone that at best holds a charge for a day is simply not acceptable, no matter how many bells and whistles you add to it.
the end? I brought the Shadow back, got to hear the sales rap. telling the lady on the other side of the line, at t mobile, that they must do something about these issues, since its the third Shadow people return during a single day, and took a Nokia 6263. there is no way around it - Nokia where and apparently still are, the best Phones! sturdy, good size, great battery life, excellent sound quality, and on top of all that - this phone can do anything the shadow does, in an easier, more elegant way - e-mails, IM, pics, video, web surfing, music playing, excellent "predictive text", and even a radio - simply great.
don't fall for all the commotion - get a decent real phone, not a toy.

I have purchased this phone for a full price without extending my contract with T-Mobile. This phone has a very nice design and works very good as Smartphone (I have been using different Smartphones for the last 3 years) in terms of Windows mobile applications. But to do this, you have to charge your phone 2 or 3 times a day. The battery life is awful.
Even if I stop all running programs (I do it all the times), turn off bluetooth, Wi-Fi and don't make any phone calls, the battery still doesn't last more than a day. I contacted T-Mobile and they sent me a replacement battery, but this one is even worth. The other thing I hate about the Shadow is the location of the ExtUSB port. It's on the left side of the device instead of the bottom, which means that the Shadow does not fit in any car dashboard cradle. I also hate the rubber flap that obscures this important port. The vibration mode is very low and you never feel it if it is in the case or in your pocket. Don't ever buy this phone if you want to stay mobile!!!

Windows Mobile 6 has a lot of improvements over 5, but it still takes some navigation to get to some things. Recently upgraded the ROM to 1.11 via T-Mobile support, which had some tweaks that improved battery life a bit. Still can't get it to sync with Exchange Server over GPRS, though it works fine over WiFi (server issue, maybe?), but everything else is good..nice keyboard, not a bad camera, large contact and calendar capabilites, good web browsing for a phone, ActiveSync mostly works very well, syncs with Exchange fine (except for the DirectPush issue, which I think will get solved), and more...T-Mobile does indeed have good customer support, probably the best in the cell phone biz that I know of, and I've worked with a lot of them. So even they can't help me solve the GPRS/Exchange sync issue I don't think I'll have a problem getting a credit for the GPRS fees I've run up, not that they amount to much.

So, yes other customers are right. It has a slow processor but trust me, it's not THAT slow! It is slower than most phones, but is expected since it is a smartphone. Considering how many applications it's holding, it isn't a surprise. The best features for me have to be the Windows applications on this phone. Now I can travel with my documents from my PC and not worry. The battery life is another thing that's a little sketchy. It does NOT have a horrible battery, like the Samsung Blast, but it could be better, in which case the Shadow's battery lasts about a day and a half. Another idea is, if your not using your wifi, turn it off! It will save your battery. The formats on the phones applications highly make up for it, in which case they are quite amazing. The slider itself is quite durable and I'm confident that if I dropped it, it wouldn't be shattered all over the floor. I haven't had any problems hearing anyone on the other line, and there isn't 7 buttons that send a text (i.e. Samsung Trace). Overall it is the best phone I've owned, and smartphone wise it's a good deal (especially if you get it from Cartoys and not T-mobile itself).