As I mentioned before, I'm due to upgrade my phone toward the end of the month but am in a quandary as to what I should do. I blogged before that I liked the look of the LG KS20 but it doesn't appear that T-Mobile are going to be offering this.
Whatever happens I'll be sticking with Windows Mobile - I find it too useful (Direct Push, Office etc.) to change now. With this in mind there are two main contenders:
- Touch Dual (will be offered as the Touch Plus by T-Mobile by the time I come to upgrade)
- TyTn II aka the Vario III
As I am currently using the Vario II the "logical" upgrade would appear to be the Vario III - stay with the qwerty keyboard, but get more memory, GPS and the flashy tilting screen all in a slightly smaller package but is it really different enough to what I've already got? Will I get bored of it too easily?
If I go for the alternative then the most obvious issue is going to be losing the qwerty keyboard. I find myself using it quite a bit to plan blog posts etc. So I wonder how I'll get on without it. I am typing this post on my phone using the XT9 on screen keyboard which will come with the Touch Plus and, whilst it is serviceable, it is certainly no where near as fast as using the hardware keyboard - I don't know how much it would be improved using the keypad with XT9 but I understand that the versions of the Touch Dual in the UK won't be as good as those for other markets.
I would certainly hope that the touch experience would be better on the Touch Dual over the Vario II - if I try to type two thumbed on the Vario II I occasionally get the keyboard or even application close as though I had hit the X in the top corner.
The one obvious advantage of a phone like the Touch Dual is the . smaller profile; it is thinner, lighter and a lot sleeker - much more of a "pocket" phone than the Vario but there are always the compromises when down-sizing.
I'm not sure how much time I will be able to spend in store with either phone before having to make a decision but I'm definitely going to be pushing for as much hands on time as I can before making a choice, after all I'll have to spend up to 18 months with the device so want to make sure I choose the right one.