Dopod C730 Build Fault

I have one major problem with my Dopod C730,  it seems to have a warped battery cover which means it fits will on one side but stands proud on the other.  This means the cover is prone to pop off at any time, so this particular device isn't really usable day to day basis.  I'm trying to sort this out with the supplier Bright Phones (http://portagadgets.com/uk/home.php) who did a good job getting it to me.  This is the first time I've used them as I normally go through Expansys, Easy Devices or Mobile Planet.  I selected them because I thought they shipped from the UK but this was an error by Ebay so there was extra lead time whilst it came from HK.

This is most frustrating because I want to use this device day to day but I can't.  So I have to wait for Bright Phones to resolve what to do, but they seem to genuinely want to resolve it quickly.  I'll post more when I know what happens.  So all I can do now is look at it whilst I go back to using my Excalibur.

Warped battery cover, bad side

Warped battery cover, good side.

UPDATE:  Looks like this is a design fault from Dopod where the cover does not fit properly.  Apparently the whole batch have this issue. Watch this space.

Rain

Well its been raining all week,  I missed all the action but getting back last night it was actually sunny (and my Dopod C730 had arrived) but today its back to the rain these are some views looking out from my house onto a watery world ...

Unboxing my Dopod C730

Well it arrived at 6:30 this evening just as I returned home.  So I decided to record the unboxing process for posterity.  I've wanted a Dopod C730 (HTC Cavalier) since I first saw the reviews.  I can't say its handsome, but it is professional looking.

Here's the box it comes in, pretty standard package size.



Here's the spec from the box end.



Here's the inner packaging ....



Here's the C730!



I like it!



Inside the interior packaging



The manual is in chinese, and my Cantonese isn't so good.



There are 2 CD's included



and next to my T-Mobile Dash the C730 is slightly larger



and slightly thicker.



Now to try it in use...

BBC iPlayer

Today the BBC announced on the news that they will release the on-demand iPlayer so licence payers can watch programmes up to 7 days after broadcast free of charge on their PC  Unfortunately my demographic of non-ethnic, male professional, IT aware meant I couldn't take part in the iPlayer trials, but now the beta will be available to everyone on July 27th. Like 4OD and Sky Anytime before the iPlayer will only support Windows XP SP2 as an OS, so my Vista Home Media Center still can't participate in any of the current on-demand services available to me.  The ITV version is coming soon, but I'm not sure what their criteria will be.

 There is a darker side to this though, as both Sky Anytime and 4OD silently install Kontiki P2P service so that your PC now becomes a distributed server for other users.  There's nothing inherently wrong with P2P as a technology, but you are giving up bandwidth to act as an unpaid server for Sky or Channel 4, and doing so without being told or compensated.  You also have no control over how much bandwidth you contribute and when its used.  I will be looking into how I can take control of my bandwidth when I have time and will post my results.  Not sure what technology the iPlayer service will employ.

Old Spice

So, the Spice Girls are getting back together... interesting.  I remember where I was when I first heard 'Wannabe', it was 1996 and I was suffering on a hot, unhealthy train from London Canon Street which was stopped at Tunbrige Wells behind a broken Eurostar as was common during that time.  I remember thinking that despite my FM receivers poor sound quality, this track would be number 1. 

However 11 years on and the worlds a different place.  Surely it won't be enough for Posh to just to strike a pose and point, she's somehow beyond that ... or maybe that's all we, the public, want, some nostalgia.

Office 2007 VHD Test Drive

Can be found here ...

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=f9956176-cf66-478b-b20d-b9b92dd0dbfa&displaylang=en&hash=OeAU7ceZtCSkNps2dTJiy%2b5PQp00UfhDNbB0MyDPAXYplIve5iT526%2bnfrK6%2blW8utUEc4VgGbOGrT1gGMQ7ig%3d%3d

BBC Archives

We finally got our login to the BBC archive after waiting ages.  I completely failed to qualify for a login because i was the wrong demographic (male, young(ish), IT literate and professional).  Now I know this sounds really bad,  but in an inspirational moment I signed up Vicki and she met the demographic criteria (being female made the difference) so now we have access.  There seems to be about 8000 shows available including Eastenders episode 1.  There's certainly no depth to any of the featured series but it does show promise.  I'm not entirely sure how far the BBC will go with this and whether it will become permanent.  I am hoping it will become pervasive so if for instance I want to watch the 1978 British Grand Prix or Going live from September 19th 1992, I would be able to find and view it. But already Vicki found value in a play that is published that was shown only once that she could not get a copy of for one of her lessons.

So keep up the momentum BBC!

Happy Birthday Mum!

LinkedIN

I've blogged about this professional networking service before, but time to do it again.  They are gradually improving their data mining capabilities, which is changing the face of what LinkedIN represents and how it is used.  I envisaged LinkedIN was a way for me to not lose touch with people I know, but I have recently found that it is being used by recruiters as a way to acquire candidates.  I get no end of requests from headhunters and recruiters who I have never met before.  This got me thinking because I was going to enter a whole load of business cards from people I have met over the years,  but in reality if I never met them more than once, do they belong in my network ?

LinkedIN themselves are pushing this barrier with a new data mining technique that analyses my contacts contacts and tries to guess people I might know but am not linked to.  So far I would say they are 50/50 accurate with people I know but had forgotten about and people I have never met.  So back to the question of value.  Some people on LinkedIN are known as Lions and have 500,100 perhaps 3000 contacts.  I have about 160, all of whom will know who I am.  Are the others any real value ?  Just having met someone once doesn't really add any value.  So I have decided to discontinue the idea of entering any business cards and stick to people I know and have met more than once or worked with.  I can't really claim to have  properly known more than 1500 people in my entire life. so 10% in professional circumstances seems fine.

So in conclusion I intend to be more disciplined with my LinkedIN account and just use it to do what I first intended and not lose touch entirely with people I don't see so often. 

Apple TV and YouTube

This should be a marriage made in heaven, but I feel we're still somewhere in upper purgatory.  First the good news.  It works!  I performed the upgrade last night and it rebooted back with the new menu item for YouTube, I played a top selection video and it worked, hurrah! 

Now the bad news.  Not that many videos appear to be available yet, but I'm sure that will improve.  However, the biggest issue is the search.  Searching is appallingly bad with a remote control.  Its just not quick enough. I was hoping Apple would have included support in the update for a keyboard, wired or wireless via a bluetooth extender. Sadly not.

Still I guess there's a way to go yet, and on the positive side, it does work.  I certainly recommend the update if you have an Apple TV.

In Windows, no-one hears you scream

In the true spirit of the Windows 3.1 usability labs,  copying and deleting files in Windows is as flawed as ever.  I sometimes wonder whether the coders and PMs for the Windows file management components must actually use Linux or OS X.  I'm sure they can't use Windows, or, they have never tried to copy or delete a large amount of files within which one is open by another process, at which point Windows helpfully stops and doesn't continue...WHY? ... How can this make any logical sense?  OK I know I should use Robocopy to ease my copy woes, but why doesn't MS help and put the functionality of Robocopy into plain old copy ? </rant>

Catz

In honour of the great cat photos here http://www.dropline.net/cats/ I have published one of our own dynamic duo, Marks and Spencer.

Out of Touch

OK, I tried my very best, but a PDA is no substitute for a phone.  The HTC Touch should have been a ideal converter for me because it is slim, and actually, surprisingly smaller than my favorite HTC Excalibur smartphone.

I have now been able to hone in directly on why it could not convert me away from a smartphone, which was caused by one single catalyzing event.  I simply wanted to Shazam a track I heard on the radio, so I pulled out the Touch and tried to unlock it, which took too long.  Then I tried calling Shazam,  after calling 2 other numbers in error then canceling I finally got Shazam dialed, just as the track ended.

So, what went wrong ?  Well here's my analysis;

• The screen isn't bright enough to use accurately as input on a sunny day


• My fingers are too big so I have to deploy and use the stylus, which takes time.


• The touch screen isn't positive enough, I don't know if I have pushed the button or not (which is compounded because of the slow processor)


• I don't know if I hit the right button, invariably not!


• I like and need real physical buttons to press


• and lastly, specifically in the case of the Touch, the CPU is just too slow.

As Vicki succinctly put it, how can it be a phone without buttons ?

So, I'm afraid it wasn't the Touch that could win me over.  I'd like to think the iPhone could, but it shares so many of the same issues that I have with the Touch that I think it will be a tall order, but one I am going to take on.

Is an ADSL router now a consumable?

Since I got connected to ADSL I have been through 11 routers.  For some seemingly impossible to fathom reason,  the router reaches a point where the line speed begins to degrade irreversibly.  Even hard resetting the device makes no difference, only a new router will help.  Take the latest situation where my line speed had dropped to 5264kbps and nothing I or my ISP could do would increase the rate.  The decline, as usual was gradual, losing about 100kb per week.  Installing a brand new router (a Netgear DG834N) and immediately my line speed is back up at 8096kbps.  Magic.  Unfortunately I know the netgear is doomed to the same fate as its brethren in 6 or so months. I make a point of always buying a different router, so I've had representatives from all major brands on the market.  Changing cables makes no difference and the reversion to normal working has no input from BT or my ISP, so it can only be that the router wears out and has become my latest consumable.

Warning Will Robinson, Warning!

Lost in Space is my first recollection of colour tv after black and white.  The colours were so vibrant, I remember being amazed, almost brighter than real life. 

Well now for a mere $24K you can recreate that feeling with a full size replica of the robot B9 built from the original prop by a ex-B1 bomber pilot.  Not only does it look good, you have to read the testimonials here to realise what love of a product and good customer service means  http://www.lostinspacerobot.com/testimonials.html

Remix

I always amazed how remixing or sampling a track can make me love something I hated.  Take for instance the perennial 'Groove is in the heart' , I dislike it, and I particularly dislike the unique start... but listen to that same sound sampled into 'Like This Like That' by Sesa ft Sharon Philips (as played by Pete Tong tonight)and I just love it, very much how Will Smiths 'Miami' took a sample from the whispers  track I didn't like and made it great.  Same true of beautiful by Christina Aguilera which is great remixed, anything remixed by Bob Sinclair, Jacques Lu Cont and of course NERD's Rockstar remixed by the master, Jason Nevins.

Black is Back!

I always thought the Merc CLK63 looked a bit weedy compared to its predecessor.  I had a CLK55 and it really looked cool, the second generation went too girly for me.  So I am pleased to see the Black Series CLK63 which looks fab!  Same strides ad the F1 pace car.  The engine noise was the best thing about my CLK55, it just growled,  hear the new CLK63 here in Merc's promotional video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un4H97oMS14

Lewis ... who ?

Unfortunately due to severe over exposure and repetition, the word Hamilton has officially been worn out in the UK.  Stocks of the word Hamilton had been running low since early April, but were completely exhausted by an irresponsible review programme broadcast by ITV last Saturday afternoon.  Its feared that the global supply of the word Hamilton may take years to recover, even with severe rationing in place, meanwhile overuse continues unabated.  It is rumored that ITV have located and acquired a substantial stock of the word Hamilton in Hamilton, South Dakota, and this stock is to be used exclusively by Steve Ryder during commentary on this weekends US Grand Prix. 

A spokesman for the Hamilton conservation fund said 'the situation is very worrying, we could be looking at the complete extinction of the word Hamilton worldwide, and this may happen within this season.  I urge Lewis to change his name before this happens, as the situation is grave.'

However we can all do our bit by reducing our Hamilton footprint, by not speaking his name unless absolutely necessary.  If the general Hamilton output can be reduced then the word may survive albeit at a low level.

ZFS for Windows

Is not here yet ... sorry if you thought I was announcing it, or had written a driver in my spare time.  I'm just as annoyed as the next geek that SUN's brilliant filesystem is not available under Windows for use at home. or is it ....

I was pondering whether I could build a Solaris 10 based home server with a ZFS pool. Well of course I could, I really meant should.  Microsoft WHS is quite well packaged and NTFS does have some elements of ZFS (or at least those that I need sans 128 bit addressing) so is it worth the bother?  I'm still pondering, but I do like the extreme geek factor involved of a stripped out ZFS only Solaris home server.

Elevating MSI

One of the big (supposed) benefits of Windows Installer technology is the capability to install applications easily without admin privileges because MSI would elevate privileges to facilitate the installation process.  Turns out this doesn't work so well and when logged in as a regular user the MSI will fail to install and you will need to (rather inconveniently) log in as administrator and start the install again.

Now if the MSI ships with a companion setup bootstrap program then you can right click it and choose 'Run AS' and then provide admin credentials interactively without logging out and everything is sunny again (except any user specific items get created in the Administrators profile, but you cant have everything).

However, right clicking an MSI does not provide a Run As option ... why?  Indeed, why oh why.... 

There is a solution though, turns out its not that it can't be done its just that Microsoft chose not to make that option available by default.  Just add a registry key and you will get Run As for your MSI files.  Copy the following into a .REG file and then double click the REG file you created and import these settings into your registry. You will have to do that as Administrator.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Msi.Package\shell\RunAs\Command]
@="msiexec /i \"%1\""

Happy Running As!

XCOPY RIP

I was just updating a script (which I really should migrate to PowerShell) on Vista and I found that the classic command line utility XCopy is now deprecated in Vista, meaning its still there but on the way out.  I discovered this when I was updating some parameters and checked the help, which helpfully informed me that XCopy was now deprecated and I should use RoboCopy.  Robocopy has always been a ResKit tool that I have never relied on to be present on the base OS, but it does indeed ship with Vista.  A bit of googling and I found Jon Box of Microsoft also found the same issue as me.

So farewell XCopy, we knew you well, and now we need to get to know your descendant as well. RIP.

Lobster

I bought a Virgin Mobile Lobster as its a cheap WindowsMobile test device at £42 delivered with 200 minutes on PAYG.  Its a WM5 device but fine for testing.  You certainly wouldn't want to use it as your phone, well not if you have any sense of style. 

Its unique feature is that it has a TV function which allows OTA streaming of TV pictures to the Lobster.  Now obviously this streaming requires some special equipment to function, in fact it looks like a full size TV has been stuffed inside the case its so big and thick.  I believe its called to Lobster because the case look like a lobster claw, just looks ugly to me.

Anyway, if you want one you can get it here http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/lifestyleLanding.do

Going for a spin

I saw this on the BBC news this morning. In the US a 21 year old chap in a wheelchair was passing in front of a huge truck just as it was leaving a gas station. Somehow (I can only wonder), the handle bars of his chair became tangled up in the trucks front grill.  The truck driver then drove off down the highway at speeds of up to 50mph with his new passenger up front.  Passing motorists alerted the police who eventually found the man  unhurt but still attached to the front of the truck.  

Apparently the passenger was completely unhurt as his seatbelt had kept him the chair, and his only complaint was that he spilled his soda ...

Cool but no practical use to me

The new BAA flight tracking service is a very cool showcase of technology.  Basically you can mine their flight transponder database and watch flights in real-time (but in the past) fly in and out of Gatwick on a 2D map. Clicking on an aircraft as it moves shows its flight number, airline, aircraft type, speed and height.  FANTASTIC!

So now I can replay my flight to Frankfurt yesterday from Gatwick and see the exact flight path both in and out. COOL!

http://lgw.webtrak-lochard.com/template/index.html

Touch and Go

Oh dear, 24 hours in, and things are not progressing well.  I have a theory, there are two types of people; phone people; and PDA people.  I'm clearly a phone person.

I've really tried to make this experience work, and the HTC touch should have been a persuasive device, but it fails for me on so many areas.  I can't fault the build quality or the look and feel.  Its small too, surprisingly, smaller than my all time favorite the HTC Excalibur, and barely any thicker.

So why is it not right for me ?  Well I think the most obvious thing is that for me, WindowsMobile Pro adds no value over the Excalibur's WindowsMobile Standard, ie it doesn't do anything more or substantially better.  However good TouchFlo is, you can't get away from the fact you need a stylus for some (many) tasks.  The touch screen requires quite a hard press, disconcertingly hard in fact.  I know the logic is to prevent accidental touches, but its preventing 1 out of 3 intended ones for me.  This also has the unintended side effect of making the device feel really slow to use.  A real shame.

The skin is not deeply integrated enough into the underlying OS,  even just extending the theme a bit more would have helped. Some of the minor annoyances in the skin should have been fixed before release such as the weather module. Its most local point for me is London which is a hundred miles away, so its pointless having it other than my natural concern for the wellbeing of London's citizens, I might as well set it for New York. This could be easily fixed by using a better provider. Detail, Detail, Detail.

So what does this tell me?  Well WindowsMobile Pro is still not for me, which will mean the Apple iPhone is not for me either.  I'm simply not PDA person despite wanting to be.

As a side note, I know I've said this before to many MS people, and through the CrossBow beta, but please, please, harmonize the UI terms between Standard and Pro.  I still have to double take on which setting is which on each type of device which makes setting the Touch up from my i720 a constant translation of terms.

HTC Touch down

So I've switched over to using the new HTC Touch, this was previously codenamed Elf when the engineering prototypes were circulating.  I decided that this is the device to try and break my strong dislike of the PDA form factor. My big problem with PDAs is that they don't add enough benefit over a smartphone but have extra bulk and more critically require 2 handed operation.

The Touch has a new skin which is designed to overcome some of the limitations of the WindowsMobile 'Pro' UI and so I'm willing to be convinced that TouchFlo can make the difference.  I am disappointed that the TouchFlo as it is called is not deeper integrated into the OS and carried through the rest of the OS.  Touted as a possible competitor to the iPhone, I really think HTC had (and still do) have an opportunity to improve (or personalize) the whole experience much better than they have, although this is just their first major veer away from the WM6 UI.  I suspect much of the reason UI innovation has been stifled so far is because of Microsoft's branding and UI guidelines which are quite strict and I have fallen foul of myself before.

Unfortunately the rest of the spec is pretty dreary, with only 64K RAM a mediocre processor, an unexceptional 2MP camera, but it does have GPS.  Come on HTC please start using 640x480 display panels and ditch the old tech 320x240 which have no place in a device like this.

Anyway, I'm giving WindowsMobile Pro a chance, albeit in highly modified form, and I will report back on my findings.

SQL Server 2008 'Katmai' CTP

This was quite a surprise to see this available today, as I had just been discussing the TAP with the guys at TVP and they were of the opinion that it would be within the next 10 weeks.

There's a 'Katmai' min-site on Connect where you can get all the info and download the CTP.

https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/content/content.aspx?ContentID=5395

if I had a dime for every ...

... Microsoft keynote that demos something fantastic using one line of code I'd be rich!  This time it was the turn of TechEd 2007 where we were shown a single line of code added to Outlook using Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2008 (Orcas) and VSTO which highlighted an incoming mail from a salesperson which then allowed you to link to Sharepoint and analyze their sales figures.

All very impressive, but as usual, hides the hundreds if not thousands of lines of code which had to be written on the backend which made the one line of code relevant to the demo.

Of course the impact is there but as usual the reality is far more mundane and complex.  I mean if it wasn't then 'The Last One' (TLO) would have made programmers redundant years ago.  For those who don't remember, TLO (circa 1982) would generate a program from a simple business spec, generating thousands of lines of GWBASIC code which would be the answer to your business problem.  Of course not only was it too lofty and aspiration, but the code never worked anyway... not like our PowerPoint compiler! (http://www.altaVENTE.com)

Apple TV finally gets You Tube

I really like my Apple TV unit, sure it gets very hot and only wants to play stuff via a iTunes connected PC, but it looks elegant and the UI is gorgeous.  So I was very pleased to hear that here would be official support for You Tube content from June (obviously later in June than now).  This is a big step forward, now we just need official support for other non-Apple owned CODECs like XVid, DivX and Windows Media. Its unbelievably arrogant of Apple to pretend they don't exist and force owners to perform long and expensive file conversions whilst simultaneously performing an incantation to prevent the conversion failing mid way through.

Yes I know I can hack the box to do these things, but I shouldn't have to, Apple should be doing this for me and embracing the whole market, otherwise, how are they going to get broad acceptance of what is in effect a severely hobbled, but cheap Mac Mini.  I just want it to work like it should work.  You Tube support is a step in the right direction,  keep going Apple!

Philips EasyLife LX2000

I saw this advertised on TV last week and I couldn't find a review so I went and had a look at one in PCWorld.  It looked very nice and I'd wanted a home media hub to replace an ugly PC for some time now so, despite it being horrifically bad value for money at £499, I bought one.  They also sell an LX3000 which has a bigger hard disk (250GB vs 160GB), double memory (2GB vs 1GB) and a processor with double the cache (couldn't see any other major differences) but that was a whopping extra £200 and even worse value,  and those are bits I'm happy to upgrade myself if need be.

I was a bit cautious because it ships with Vista Home premium which normally requires a Cray and 100GB of RAM to run at anywhere near XP speeds,  and this was a weedy 1.6GHz Dual Core (think its a Pentium and not Core Duo, the spec says Core Duo but it has a Pentium sticker on the front) with just 1GB.  However, I don't want it to do anything else but be a media center, so I decided to go ahead.

Quickly got it up and working, but it soon became obvious that this is the real bottom end for Media Center performance with a Vista score of 3.8 (constrained by video perf).  However, to my surprise the built in Intel graphics chipset did run Aero and at the full 1920x1200 of my 47" HD LCD panel.  I actually ran this through the VGA connection via a VGA->DVI converter.  There's no HDMI on the LX just a DVI.

So everything worked out of the box, just a little bit slowly.  Its not too noisy, but gets very hot if its in a stack of units, so give it an airflow.  The fan is on the bottom and they provide a stand so that you can have it stand upright, although it looks less attractive vertically.

It comes with a wireless keyboard with a built-in trackball which is the size of a marble and bizarrely light up red,  at which point you can see its filled with glitter... However, you do need to plug in a USB transceiver for it onto the unit which is a bit Heath Robinson.  I do like the remote control which feels good and works well,  in fact, don't use the mouse in Media Center, the combination of the slow speed of the scrolling the massive acceleration of the trackball means you will never be able to get to the menu option you want, always the one before or after, just use the remote.

One minor annoyance is that the IR port for the supplied remote control is external, in fact it's that huge shoebox sized unit shipped in the original MCE SDK that looks like a bar code scanner from Tesco, and its very out of character with the rest of the package.  One super-HUGE annoyance is the power LED.  Its blue (but that's ok) but its as bright as a lighthouse! and when on standby it flashes every second so when you turn the lights out you immediately feel like there a police car outside.  Clearly any fix for this issue will look ugly (tried a plaster) so not sure what I will end up doing...

This looks like its exclusive to PCWorld, Dixons and Currys as the Vista build and even the Philips manuals have been edited, added to and branded by 'The Tech Guys', the trade descriptions contravening brand belonging to DSG.

Anyway,  I quite like it overall, and although I know I could have built a better one myself,  there is something to be said for just buying something complete that is just designed to do one job.  The actual clincher to buying it was that my wife said she liked it ... its also the same reason that the top wasn't off it and its guts exposed within 5 minutes of me getting it home, shame!

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/editorial/philips-easylife-lx2000-lx3000-tv-package

UPDATE: so lots of people have asked me questions about this article here are some of my answers:

Yes It definitely does 1920 x 1200 using the DVI connection to my ATEC 1080P (1920x1200) LCD TV.

It is slow, just on the cusp of usable.  Getting the extra memory would probably help a small amount but not as much as a better matched processor, maybe a 2GHz.

With media center running and nothing else it uses about 800MB of its 1GB RAM.

Its not at all noisy for me, I stand it vertically so the fan is in clear air.  When I had it stacked with my Apple TV it got very hot and span the fan up.  In normal operation its quieter than a Sky HD or PS3.

I have not found any way to turn the bright blue LED off at night.

No I can't turn it on with the remote either, I have to press the button on the front to get it back from standby, big issue in my view.

New Live Betas

I'm just using the new Live Writer (516) to write this entry.  Its far superior to the last version and I think I am going to use it for a while until I find a flaw.  There's new updates for Messenger (8.5) and Mail.  I'm not entirely struck on the mail client, I think Microsoft's strategy doesn't add up here.  I don't think we should have separate mail clients,  just one based on the main Outlook codebase with plug-ins for various functions like Exchange, nntp and RSS.  Full Outlook nntp handling is just atrocious and a merging of Outlook, Outlook Express and Live Mail would be a huge benefit if it could bring together their individual strengths and leave behind the weaknesses. 

I also think its a bit presumptuous that the installer tries to get you to change your web home page and search engine to Live as its first step, I think that could confuse a lot of people.

Anyway I like Live Writer, so far .... 

HTC S710 update

I'm still using my S710, even though my initial feelings were that I wouldn't use it for very long.  Its too thick, yet I'm still using it, can't work out why. 

The push email functionality of WindowsMobile 6 combined with my Exchange Server is really seamless and certainly matches and I think surpasses anything available from Blackberry or Symbian.

I do prefer the HTC S620 (HTC Excalibur/T-Mobile Dash) still overall.  I'm looking forward to getting an HTC Cavalier, particularly the Dopod example which has a nice matt gray finish.

One thing I can say overall is that HTC really have conquered the fit and finish issues, both the S620 and S710 have great feel and operation, and they use standard mini-usb connections!