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T-Mobile Wing Review - Organizer

Alfredo Padilla Published on June 05, 2007 Comment on this

Intro Making/Receiving Calls Software Other Features

Tour & Design Messaging Battery Life Value & Comparisons

Audio Quality Organizer Connectivity Conclusion

Imaging Multimedia Hardware Ratings & Specs

Synchronization (6.33)
As with all Windows Mobile devices, the T-Mobile Wing easily synchronizes with your Windows PC using either Activesync on XP machines or Windows Mobile Device Manager or Vista computers. Setting up a synchronization is as easy as installing the software from Microsoft's website or the included CD and then connecting your device via USB. You can also set up a Bluetooth partnership to synchronize the device wirelesslly. Both Windows Mobile Device Manager and Activesync easily allow you to choose the items you want to synchronize, with additional controls such as how many emails should be synchronized. We were very pleased with the ease of synchronization offered by the T-Mobile Wing.

Synchronization with your computer is supported via USB and Bluetooth. You can synchronize all of the pertinent PIM information, including tasks, calendar, contacts and notes. Your contacts also synchronize contact photos, which is a nice feature. In addition to the PIM information you can synchronize items like bookmarks and files, plus there are third party programs like Avantgo, which adds additional synchronization plugins. Of course, you can also move media back and forth, but we will cover that in the multimedia section. Overall, we were pleased with the synchronization options available for the T-Mobile Wing.

Activesync and Windows Mobile Device Manager synchronizes your information with Outlook on Windows PC's. There is no support out of the box for synchronization with other applications such as Eudora. There is also no support for synchronization with Macs, you will need to purchase third party software such as The Missing Sync in order to synchronize with your mac.

Alerts (8.0)
You can set alerts on the T-Mobile Wing for calendar appointments and tasks. All such alerts are managed in the sounds and notifications settings by choosing the reminders option from the drop down list. Here you can choose what sound goes off when alerts sound, as well as control whether a message is shown on screen, the screen flashes or the phone vibrates. We would have liked to see the ability to choose a sound for each specific alert, but unfortunately, that is not supported.

When an alert does sound, you hear/see the alerts you selected. You can choose to dismiss the alert, open it or snooze it for any one of several preset periods, including five minutes before the appointment. We were pleased with the array of snooze options available, as even smart phones like the Blackberry 8800 don't offer the range of snooze options that Windows Mobile devices like the Wing does. If you miss the alert, you will see an indicator at the top of the screen and note that the left soft key on the home screen has been reassigned to reminder, which will allow you to access the alert. We were generally pleased with the alert options available on the T-Mobile Wing, but we would have liked to have more specific controls for each appointment or even to differentiate between tasks and calendar appointments.

Over the Air PIM Sync (2.0)
As with all modern Windows Mobile devices, the T-Mobile Dash allows you to synchronize your contacts, email, calendar and tasks with a Microsoft Exchange server over the air in real time. This sort of over the air integration is one of the most important features of Windows Mobile smart phones such as the Wing for those working in an Exchange environment.

Address Book

Adding Contacts (6.23)
To test how easy it is to add contacts to the Wing, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen unlocked until we have added each of five different contact names and phone numbers. We take the average time for our score. The T-Mobile Wing took an average of 16.04 seconds to add our test contacts. This is an average score, about the same as the Treo 750's 16.1 seconds or the Blackberry 8800's 16.3 seconds. It is a little slower than the T-Mobile Dash, which took only 13.44 seconds to add new contacts. We found that the lag we experienced in other areas was still present in this test, especially when opening the keyboard and switching orientation. We were able to anticipate our next step to speed up the process and eventually the interface caught up with us. Still, the lag is very annoying, and those not familiar with the Wing will find adding a contact takes significantly longer as they wait for the lag to subside.

Looking/Sorting/Search (5.5)
Contacts on the T-Mobile Wing are organized alphabetically by last name. You can change individual contacts to display the first name first, in which case this is the name used in the list, however you cannot change this globally, which is disappointing. You can filter your contacts by category or recently viewed, and you can also sort them by company. You can search through your contacts by typing in a name, the list is automatically filtered to display only matching contacts. You can search by first or last name, but you cannot search by company name unless you are in the company view. Of course, in that case, you cannot search by name. Although, the Wing provides solid sorting and search options, we would have liked the interface to be a bit more customizable and the search to be more comprehensive.

Fields (8.2)
As with other Windows Mobile devices, the Wing provides you with a plethora of fields when you create a new contact. There are 40 individual fields, as well as a separate tab where you can enter any text notes you like. In addition to basics like phone numbers, email and physical addresses, the contacts application has spaces for things like spouse, assistant and customer ID, things that can come in very handy for business users. You can also attach a photo to each contact and choose a unique ring tone for it. We were very pleased with the fields provided by the Wing for contacts, about the only thing it is missing is the ability to create your own user defined field.

Speed Dial/Voice tags/Voice command (3.0)
The T-Mobile Wing allows you to assign any contact to one of up to 99 different speed dials. Speed dials can be accessed by entering and holding down the appropriate number on the soft keypad. There is no support for voice tags, however, you can use the built in voice command to dial contacts. Unfortunately, we found the voice command to be almost completely useless as it only recognized one of our test contact names. We were able to get the current time and date using voice command, and open the calendar program, but at best it's a crap shoot and most of the time it didn't register our command at all.

Calendar

Adding Calendar Items (9.09)
To test how easy it is to add a calendar appointment, we timed how long it took to add a simple lunch appointment for the following day with a reminder 15 minutes before. We repeated this five times and took the average for our score. The T-Mobile Wing took an average of 11 seconds to add our test appointment. This is a poor time for a smart phone, the Treo 750 took only 6.76 seconds to complete the same process, while the Blackberry 8800 took 6.92 seconds. The Wing was again hurt by significant lag in launching the application and switching orientation so we could enter text using the QWERTY keyboard. The Wing's time was even more disappointing when you consider that the calendar application is assigned to the left soft key on the home screen and that the reminder was added automatically. Still, when compared to non-smartphones like the Helio Ocean, which took 24.2 seconds to add a calendar appointment, the Wing doesn't come off too bad.

Calendar Views (7.13)
The calendar views on the T-Mobile Wing is the same as those found on other Windows Mobile devices, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and agenda. The only significant upgrade we saw was the addition of a bar at the top of the agenda view that shows your busy and free time for a 10 hours period around your current selected appointment. This is a very helpful feature and makes the agenda view, which shows a simple chronological list of your daily appointments, even better. You can still filter your views by category, which is a nice feature. Unfortunately, there was little effort to improve the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly views, which are not very usable.
The daily view shows the current day split up into one hour blocks with your appointments filling the appropriate times. You move up and down the day using up/down on the D-Pad or arrow keys, and left/right takes you to the previous or next day respectively. Icons are shows for recurrence, but strangely not for reminders. The weekly view is a grid with hours on the left and days of the week along the top. By default, only Monday through Friday are shown. Moving left or right selects the next or previous appointment, with details shows at the bottom of the screen. This is an upgrade over Windows Mobile 5 where left right moved you between the days, but up/down moves you up or down a whole week. Despite this improvement, we still found the weekly view to be of limited utility.
The monthly view shows six weeks at a time, with the current month in white and weeks outside the month in blue. Days that have appointments are indicated with a small triangle, while all day appointments are indicated with a square. We would have liked to see the ability to use the D-Pad to move amongst the days with a tool tip indicating what appointments occur on that day, but instead up/down moves your view by one week, while left/right moves the view by a whole month. The yearly view is simply a 12 month calendar with the current date highlighted in black.
Although we certainly appreciate the upgrades that Microsoft has made to the calendar views, we still find all but the Agenda view to be of limited utility.

Fields (12.0)
When creating a new calendar appointment on the T-Mobile Wing, you have a solid set of fields to choose from, as is typical of Windows Mobile phones. In addition to title, start/end, reminder and other basic options, you also have advanced features like recurrence, categories and notes. We've already mentioned the ability to invite attendees to appointments, a feature that is not available on most phones. You can also set your status during the appointment. We are very pleased with the range of options available when you create a new appointment on the Wing.

ToDo/Tasks

Adding ToDo/Task (5.27)
To test how easy it is to add a task to the T-Mobile Wing, we timed how long it takes to go from the home screen until we have added a new task reminding us to get groceries. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The T-Mobile Wing took an average of 18.96 seconds to add our test task. This is slightly slower than the Treo 750's 16.9 second average and about the same as the Blackberry 8800's 18.8 seconds. It is significantly slower than the Treo 700p, which took only 12.9 seconds on average. As with other operations on the Wing, we found that there was significant lag when launching applications and switching the screen orientation, which slowed us down.

ToDo/Task Sorting and Prioritizing (7.0)
The tasks application included in Windows Mobile provides you with good sorting and prioritizing options. Your task list is sorted by priority by default, but this can be changed to sorting by status, subject, start date or due date. You can also filter your task list by category. You can set one of three priorities for each task, normal, low and high. We were very pleased with the options available on the T-Mobile Wing to sort and prioritize your tasks.

Fields (10.0)
When you create a new task on the T-Mobile Wing, there are plenty of fields available. In addition to standards like title, reminder and start/due date, you can also set recurrence, priority, status and category. As with all other PIM applications on the Wing, you also have a tab to enter a text note with any information you want. We were very pleased with the fields available for tasks on the Wing.

Notes

Adding Notes (3.24)

The T-Mobile Wing ships with the standard notes application found on all Windows Mobile Professional devices. To test how easy it is to create a note using this application, we time how long it takes to go from the home screen until we have created a simple note reminding us about a lunch appointment the next day. We repeat this test five times and take the average for our score. The T-Mobile Wing took an average of 15.42 seconds to enter our test note. This is a slow time, slower than the Treo 750's 11.65 second average or the Blackberry 8800's 13.12 second average. We were again slowed down by lag but were also slowed down by the fact that there is no shortcut to the notes application, forcing us to go into the programs menu to launch it. We did find ourself using the auto complete feature when typing our note in to speed things up a bit.

Note Interface (1.0)
As we mentioned, the notes application on the Wing is the same as that found on any Windows Mobile Professional (formerly Pocket PC) device. Notes are organized into a simple list alphabetically by title. The title is the first line of the note you enter. The left soft key opens a new note dialogue, while the right soft key opens the menu. Unfortunately there are no options to categorize, sort or search through your notes. The interface is simple and straightforward, but we would have liked to see search capabilities as found on the BlackBerries.

Note Formatting (2.0)
The notes program on the T-Mobile Wing does not provide you with any font formatting options, you can, however, change the zoom level of your view to increase or decrease the font size. You can also add hand drawn items to your notes, a nice plus of having a touch screen. For more fully featured formatting options, you should use Word Mobile on the Wing.

Voice Memo (5.0)
Voice memos on the T-Mobile Wing are built into the notes program as on other Windows Mobile Professional devices. While in the notes program, you can create a stand alone voice note by hitting the left soft key to open the menu and choosing "view recording toolbar" from the menu. This places a toolbar on the bottom of the screen with a record button that you can use to record voice notes. You can also do the same within a text note to combine voice and text notes. Unfortunately you have to use the touch screen to access the functions of the recording toolbar. The Wing does, however, have a nice shortcut, if you press and hold the mail button on the right side of the phone you are immediately taken the notes application and as long as you hold the button down you are recording. When you release the button, the recording is saved. This is a nice feature that gets around the otherwise clumsy voice note interface.
If you really hate the voice notes application built into the standard notes interface, there is a standalone voice notes application included as well. This application is much more fully featured and easy to use, with advanced features like setting a voice note as a ringtone. For those who use voice notes a lot, we recommend this application over the one built into notes.

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