Thoughts on the MDA Vario

You`ll find lots of reviews on the net about the MDA Vario, so I`m not
going to do a review here - I just want to mention some of the things
that I do and don`t like about it.

Overall. I love it - in fact, I`m writing this on it.

Good
The fact that it has full qwerty keyboard is great, and not only lets
you type text messages more easily, it also lets you do things that
you wouldn`t be able to do without it, like type this post. It`s
obviously not quite as good as a laptop keybaord, but if you`re used
to typing with your thumbs it`s fine.

Most settings, like the today screen, program list, and soft keys are
fully configurable.

There are some nifty effort-saving things, most of which work so
effectively that you aren`t really even aware of them - like the
screen switching to landscape mode automatically when you open the
keyboard, the phone dialler that opens when you press the dial button,
etc (there are lots more - basically everything combines to make the
phone easy to use).

Bad
The stylus is at the bottom of the phone, so that it`s on the right
when you have the keyboard slid out. I`m used to having it at the
top, so I keep moving my hand up to the power button to find the
stylus and then realise it`s at the bottom. It also sits flush with
the phone casing, making it unobtrusive, but it does make it difficult
to get out if you have very short nails.

There seem to be some things that you just can`t do on the keyboard -
like select a Word document from the list. You`d think you could just
scroll using the arrow keys and press enter, but there doesn`t seem to
be any way to set the focus to the document list without using the
stylus.

There`s a similar problem with IE - you can, technically, get to the
address box without using the stylus, but in practice you have to tab
through all the tab stops on the webpage before you get to it, which
is rather painful.

Another thing I can`t seem to do with the keyboard is insert a
non-keyboard symbol, like an angle bracket. The `sym` key doesn't
seem to do anything, in word at least, so you have to use the stylus
and the on-screen keyboard. And of course, there`s no ctl-c ctl-v for
copy & paste.

Still on the keyboard, the shift and the ... Well, I don`t know what
its official name is, so I`ll call it the symbol key (the blue dot
key) are difficult to get used to. I`m used to the concept: pressing
it one applies to the next keypress only, pressing it twice sets it
'permanently'. That`s fine. But: if you`ve pressed it twice, you need
to press it twice again to switch it off, otherwise it applies to the
next keypress again. And there`s no indication of what state you`re
in, so it can get very confusing.

Update: The sorting of contacts in the address book is also quite annoying. If I add the contact 'Cathryn Johns' (and yes, I did put myself in my address, although as 'me' rather than using my full name, which would feel somewhat silly - I never phone myself, so I do tend to forget my home, work and mobile numbers) it displays and sorts it as Johns, Cathryn. I see the point in that, and maybe some people prefer it, but I tend to know people by their first names rather than their last names, so it's more difficult for me to notice them when scanning through the list if their last name is listed first. And like my msn messenger list, I'd prefer to see them sorted by first name as well. It shouldn't have been difficult to make it optional - there is an option to view (and sort) by name or company, so why not an option for first or last name as well?

Indifferent
The word completion feature is something I used a lot on my old phone,
but don`t really use much on the vario. If you`re typing away
happily, it just slows you down to notice that one the word choices is
the one you want, move your thumb overto the cursor, select the word,
etc. It`s probably more useful for typing short messages, if you`re a
one finger typist, or if you`re not in the typing zone :-) It does
add the words you use frequently to the dictionary, which is also
useful.

Something I`d like, although it`s not crucial, is to put the recently
used programs list on the today screen, rather than on the start menu.
It might end up getting too crowded, but if the quicklaunch panel (or
something similar) could do that instead of showing predefined
shortcuts, it`d be great.

These are mostly minor issues, though - there`s a lot that they`ve done right.