I just upgraded from my kyocera 7135 palm device to a samsung i600 Windows Mobile Phone. You have pointed out before and I agree totally that the palm interface is stuck in the stone age. There are more and interesting palm apps out there, but it's not worth brooking the clunkiness of it all. You want a 7135? it's cheap. What really makes the i600 for me is the home screen which cleanly and beautifully summarizes everything for you, and it can be operated one handed, with no awkward reaching for the stylus. text input is slower, but I can deal with that. Even the newer versions of the Palm OS in the Treo don't make enough improvement, and the have no grasp of what makes a useful phone versus useful PDA. So, evil empire for me. and I'll probably get the WM Treo 700w when it comes out. Sad really, Palm used to rock. I do miss the star trek communicator sound when I opened the kyocera though.
I absolutely disagree that the Palm interface is "stuck in the stone age"...admittedly its molded my thinking over the years but I have not seen a UI for datebook and todos that seems better. (except of course for my own unimplemented idea http://kisrael.com/viewblog/?date=2005.10.10 ...also I like Outlooks "today" feature a bit over Palm's copy)
However, the i500s integration with the phone was really lacking. I think part of it was that the Palm contacts list needed a concept of "nickname", used as the displayed key on the main list. Plus, the UI disobeyed the principles of predictabilty, it wasn't clear if clicking on an entry meant "edit" or "display #s for dialing", and the use of the builtin hardware buttons was totally hit or miss.
I'll take a look at your phone when we see each other next.
By "stone age" I mean that it looks like the Mac in 1984, no smoothness, no polish. Utterly utilitarian. Which I suppose works well for you, but I need some prettyness. I am speaking of look & feel, not functionality. They need to get with the new millennium, less b&w, smooth edges, antialiased fonts, background images.
Bleh.
I even turn off the Fisher Price look and feel when I get a new XP PC.
I hate to think that your kind of crap is getting more developer attention than usability. My cell's Todo feature looks nice, but it's utter crap to use, even taking the limited physical interface into account.
I enjoy it when usability and design sync together.