Audiovox PPC-6600 / PPC-6601 / XV6600 (HTC Harrier)
Average Ratings
I Really Wanted to Like This Phone...
All I can say is that I'm disappointed. The phone just falls short in almost every application for me (business user).
Cons:
- Email does not easily syn with Outlook. For the most part, you have to have a computer running Outlook (ie. your desktop at work) for you to remotely access your email in real time. I'm a road warrior - my laptop is always with me and to have Outlook running all the time would mean I wouldn't need to have it on my phone. Not easy to set up either - various technical problems with Win XP Pro (sp. II). Had trouble installing ActiveSync.
- Phone is terrible! Very hard to hear - not a natural phone (more of a pda). As many mentioned, ring tones are too soft. No installed voice dialing.
- Did not come with a "holster". If you keep it in your pocket, the screen can be touched and thus you may at any one time, inadvertently email and call people without ever knowing. There might be some way to shut the whole thing down - I've not gotten that far yet (they don't give you a manual - you have to download it).
- Picture clarity is poor (but hey, it's not its primary function). It does have a flash though!
Pros:
- I like the fact it can shoot video!
- QWERTY key pad worked well despite size.
- Great letter recognition when using stylus (I'm' an ex Palm user - Windows blows Palm OS away! Which is why I really wanted this phone to work!)
Consequently, most of my colleagues own the Treo 600 and rave about it. I may wait for the 650 to come out, if it ever does. Regardless, the Audiovox, much to my disappointment, must go back. It failed my test!
Sorry folks.. good luck!
kt
Big Difference in a PDA Phone
I have barely had the PPC6600 for a week and I am so glad my Hitachi G1000 had a manufacturer's defect, because this was the only PocketPC PDA phone available to replace it, and man am I glad.
This phone is so practical and ergonomic that it is everything I was unhappy about in my other PDA phone. I love the additional quick-keys and some of the upgrades in the software has helped the efficiency of this phone.
Big difference compared to the "boom-box" Hitachi G1000 that everyone was making fun of its size, but with the PPC6600, my cell phone is essentially the same size now.
Very pleased and excited new user.
The Best Phone and PPC...Buy One Today :-)
I have owned them all from the Samsung i300, i700 all the Treos and even the new HP 6315. This is by far the very best I have ever owned. I love the keyboard. It is even visible in the evening. National access has connected up to 213kbs and broadband as high as 547kbs. When I hit 547kbs I was in a lower level in a mall. Do you believe it? It is great. I am currently writing this review wirelessly via Bluetooth and my laptop to my 6600. This is by far the best I have ever owned.
The only wish I have has to do with Mobile Windows and syncing. It is funny that my Palm devices would allow me to sync up to all fields in Outlook with add-on applications. Microsoft ActiveSync does not support all the Outlook Fields regardless of the application. This is my only frustration. If anyone has a solution, please let me know at ggallen@gmail.com.
All and all, I love the phone and its service.,,,One more thing...I wish the ringer was louder
great update
This is my first PDA/PC Phone, it was very easy to set up and i just love it. To get all my e mail on my phone is awesome, the large screen makes it easy to read all the info you receive, The media player works great and to listen to your music from one device is wonderful. A big must for me was Voice Command it works really great.
The only CON I can think of is you can not use voice dial with your bluetooth, but other wise a great phone, go out and get it.
Finally a phone with everything
There are so many phones that have great ideas, but are lacking the few option that would make it perfect. This phone is great I use ACT! contact manager with it and I would be hard pressed to say it doesnt work perfect. The broadband works great when I am in those markets, and the email wireless sync is flawless. I was hesitant being a long time Blackberry customer, but this phone is well thought out. For the money they could of put the camera, and voice dialing in it, but all of these things are liveable.
A decent ebay find
I bought this phone off of ebay just to see if I would like the smartphone concept. I needed something that had a speakerphone, bluetooth, and could edit Microsoft Word and Excel. This phone was the cheapest that met all those requirements, and although it has its shortcomings, it is a good "first smartphone," and will serve as a decent backup phone if my new smartphone ever needs replacement. I would not recommend this phone for a new purchase, but it is sufficient for a backup or test phone.
PROS:
large touch screen, windows media player, highly customizable calendar and contact list, bluetooth, speakersphone, can edit microsoft documents.
CONS:
Slide-down QWERTY keyboard feels cramped, large touch screen makes the phone a bit large, battery life could be better, quiet ringer, bluetooth is occasionally finicky.
It's not a great phone, but it's a good-enough phone. Samsung's new smartphones can't come soon enough, and I can only hope one goes to Verizon.
My Beloved PDA.
I needed to replace my lost iPAQ device. I also wanted a cell phone. I use my PDA for a many things, games, reading, music and movies. I used pocket office as well.
I looked at a number of available devices, and one smart phone after another had too small a screen. It seemed as though with each upgrade my screen got smaller! then I looked at the Audiovox Harrier. I was delighted to see that the screen was as large as my iPAQ had been! The win mobile OS meant that I could reinstall my favorite software applications.
pros:
I love the Bluetooth and telephone. I can leave it in my purse and answer the phone with my headset. I love the screen size. I love the OS, all of the apps I have can get for it, even freeware. I love the SD card slot, so I can add movies and music. I love the LED illumination light for the camera, it acts as flash or video light. One of the devices I have been dreaming of getting is a simple cheap video camera. In this new PPC, I have acquired just that!
Things I don't like about this unit:
The keyboard is a gimmick, much slower than the traditional win mobile input format. Although this device will take videos and pictures it will not send video and picture messages. The telephone does will not assign ring tone's to caller ID, I can only customize the main ring tone. This device really needs WiFi, especially with the exorbitant cost of data on cellular.
In summary, I love this device. While I miss the WiFi, I have nearly everything that my little iPAQ once delivered. Plus the ability to receive and send phone calls, and as an added bonus, I don't have to carry a digital camera around! My purse just got a lot roomier. This is not a device for people looking for a telephone with PDA functions, but rather for people looking for a pocket computer with telephone functions. I will be trying to find an SDIO flash memory with WiFi card to add that extremely important WiFi functionality to this device.
worst phone
I have never had such a horrible phone. Im on my second Adiovox 6600 as the first one kept freezing...the phone battery kept popping off, and the phone contacts are wiped off the phone daily. I was sent a second phone and it is still happening, Verizon refuses to give me a new phone even though I said I would take the cheapest phone available to replace this piece of junk. There is no good benifets to having this phone as the bad outways everything...Oh and I forgot the worst thing...The phone only rings about 1/10th of the time that a call comes in. I will drop verizon as a carrier if they do not do something immediately as I have had it.
Good for a time...
This was probably the best phone when it came out... I purchased it about a year and a half ago. It's been the most useful, entertaining, and reliable pda/phone I've purchased. The windows mobile OS was great. However after long use of a year and a half the phone did not last it's course. The slider, which I had a gut feeling about became loose, the keyboard with it's rubber overlay (another gut feeling) wore down some of the keys so they were much harder to push. Worth the 450$ I paid? No way. I pay 450$ the phone better last me years. I had a cheap crappy simple nokia 5160 for 6 years and never had any problems it was 1/4th the price of this phone.
Pros:
Extremely powerful PDA
All the joys of WindowsOS
Backlit keyboard!
Big huge beautiful color screen
Rarely had an application fail (installed hundreds)
Lots of memory
Bluetooth works like a charm
Decent battery life for a PDA
Plays fancy games very nice!
Movies look great and sound great!
The headset (that comes with it) plays MP3s like a cheap boom box but decent enough for a couple of earbuds.
Cons:
-The phone is not built to last.
-Slider is a ridiculous idea it's obvious it will wear out with the way it's built.
-Keyboard with a rubber overlay and a slider phone with flat edge? Gimmie a break it was designed to rip apart.
-At times the phone completely reset itself, I dropped it on my bed after a long day of work and lost all info? Wtf? Thank PDA heavens we have hotsync backup but too bad the hotsync doesn't recognize an existing user after a PDA reset to factory settings mysteriously so you have to copy and reinstall all programs manually. Lame.
-Many times have to soft reset due to freezing, for some bizarre reason. ut hey it's WindowsOS who hasn't had that problem?
-After long use of the slider phone the screen became affected, when raised to full length the video distorts with fuzzy colored sprites.
It takes so much memory to show an incoming call it refuses to answer at times.
The Best Verizon Pocket PC So Far
I know it's a bold statement, but not only do I own one WITH the camera, so does my fiance, and we both LOVE these phones. We have had our phones for a long time, and battery time is good, between 3-4 hours straight talk time, which is what anyone expects from all-digital phones nowadays. The screens on these are darn near perfect, as clear as can be, no wavy lines or dead pixels. Call reception is great, very rarely drop a call, no trouble on either end (VA). I have had to soft reset once or twice, but I consider that normal for a computer device. Now what's sad (and great) about this phone is that the camera in both picture and video mode is better than the XV6700, and the overall processor performance is faster, which didn't make alot of sense to me considering that on paper it should have been the other way around. Also, the keyboard and the TALK and END buttons are far more brighter than the XV6700. I make this comparison because I bought a XV6700 and almost immediately returned it because I was willing to accept a smaller screen, and I was excited about Windows Mobile 5, but I can't accept the fact that a newer phone is going to suck harder than the one I've had and depended on for so long. If your concern about getting Windows Mobile 5 was because it has ringer ID and picture ID, there are programs to add that to this phone. And everyone gripes about the speaker volume on this phone: just how loud do you need it to be? Has anyone ever heard the ringer on a Samsung i600? That's horrible! Oh, and on the XV6700, you have to hold the camera button down for 3 seconds before it activates...another sore point with me. This is by no means the BEST POCKET PC EVER, but as far as Verizon goes, with what youre given to choose from, forget about XV6700. Forget about Palm Treo 700w, it was worse and even slower. For a Windows-based Pocket PC on Verizon's network, coming from a long-time user of Pocket PC's, I recommend the XV6600 (and ONLY the camera version) to anyone.
