Database Develop

Kaiser from users point of view

Dear all
I had an i-mate JasJam and sold it, then baught myself a HTC Touch but not happy with the performance.
I am thinking of buying a HTC TyTn II.
Reading all the reviews over the web is not good enough to make a good decission.
The best thing is to hear from the actual users.
Please Advice.
Best Regards

This phone is the best there is.
The only problem (What kan be a big problem) is that the screen is very thin.
So watch out while pressing or having it in your pocket.

I have used the I-mate Jasjam and Triniy, and I can tell you one thing Tytn II is better than both of them, only thing that is bugging me is the battery life time.

xmoo said:
This phone is the best there is.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Best" can be so subjective to the user’s needs. I will just say, it's the best I've had so far. The ONLY issue I have right now is battery life sux. I have yet to isolate the problem with it. Some report no problems, while MANY others do. The best improvement IMHO so far over the other HTC phones I've had, is the increase in on board memory. The only apps I load to the SD card now are games.

The Kaiser is very good, and you will find 128 Mb ram a godsend after both the Touch and the JasJam.
Re battery life, mine improved immeasurably when I make bluetooth non-discoverable. Of course one should also make sure no GPS software is running in the background.
Surur

TYTN II/Kaiser is a solid in feel and performer. Wen holding the TYTN I and II, I feels very hollow/light and II ha substances, solid. plus the screen tilts so one can read/watch while leaving it on the desk.

surur said:
The Kaiser is very good, and you will find 128 Mb ram a godsend after both the Touch and the JasJam.
Re battery life, mine improved immeasurably when I make bluetooth non-discoverable. Of course one should also make sure no GPS software is running in the background.
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got a replacement for mine when I called support over the battery issue. Before I sent the first one back, I hard reset it, installed nothing, and didn't even put a sim card in it. No wifi or BT on, I put it in hibernation and let it sit overnight. It used 12% of the battery over a 6 hour period (in hibernation). The 8525/TyTn wouldn't even use 1% doing this same thing. So, I believe there is something in the hardware of this phone is a battery hog.

I've got a Tilt and an 8525. Although the Tilt looks the same size, it feels much smaller and more comfortable in the hand. Lighter too. It makes a surprising difference. I like the non-collapsing stylus. The speaker seems tinnier to me, but if using headset, there is a sort of basic equalizer applet (though I haven't used it yet).
It has fewer buttons than the 8525. It doesn't have the two on the top for messages or IE and it doesn't have the button on the for Comm Manager, which I miss quite a lot. I also find the On/off button on the same side to be more recessed and harder to press. This is an annoyance for me because I like to keep the unit off to conserve battery but let it wake for calls, reminders etc.
I won't talk about the joy of the extra storage. The camera's nicer too, not just extra pixels but ease of use and settings. I do very much like the built in GPS. Using it with Google maps or Live Search, you can find a wide variety of local businesses including addresses, map views and directions and add them to contacts. With existing contacts for which you have an address listed, you can also get directions. I find this useful when having to pick up my kids at their school mates homes when I've never been there.
I've only had the Tilt for a couple of days and am still in the process of learning all the additional benefits

After my smartphones, i got some pdaphones : wizard, then trinity, hermes, artemis, and now THE Kaiser.
By order : Kaiser-Artemis-Trinity-Wizard-Hermes.
The Kaiser is the best phone I ever tried, and I'm not sure I'll change for Polaris.
Keyboard is cool, TouchFlo works as well, and Agps rocks. And memory and rom owns !
Kaiser rulezzzz

Battery life is better than the Hermes IMO (compared against 8525 & TyTN). The only thing that's missing is support for Qualcom's hardware video acceleration. Hopefully itnf we'll have that too....

Sleuth255 said:
Battery life is better than the Hermes IMO (compared against 8525 & TyTN). The only thing that's missing is support for Qualcom's hardware video acceleration. Hopefully itnf we'll have that too....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure that battery life is better. Better than my Artemis, sure, but my Hermes, I don't think so.

I too had the Jasjam and the Touch and now the Kaiser (TyTn II).
By far the best specially the ample amount of RAM and ROM is probably the best part for me.
My only complaint is that while using the EDGE network the data speed I get is only half of what I get with the Touch. I have tried this repeatedly by swaping my SIM between the Touch and TyTn II and each time the same result about 100 kbs for the TyTn II versus 200 for the Touch

Kaiser:
1. is a bit heavy
2. does not have vga screen

I think Touch and Kaiser are meant for different purposes. You may want to look into Touch II if performance is your only concern. If you are really into PDA's then Kaiser is the answer.

24hrs with the phone and i love it.. yeah its got a few flaws.. i like my 8525 keyboard more.. these buttons dont seem to pop like the 85s did so it takes some time getting used to.. the phone feels soo much thinner and feels like it weights less when holding up to ur ear. its extremely faster then the treo 750v when using a custom rom (im using duttys 3). the camera is AMAZING for a phone..from what ive seen but then again ive only delt w/ windows phones since my very first phone so.. yeah

RSchris said:
I'm not sure that battery life is better. Better than my Artemis, sure, but my Hermes, I don't think so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree with Sleuth255 the battery life in my att tilt BLOWS away the battery life I got with the 8525. and yes, we got it, you dont think so.

camera sucks
I think the camera sucks compared to the 8525. I was able to take some good pics with the 8525, where on the tilt, they are always jaggy, i have to ask someone to sit still for 5 seconds. just my opinion.

ko0ky said:
I think the camera sucks compared to the 8525. I was able to take some good pics with the 8525, where on the tilt, they are always jaggy, i have to ask someone to sit still for 5 seconds. just my opinion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
are u running a 8925 or a 8125 because the camera is purely just shy of amazing for a camera phone.. it has auto focus so u might have a bad phone

One more tool to increase battery life.
I just ran across a nifty little tool that lets you use just about any Pop email provider and yet get Push email from it WITHOUT using your email client to keep checking if you have mail which saves your battery.
It uses mail forwarding from your provider and sms/text messages to trigger your PPC to go get mail. As a result the battery seems to last a lot longer and you get your mail within seconds of it arriving in your POP email providers servers.
Give this thing a look. It's working just great with GMAIL. And once Google fixes their IMAP problems for PPC this will work even better. Here's the site.
http://www.qorefunctions.com/

Dear All
I would like to thank you to all of you who contributed in this thread, I very much appreciate your personal openions.
Now I have a better and clear view of the Kaiser.
Again thank you very much
Best Regards

Is it worth buying the kaiser/tilt?

hi there,
Im currently a wizard user and i love it, only 2 drawbacks are Lack of GPS and a slow processor. Ive been reading up alot on the tilt lately and heres what i found...
1 - the video/graphics problem still exists
2 - Red Light of death is a COMMON problem
ill be buying this phone from ebay, and unlocking it for T-mobile (USA) since i wont be under AT&ts warranty, i have no way of knowing the RLOD will ever hit me.... so i cant exchange a dead kaiser/tilt
So i ask you tilt users to advise me...... thanks in advance

Will the data work on T-Mobile's 3G when they launch it this summer?
Is there any way to use the front facing camera (video call or some sort of messenger, whatever) on T-Mobile?
What about the push to talk- will that work on T-Mobile?
T-Mobile is so much cheaper than AT&T, and I really want a Kaiser, preferably an unbranded one with front facing camera...

funkadesi said:
hi there, Im currently a wizard user and i love it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not a tilt user, mine is an o2 (UK) branded Kaiser. I was a HTC Universal user and loved that. What prompted me to upgrade (apart from the fact the upgrade was free!) was the intergrated GPS and larger memory. I'm very pleased with my little Kaiser in comparison to the size of the Uni and love having everything onboard.
But the million dollar question really is what do you use your Wizard for?
For me, it's a bit of Internet use (love Opera Mobile) over WiFi, ebook reading, PIM, MP3 player, email, skype over Wifi, gaming (but nothing much more intensive than solitaire). I use TomTom don't seem to suffer from the jerky graphics as much as others, and having the GPS onboard is priceless, cos I know that the 1 day I would really need it, I'd have left the external GPS at home with the Uni! I have watched some videos, but I've re-encoded them to a lower bitrate, yes the Kaiser does have issues with high bitrate video's. However on balance, the higher internal memory and integrated GPS means my Kaiser does everything my Universal did, only I don't have to worry about where I'm installing applications, or leaving things at home.
So whilst I am very happy with my purchase, I have noticed my device performs better than some at the tasks I use it for. So it's back to you to tell us what you want yours for!

SaltyDawg said:
Will the data work on T-Mobile's 3G when they launch it this summer?
Is there any way to use the front facing camera (video call or some sort of messenger, whatever) on T-Mobile?
What about the push to talk- will that work on T-Mobile?
T-Mobile is so much cheaper than AT&T, and I really want a Kaiser, preferably an unbranded one with front facing camera...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have they even confirmed with the rolling out of their "3g"?

well I use my phone for Im/Texting alot and GPS is another major application for me, I drive alot so its quite important for me, ofcourse at the end of the day im gonna use to make calls.
only thing im stuck on is wether i need the qwety keyboard or not

GPS is worth it
I use iGo 2006 and like it a lot. For me, the GPS is why the phone is worth it.
My complaints are that: the speakerphone is not good; the camera could be better and is useless in low light; no insurance offered by at&t; battery life, but I am used to it by now... needs a charge every few days or so depending on what you use (GPS will kill it quickly); the graphics problem is annoying, maybe programs like navigon would work smoothly but the phone is still worth it, I never use my video ipod to watch media because I don't like the small screen.
With WM6, I use SBSH software pocketbreeze for functionality and wisbar advance for looks. Most people care about the speed, but I'm happy with it. Oh yeah, Q-Mobile 1.2 has made the phone much more stable.
One last thing, I got mine for $75 after rebates but I would not have gone over $300. That's me though, some people have money and want a tech gadget that they can customize to their liking.

I upgraded to the Tilt from the 8125 a month ago and have been very pleased with my purchase. Obviously there will be risks of the thing bricking down the road, but you shouldn't let that scare you away from a purchase. If anything, that should be incentive for you to buy the HTC branded version of the phone and not the Tilt.
Just my opinion, but I would stay away from ebay too. The thought of buying fairly expensive electronics sight-unseen from an anonymous seller has always seemed kinda sketchy to me.

Love my tilt. The gps, 3G and faster processor was why i upgraded. I mostly use iGO , Flexmail, MSN, and Google Maps when I'm out. Sold my Wizard 8125 and picked up the tilt.... I have to say that i am very happy so far.

I've had the best phones of every carried in the MidEast area. Touch, Dash, BB Curve, MotoQ9h, and now the Kaiser. Its the best phone with the most available features. The ability to customize the phone in an endless number of ways makes this phones worth a lot more than it is. Even though the video displays aren't the best and worse than predecessors, its still a killer phone. Plus, you cant find a better community, in terms of developers and activity, than XDA. I say this because I was on a lot of there forums and I can say that the amount of intelligence here is amazing.
Get the kaiser and return it if your dont like it.

grandpareza said:
Have they even confirmed with the rolling out of their "3g"?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is pretty much all I know about it:
http://www.phonenews.com/mwc-t-mobi...aunch-in-summer-possible-android-device-2739/
So sometime this summer.

Diamond vs Cruise...a big difference!!

Yesterday was the first day that the Diamond was sold to the public. I bought one right away cause the movie on the HTC site brainwashed me
Ofcourse i played with it, but omg, what a difference with the Cruise. This device shouldn't be on the market right now!!
First big problem is the range. This is unacceptable!! I have full range with my cruise in my house. With the Diamond just one line and most of the time the connection fails. This is really unacceptable.
Second problem, the backplate doesn't fit like it should be. i tried it many times, but it doesn't fit right. Ofcourse with the Cruise no problem at all.
Home button feels very fragile. If i push it in, it looks like i gonna snap it
The Diamond isnt made for thumb usage!! maybe the home plugin can be used with thumb, but all others are way to small for using it with your thumb.
The speed of the device is also unacceptable. To be honest, my tuned cruise is way faster. Ofcourse i played with reg settings like the Tweaks known from this forum, but still the Diamond is way too slow. I hope new roms get out very soon.
To be honest, i am not happy with the Diamond. This has nothing to do with learning from the misstakes they made before. this has all to do with making a new device and throw it right away on the market for the cash.
For now my Diamond gets a 6- instead of a 8+ for the Cruise right now. Maybe some cookers can make this device to come alive, but untill then i expect a lot of frustration with this device for me.

Well, I've found this to be the best device "out-of-the-box" that I've had from HTC so far.
Of course, I'm looking forward to the inevitable improvements that will come along, but for now it's about as fast and stable as my heavily tweaked/flashed Kaiser. Which is something of a surprise.

What about your range? And which radio version do you have?

I assume you mean Network reception rather than WiFi?
As I live in London and there are cell towers absolutely everywhere, I have never had any problems. Flashing different radios on previous devices has always been pointless, as it has never done anything to improve or worsen the signal as far as I've ever noticed.
I honestly haven't got good enough ears to notice difference in call quality, but if you pinned me down, I'd probably say the call quality is again very marginally better than my previous HTC devices. That could easily be because the Diamond is shiny and new, and in my opinion the speakers do tend to get slightly worse over time...
WiFi I think is slightly weaker than my Kaiser. Probably only a couple of metres difference when using my crappy old Belkin router, but the bottom of the garden is just about out of range...
Radio is: 0.93.25.NS16

Just collected mine. Fully charged, I used Tomtom for 5 minutes, played a video for around 3 minutes, setup my email accounts, and made around 20 minutes of calls.....Around 20% battery life remains. Touchflo isn't as good as its cracked up to be. Prefer the port on my TYTN 2 tbh. Don't get me wrong the build quality and virtually everyhting is ideal..It's less than half the weight of the TYTN2 (or at least it feels like it). HTC needs to release the updated battery QUICK, the software update that is coming will hopefully sort power consumption, and with a bit of luck it will come with a radio update too. TYTN2 never dropped a call in my house, ever. The Diamond has dropped 3 out of 5....
Still a cracking piece of kit though, and very happy with it..Just hope it isn't rose tinted glasses.

Yzord said:
Yesterday was the first day that the Diamond was sold to the public. I bought one right away cause the movie on the HTC site brainwashed me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you saying that you have the supposedly 'fixed' European version? If you are, that's really, really worrying. But there seem to be a lot of different opinions on and experiences with this device. Maybe some are just dodgy...

I can not lie, I love this device, I had alot of problems with my samsung i780 that I had for 3 months, but after many complaints, they offered me a new phone of my choice. So I opted for the Diamond. Good choice. Only my games or not playable anymore with the higher res.

oddball1 said:
I can not lie, I love this device, I had alot of problems with my samsung i780 that I had for 3 months, but after many complaints, they offered me a new phone of my choice. So I opted for the Diamond. Good choice. Only my games or not playable anymore with the higher res.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which games are those? I got pretty much 90% of the games i own for win mobile working!
I do agree with the initial poster that the reception is rather poor, although i dont get any dropped calls, i cant get hsdpa in my house like i could with the cruise.with the diamond my signal is mostly roaming in my house, i not complaining as im lucky to get any living in the middle of nowhere!

Games like Atomic Cannon 3, hexic and so on...

oddball1 said:
Games like Atomic Cannon 3, hexic and so on...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hexic vga works fine on my diamond...

games that did not work on my O2 exec do work on D-nd !!!
Cool phone!

Abt HTC Touch Diamond
Is the Touch Diamond quad or tri band?
In the HTC website its described to be a tri band, however Carphone Warehouse in London is saying its a quad band.
Any idea reg this?
Many Thanks

ayankm said:
Is the Touch Diamond quad or tri band?
In the HTC website its described to be a tri band, however Carphone Warehouse in London is saying its a quad band.
Any idea reg this?
Many Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well you obviously browsed to the HTC site and they are ALWAYS correct, i cant understand why you would believe a 3rd party store and not HTC's website
Straight from the Horses Mouth
HSDPA/WCDMA:
Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
Up to 384 kbps up-link and 7.2 Mbps down-link speeds
Tri-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
Europe/Asia: 900/1800/1900 MHz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Many thanks for the info...

To buy a Tilt or not, opinions please

Hey,
Im moving on from my trusty MDA and came apon a few decently priced At&t Tilts. Ive read over the driver issues and just wanted the opinions of some current and/or previous owners.
Just so you know, I have owned a Wing, MDA and currently a Blackjack2 and had flashed/upgraded the HTCs several times. Thats why I want to come back to an HTC device.
Thanks in advance.

go for it dude
fhaines said:
Hey,
Im moving on from my trusty MDA and came apon a few decently priced At&t Tilts. Ive read over the driver issues and just wanted the opinions of some current and/or previous owners.
Just so you know, I have owned a Wing, MDA and currently a Blackjack2 and had flashed/upgraded the HTCs several times. Thats why I want to come back to an HTC device.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Personally, I think it is a great phone.

I agree. Fully functional 3D drivers or not, this is still the most amazing phone on the market for price point. The only thing I would personally get above this phone is the touch pro....and that wont be for some time to come

I've had a tilt since oct 07. Wouldn't give it up for anything. Does it play 3d perfectly, no...but I didn't buy it to play movies & mp3 files. Does it have as quality camera as my old SE W810i? No, but with patience, it does pretty darn well. I got the tilt because it allowed me to replace a phone & PDA with one device. I use mobile office around 10-15 times a day, 20-30 text messages a day, the camera maybe once or twice a week, and it is without a doubt the best
device I've owned. it has it's quirks, but what device doesn't?

here hear, awesomest phone i have ever owned. I was looking for a phone i could replace my phone and pda with. it rocksas far as features. sure the graphics suck. but they get the job done in a pinch. weee it's the most technologicaly advanced phone that att has right now. I dont have to synch eight devices. i just got rid of my laptop. I use this for most everything. i have school comp labs for everything else. i thought about taking it back and waiting fr something better to come out. but. when the touch pro comes out it will cost 450 dollars with a new 2 year agreement. school stsrts before then anyways. HEY thanks you guysfor making this the coolest phone it can be with what is available. is there any feature that another phone has that this one does not. in america anyways. it is a business phone. it does just that. it will play most regular phone games out there. damn it doesnt play crysis at maximum detail. boo hoo. it is a freakin miracle these slow resricted devices can do what they do. having said that. im sure my opinion would be changed with a good foreign phone. hey and htc come on. what other company out there encourages hacking their phones by putting xda developers in their wiki. i have dropped this thing onto concrete hard twice and to my knowledge it hasnt phased it. oh and btw. i dont have a data plan for my phone. i am typing this on my tilt at panera bread on my hardware giant qwerty keyboard. this has taken me fifteen mins to write. do that iphone. do that old style 12 key phones. i just got the thing and i am typing fast on it. if you want a gaming phone this is not for you. if you want relatively long battery life when you surf the net using wifi get this phone. i am comparing the batt life to my sony clie which had first generation pda wifi in it. i have gone over an hour today surfing the web. i still have 20 pecent left and i started with like 60. my clie could only go for like 45 mins with a brand new battery with a slower processor. well panera bread is cosing and i should probably get home. but it isnt becase my pda ran outof juice. i have the oem batt btw. good night all. i hope this helps you in your quest fora new phone.

i have owned the tilt since Nov 2007 and it has been a excellent pocket pc/phone. what i really like about the phone is having the ability to flash the rom that chefs have to offer. it's nice to have options and incredible free applications out there offered by the programmer's.
i have been through four previous pocket pc phones and it's nice for once that there is everything packaged into one device. I use gps, wifi, watch movies, listen to mp3s, outlook/exchange, bluetooth etc.. i take the phone to the limits and it meets expectations.
despite the video driver problem, its not a big deal if you are really into eye candy.
if you have other questions, you can email me..
tvos

Nooo. Don't get it. I personally plan on selling my Tilt and shelling out some cash to get the AT&T Fuze (Touch Pro). It's much better. The retail pricing is only about $100-200 more then the Tilt's. So it'll retail for about $550/$650 w/o contract. =) This is a great deal compared to $1k. It's going to come out before year's end and AT&T data managers are currently testing the Fuze. It'll be out before 08 ends I can swear on it. It has a different color TF3D as we've seen. It has no front camera and an extra button for PTT. That's about it.
Guess how I got this info =)

Kraize92 said:
Nooo. Don't get it. I personally plan on selling my Tilt and shelling out some cash to get the AT&T Fuze (Touch Pro). It's much better. The retail pricing is only about $100-200 more then the Tilt's. So it'll retail for about $550/$650 w/o contract. =) This is a great deal compared to $1k. It's going to come out before year's end and AT&T data managers are currently testing the Fuze. It'll be out before 08 ends I can swear on it. It has a different color TF3D as we've seen. It has no front camera and an extra button for PTT. That's about it.
Guess how I got this info =)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you don't know what your talking about...
get the tilt..... worse and try it out for 30 days.. if you don't like it, return it... this probably the best to offer... at least at&t give you this option.
tvos

tvos said:
you don't know what your talking about...
get the tilt..... worse and try it out for 30 days.. if you don't like it, return it... this probably the best to offer... at least at&t give you this option.
tvos
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rofl. I know exactly what I'm talking about

I dont want to sound negative
but your posting on a Kaiser forum and asking people who own a Tilt if they advise you to get it... haha i got a feeling your gonna get around 90% yes...
the real test is to ask some guys who have a htc touch diamond or some of the other smart phones out there what they think of the Kaiser...
oh and my answer is yes... get it... with the right tweaks and a few apps to your liking, it will be the best phone you have owned (well atleast it is the best phone i have had)

I had mine since March. Pretty good phone. A tad on the heavy side. And depends on how you like to hold it, the little corner of the USB port may dig into your pinky. The AT&T bloatware are garbage but nothing you can't fix on your own. There are enough people that like it to get a constant supply of goodies.
Knowing what I know now, would I get it again? Probably.

fhaines said:
Hey,
Im moving on from my trusty MDA and came apon a few decently priced At&t Tilts. Ive read over the driver issues and just wanted the opinions of some current and/or previous owners.
Just so you know, I have owned a Wing, MDA and currently a Blackjack2 and had flashed/upgraded the HTCs several times. Thats why I want to come back to an HTC device.
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I look for speed and stability in a PPC, and I'm sorry to say that once again I have not found it in a HTC phone. I previously had the S710. Compared to that, the TYTN-II is fast as lightning. But compared to previous Sony Ericsson and Palm phones, the TYTN-II is sloppy. Admittedly it has GPS and WI-FI, which the others did not. The stability is below what I think is reasonable to expect for a smartphone in 2008. The touchscreen and buttons are occasionally unresponsive, and normal operation is often replaced by random "irregularities". I soft reset the device some 1-3 times a week, because unexpected stuff just happens: ranging from missed calls, broken activesync, unable to connect to EDGE network, software crashes, buttons not working.
Yet I hold on to it. It sports a nice set of features, and the software for it is plentyfull. The stability and performance can be improved by careful configuration (involving a lot of trial-and-error), but be prepared to spend a lot of hours on it. If you are a "point-and-shoot" type of person, who just want a phone that works out of the box, you may be disappointed with this one.
At least this is my personoal experience with the phone. Your milage may vary!

If you're prepared to put up with what can at times be an annoyingly slow user interface, then I don't see why not. The feature-set is excellent, the build quality is excellent and the tilting display shows no sign of flimsy construction. It has a nice weight to it and feels comfortable to hold and use.
But the dsmn lack of drivers *REALLY* grates at me after a while, especially when switching between portrait/landscape modes. The more time goes on, the more you notice how slow it is. There are tweaks that help, for example if you set the X button to close instead of hide apps the effect of this is minimised somewhat, but that shouldn't be necessary.
Unless you have patience for a UI with an average speed of "slow" I would go for one of HTCs other offerings which actually uses the hardware it contains, although if the custom drivers that are underway reach completion, perhaps the Kaiser will be a serious contender. So if you DO buy one, you may think of it as an investment for the future

Quality and Function comparisons
CrArc said:
. . . The feature-set is excellent, the build quality is excellent and the tilting display shows no sign of flimsy construction. It has a nice weight to it and feels comfortable to hold and use. . .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Wizard (8125) and a Kaiser (Tilt) and just got a Hermes (8525) for another family member - the Kaiser obviously has the best feature set, but the build quality of the other two is better, IMO. The 8125 is clunky looking, but solid, and the spacing of the keys makes it much easier not to miss-key. The 8525 is super-solid, has the best battery cover, and I think is the best looking.
That said, I will keep using the Kaiser. I have also tried i-mate 8502 and HP iPaq 910c, and returned to the Kaiser. The chrome is wearing down on the buttons, and some of HTC's software design on it is annoying (e.g. fast backlight shutoff - fixable of course). In the inevitable comparison to iPhone 3G, the iPhone does some things amazingly well (threaded SMS, internet browsing) but still doesn't have a spreadsheet for crying out loud! I depend on Excel, use it constantly in eyecare clinic.
So despite its flaws, the Kaiser is the best thing for me - until Touch Pro for AT&T 3G is available - then I will get that - the 5 row keyboard and the VGA screen are the big pluses there, and you can never have too much memory.

You know I researched a lot before buying my tilt, knowing I would need to unlock and flash it to get the functionality I wanted. I could not be happier with my purchase. Things I know I can not do with an Iphone easily or at all at no additional cost include excel & word editing, connect to Citrix, RDP, tether my laptop by either USB or BT. As for the d3d drivers, while they would be nice I don't see them as mandatory since this is first a phone and a PDA not a iPod. That said, I have no issue other than bandwidth when I comes to streaming media through ORB to my TILT and playback is more than acceptable for me.
Just do it since your no stranger to flashing,
z

Is reception on the Captivate that much worst than my Tilt2 ?

I am beginning to lose my cool when it comes to reception and my Captivate.
At work I used to watch a lot of youtube on my Tilt2 and altough it some times went on a wont connect spree....most of the times youtube was a no problem.
Unfortunately the Captivate is like almost never connects or just a little bit and once again loses it.
Is this about the whole hspa thing?
Even at home when reception is better for both, South Park is a lagfest with the Captivate if I use 3G unlike the Tilt2 but then again that could also be Skyfire....in any case...is this normal?

I guess you have never used and iPhone???
I had an iPhone 3GS and it was a POS when it came to reception.
I'm sooooooo happy I'm finally able to have an android phone on AT&T.
It takes some getting use to compared to the iPhone. Just basic navigating through the phone is very different.
I don't mind dealing with some minor flaws of the Galaxy S because I know for sure this phone will be improved because it was released on all four major carriers, not to mention it was already out as the GT i9000.
anyway - just my thoughts
sorry - I know this didn't answer your questions but wanted to share

Never had an iphone and never will! lol
Its just that I love this phone so much that I just cant stand it that reception is hurting me this badly...I just need to be patient I guess.
Like on the weekend... instead of streaming a soccer game to my Android I had to ask my wife for the Tilt2 again to watch the game with some friends at the park...

No. My tilt2 got sligltly better reception too. It OK I love my captivate.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Man, you guys are killing me. I have a Tilt 2 with Energy ROM and for the most part I'm happy with it, but I'm just dying to upgrade to a Captivate, but I keep hearing about reception problems. On the other hand, if you Google any phone these days you hear about reception problems. If you guys are saying the reception is worse than my Tilt 2 I'm just not sure I can live with that though. I frequently work on drilling rigs where reception is pretty bad to non existent. I'm thinking about just swapping out my Tilt 2 for a new one since the keyboard is wearing out, but for $125 deductible, an upgrade sounds pretty good.

Reception is the same or better from my original Tilt.

Phytrax said:
Man, you guys are killing me. I have a Tilt 2 with Energy ROM and for the most part I'm happy with it, but I'm just dying to upgrade to a Captivate, but I keep hearing about reception problems. On the other hand, if you Google any phone these days you hear about reception problems. If you guys are saying the reception is worse than my Tilt 2 I'm just not sure I can live with that though. I frequently work on drilling rigs where reception is pretty bad to non existent. I'm thinking about just swapping out my Tilt 2 for a new one since the keyboard is wearing out, but for $125 deductible, an upgrade sounds pretty good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would upgrade if I were you.
As much as I liked my Tilt2 there is no way I would go back to it after being using the Captivate. The speed difference is just too much.
So much that I have gone from fancy Energy Roms on my wife's now tilt 2 to the simplest and fastest 2.1 ROMS I can get so it does not feel too slow.

Tilt2 has had numerous radio upgrades you can install since it came out
I would imagine when samsung releases some radio revisions we will have better luck with reception.
I really have not noticed the Captivate having significantly less reception than the tilt2. Now for battery low on the other hand.....

For me the difference is obvious even on stock tilt 2 radio.
For example watching you tube at work with my tilt 2 it was almost always a non issue but with my Captivate I get several disconnections and most of the times I have to go to low quality mode to get a decent experience.
Still, no way I am going back to the Tilt2 ...wish I they could finally get android running on it...that would make it a much nicer phone I think

I dunno, I've had noticeably worse reception on my captivate than my old blackberrt 8310
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

shaolin95 said:
I would upgrade if I were you.
As much as I liked my Tilt2 there is no way I would go back to it after being using the Captivate. The speed difference is just too much.
So much that I have gone from fancy Energy Roms on my wife's now tilt 2 to the simplest and fastest 2.1 ROMS I can get so it does not feel too slow.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
See, this doesnt make sense to me. After all it is a PHONE first, everything else second. So you're willing to sacrifice reception ability for speed of user interface, etc? Why? In your post you were just complaining about how poor the captivate's reception is vs. the tilt 2, yet you'd recommend the captivate because it has a faster CPU or slicker UI than the tilt2? Why not just carry two phones, one to actually use as a phone and one as a toy? That makes about as much sense to me. JMO.

derek4484 said:
See, this doesnt make sense to me. After all it is a PHONE first, everything else second. So you're willing to sacrifice reception ability for speed of user interface, etc? Why? In your post you were just complaining about how poor the captivate's reception is vs. the tilt 2, yet you'd recommend the captivate because it has a faster CPU or slicker UI than the tilt2? Why not just carry two phones, one to actually use as a phone and one as a toy? That makes about as much sense to me. JMO.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok first I think someone forgot his pills this morning
First reception not extremely poor compared to the tilt2 just youtube freezes more often at work which is a hard place for every phone for some reason. The Tilt2 was better but I did had to switch radios from time to time like something will change then a new radio will do better for this month or so.
Second, this is only for video watching...phone calls I have zero issues in quality or connectivity so far...yes it is a phone so that IS the main reason to have it.
The main issue has been Skyfire but I got confirmation from the developer that this is indeed a matter of Skyfire on the Android not being quite up to par yet to the Windows version but they are of course working on it.
So, today for example, I have been connecting to the market and downloading stuff and even watching youtube quite smoothly.
So in my first post I gave the impression it was a huge difference it was based on SouthPark and Skyfire.
So if you are able to calm down a bit feel free to rejoin the conversation but if you are going to go off like that then by all means, there are more threads around.
Regards

Well I'm glad I found this thread. When first hearing about the Captivate I was not very interested due to concerns about the Samsung interface, reception issues and GPS issues. I was also really hoping for a 4.3" screen and possibly front facing camera and a flash.
Now after reading that the GPU is top notch, GPS issue is fixed, or will be soon, and reception is generally fine I'm very much leaning toward the Captivate. Samsung interface seems to be not as bad as I initially though, and the speed is plenty fast enough even without froyo. Also NewEgg has them for $79 with a contract renewal.
I have to say I really love the new MaxSense ROM's from Energy though. I hope I can make Android look that good once I take the plunge. I'm still worried about the lack of hardware keyboard too, mostly the fact that it covers half the screen when using it.

For what it's worth:
I've owned a Tilt2 for 3 months, tried out pretty much all the available radios, and have a pretty good judgement of it's reception. I've also owned a Tilt (Kaiser) for almost 2 years.
My Captivate gets much better reception than either phone: I get solid HSDPA reception in places where neither my Tilt/Tilt2 could. The trick is to just ignore the signal bar. I live in an area with poor reception, even after the 850 MHz upgrade, and at times my phone shows no bars, but gets good quality voice/data reception. So don't rate your impressions of signal quality based on the on-screen display, only how the device actually performs.
And as far as GPS goes, I've head-to-head compared it against my Tilt2 (which has a pretty decent GPS) and the hardware itself is more sensitive, and sees 3-4 satellites indoors in places my Tilt2 can't. There are definitely weird and inconsistent problems getting/holding a lock, but to me it feels like a kernel or other software issue. So hopefully a solution can be found (by Samsung or Devs).

Shammyh said:
For what it's worth:
I've owned a Tilt2 for 3 months....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the input. That's good to hear considering I'm fairly happy with the reception on my Tilt2. I have to say the GPS is inconsistent though. Sometimes it won't even pick up outside. I'm thinking about heading to Best Buy this weekend to pick up the Captivate and give it a try. I'm really looking forward to the improved video performance, bigger screen, and a standard headphone jack.

Shammyh said:
For what it's worth:
I've owned a Tilt2 for 3 months, tried out pretty much all the available radios, and have a pretty good judgement of it's reception. I've also owned a Tilt (Kaiser) for almost 2 years.
My Captivate gets much better reception than either phone: I get solid HSDPA reception in places where neither my Tilt/Tilt2 could. The trick is to just ignore the signal bar. I live in an area with poor reception, even after the 850 MHz upgrade, and at times my phone shows no bars, but gets good quality voice/data reception. So don't rate your impressions of signal quality based on the on-screen display, only how the device actually performs.
And as far as GPS goes, I've head-to-head compared it against my Tilt2 (which has a pretty decent GPS) and the hardware itself is more sensitive, and sees 3-4 satellites indoors in places my Tilt2 can't. There are definitely weird and inconsistent problems getting/holding a lock, but to me it feels like a kernel or other software issue. So hopefully a solution can be found (by Samsung or Devs).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh no, my impressions were not based on bars...in fact, you will see not a single comment about those I think. That is irrelevant to me.
Although as I mentioned on my previous post, without considering the differences between the Skyfire performance, the difference is not that big.
How are you getting HSDPA on that phone, I thought the hack was not working for ATT?
Phytrax said:
Thanks for the input. That's good to hear considering I'm fairly happy with the reception on my Tilt2. I have to say the GPS is inconsistent though. Sometimes it won't even pick up outside. I'm thinking about heading to Best Buy this weekend to pick up the Captivate and give it a try. I'm really looking forward to the improved video performance, bigger screen, and a standard headphone jack.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am sure you are going to love it.
I was afraid of going away from the keyboard but Swype is sweet too.

derek4484 said:
See, this doesnt make sense to me. After all it is a PHONE first, everything else second.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If reception is primary concern I hear the Jitterbug gets good reception?
Seriously there has been a slightly weaker signal for me but we are talking less than 10%.
P.S. map your coverage if AT&T gets bad enough coverage maps from real use they will have to fix their coverage.

My reception has been great with my Captivate, it drops less calls than my iPones and Nexus One did....my Blackberry Bold is still the king though (always had great reception with it, and battery life was insane). I do however have issues with AT&T's network in the DC/Baltimore area...theres just so many people using data that everything I do lags and takes twice as long, and I've almost never been able to watch Youtube videos in Hi-Def while on 3G...on ANY of my phones while in a populated area, but it works fine at my parents house and when connected to our 3G microcell at home. I think the Captivate works great as a phone and the 4" screen seems like it sits right in the middle of being too large and too small, meaning its perfect for me. I owned a Tilt2 and couldn't stand it after owning iPhones and the Sprint Hero...I loved the keyboard but signal strength and the browser killed it for me, it only lasted 2 weeks before it went back. Give me the Tilt2 form factor with the Captivates screen and guts on AT&T and it'll be my next phone lol.

shaolin95 said:
Oh no, my impressions were not based on bars...in fact, you will see not a single comment about those I think. That is irrelevant to me.
Although as I mentioned on my previous post, without considering the differences between the Skyfire performance, the difference is not that big.
How are you getting HSDPA on that phone, I thought the hack was not working for ATT?
I am sure you are going to love it.
I was afraid of going away from the keyboard but Swype is sweet too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I understand, it's HSUPA (uplink) not HSDPA (downlink) that's the problem. Without HSDPA, we'd all be getting download speeds of less than 1 Mbit/s. And since the hardware supports it, it's only a matter of time before someone releases a working HSUPA radio.
It really is a great phone though. And for me, the biggest deal-breaker over the iPhone4 (and most other phones) is that I can simply drag-and-drop video files from my computer to my phone. From simple Xvid/Divx/OtherAVI files, to 720p HD MKV files. No transcoding, or other work required.
Don't buy it expecting it to be flawless though, the underlying hardware may be, but without XDA and the community to fix the software flaws, it wouldn't be nearly as appealing a phone.

Well I found a guy selling a Captivate on eBay for $400. My contract isn't due for an upgrade yet so I figured what the hell, if they come out with something amazing next year I could use my upgrade then. I'm definitely looking forward to the h264 decoding and "5.1" sound. I just hope I can find some widgets to make the interface look as awesome as my Energy MaxSense ROM on my Tilt2.