“How about the HTC Excalibur?“ asked Fred

Question: “I live in Canada, and will attempt to buy an unlocked Dash. If I end up getting an HTC Excalibur version (ie. not the T-MOBILE version), do you expect that the nice touches that you mentioned (like numbered menus) will be in non-T-Mobile version as well?”

Answer: For those who may not be familiar with the HTC S620 Excalibur, it is an identical smartphone to the T-Mobile Dash. HTC is the original manufacturer of the T-Mobile Dash, and HTC is releasing the Excalibur allowing users to get their voice and data plans from a variety of carriers in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and other regions.

I expect the HTC S620 Excalibur to have an identical Windows Mobile implementation to that of the T-Mobile Dash, and the Cingular 3125, including the numbered menus. What will be different from provider to provider is likely to be the “extra” services offered such as the T-Zones from T-Mobile and the MEdia Net from Cingular. For those readers who end up getting the HTC S620 Excalibur, your comments will be greatly appreciated.

Comments

[wgray]

Any informtion on if Cingular will pick this phone up?

Answer: I doubt that Cingular will pick the HTC Excalibur because they just released the Samsung BlackJack which is very similar in functionality. You may want to check out my review of the BlackJack starting on this date:
http://81dayexperiment.typepad.com/the_81day_experiment/2006/11/the_new_sumsung.html

Good luck!

[steve ikin]

My Dash from T-Moblie has a bug. If you connect the smartphone to the desktop or laptop in a Locked state it asks you to unlock the device - which you then do and ActiveSync connects but it display "Synchronizing Folders" for about 5 minutes and then says "There is a communication problem". If you unlock the device and then connect ActiveSync works perfectly. This is not the case with the Motorola Q - if you connect the device in a locked state and it prompts you to unlock it, and ActiveSync syncs correctly.

[Antoine of MMM]

The main difference between the HTC Excalibur S620 model and TMobile Dash model is the implementation of the JOGGR strip on the right side of the device. Whereas TMobile has made it solely a volume control button, the original implementation of this was a touchpad-like strip that would control page scrolling, volume, and other features.