HTC Touch Pro2 Smartphone

I have been with T-mobile for a number of years.  Mostly been happy with the service, only a few rare hiccups...not like the problems many folks describe but I suppose that's just one of those things; your experience may not be what mine has been and vice versa.  T-mobile has always had the best prices for what you get (if you ask me) service wise and I've only found one place in Florida (now, it used to be two) where they have no service at all.  Even in the wilds of mississippi I had no problems getting service and there is never a charge for roaming. 

Up until now T-mobile's low prices apparently came at the price of lesser phone selections.  They've always had the usual selection of flip phones and sliders and the sidekick has been around for awhile as well, but, until the MDA, then the Wing a few years ago they never offered anything that was a true (useable)  PDA phone.    HTC makes the majority of pda phones out there today, they also make the touch pro and now the touch pro 2.  T-mobile finally pulled their heads out of the dark places with this phone.  When I first heard this phone was coming to t-mobile I thought that as usual it would go to Europe first and if American customers ever saw it, it would be a long time coming; thank goodness I was wrong this time.

As with a lot of the phones like this these days everyone is trying to look and feel like an iphone.  Personally, I don't have the slightest interest in having an iphone.  They look cool but some of the stuff apple has done to prevent third party software, the non-user replaceable battery and the fact that you can only get rather pricey service through AT&T means I will never even think about an iphone no matter if it can do your housework, the dishes, get the kids dressed and off to school.... and still be a telephone (lol).  The iphone has some fancy zoom controls and other options controlled by finger movements...so what...I'd prefer to do it the old way anyhow.  This phone allows you to scroll through menus by moving your finger up and down and left to right across the screen and in apps like google maps it lets you move the map by touching the screen and moving your finger...this has its uses but I'd prefer the good old slider as a option....just easier to deal with many times...I find myself constantly turning on the wrong stuff using the finger...maybe just need more time to get used to it...not sure.
 
I found many reviews of the touch pro 2 but I really had to hunt to find one that told me how much available memory is there after all the garbage the provider puts on it.  Apparently you get about 200 mb free storage ram and about 90 mb free program ram unlike the paltry 64 mb the wing had and even less when wing applications were running.  I wonder why the sliding choice of ram allocation was removed, windows mobile 2003 had this...  Apparently the amount of ram available on the Pro 2 is considered small for these newer phones but it's much more than I'm used to having on the wing!  So I suppose that may be a cost cutting measure or t-mobile's usual.."almost but not quite" attitude towards things.

Attractive features:
528 ghz cpu (twice what the wing had)
256/200 Ram and program memory (preloaded stuff is in Rom but still needs some ram to run)
Slide out keyboard (not membrane) with dedicated number keys (no more alt...letter for a number)
Screen slides and also tilts up
Conference call setup with mute button on rear of phone
Camera (not the best but ok)
Touch screen
Standard mini-USB connector for power and data
Add on memory via transflash/micro sd
bright easy to read screen..on the large side
Windows mobile 6.1 on delivery / free upgrade to 6.5
T-mobile 3G network
Detects phone movement for ???? they include one game that lets you roll a ball around the screen and it responds to the way you move the phone.  The conference phone feature activates when you turn the phone over during an active call (maybe that's mostly why this is here).  I could see this for other sorts of games as well.
Voice controls

In the box:
T-mobile version of HTC touch pro 2 (aka wing 2, Rhodium, I've heard a few other names as well)
Battery and sim card (you install these yourself)
Basic case
USB cable (note: the shape of the plug on this cable kind of makes you think it's not a stock mini usb...well it is...a standard cable works just fine as long as it's the type that can handle power for charging (thin usb cables or really poor quality ones can't) so test the cables you have before you get convinced you have to go out and buy new ones, they fit just fine even though they seem to be shaped a touch different. (one is included in the box, plugs to your charger but it can be used to plug to your computer as well)
USB to AC adapter (i.e. plug your usb cable into this and plug into the wall for charging. Same mini usb cable provided can be used as a data cable from a pc.)
USB head phones
USB mini hub? It's got another plug on the end for your power adapter and a second usb plug and mini and submini headphone/sound cable plugs
screen protector (yeah! never did that before, nice extra even if it is a really cheap one..I couldn't get it on without crap and bubbles so I bought a better one on ebay and used a cut down psp protector in the mean time)
Book
Quick setup guide
Software (activesync and outlook trial version)

Setup:
Slide the back off the phone.  I am very pleased to see that they returned to a back more like the old MDA, the back on the wing was horrible and came off all the time.  Install the sim card (or the one from your old phone that has all your contacts on it, mine are backed up on outlook on my desktop so it didn't matter for me) and the battery.  Replace the cover.
Before turning it on for the first time you should let it charge overnight or at least till the light turns green.  This is a 1500 mah battery, I'd recommend getting a bigger one as soon as you can if you are like me and can't charge your phone every day at times.  There is a 1800 mah battery that fits under the same cover and a 3200 mah battery made by Mugen (very good batteries) that requires an extended back plate but should also extend the useable life of the phone for several days without charging.
Pro 2 can use a transflash/aka micro sd memory card, this is a newer High Capacity drive so it can use cards over 2 gb.  The biggest I've seen for sale are like 16 gb for under a hundred bucks, the 8 gig cards go for under fourty dollars and the 4 gb (enough for most of us) are around 15-20 dollars each with an adapter for SD and/or mini SD.

You may want to go to t-mobile support site (www.tmobile.com, you'll need your login and some information off the phone the id they ask for is two numbers two long on the phone put in as much as you can and it will work) and download the upgrade to wm 6.5 before you do anything else.  There is quite a difference in the two os apparently, first thing you see is more colorful icons.  Update process is pretty easy, just establish a active sync (or other type if you use VISTA or windows 7) connection to the phone with activesync (XP 32/64 bit) or whatever comes with Vista or Windows 7 and run the updater it will give you instructions if you need to do anything.

What's on it already....  
Standard fare from earlier windows mobile os, word and excel mobile, a couple games, sim card handler, com manager, connection sharing (for your laptop), internet explorer for mobile, task manager, contacts, calendar, file explorer, media player, notes...nothing new really.  (But as usual too much crap, they should give more choice on this matter all the uneeded garbage just sucks up storage and keeps you from loading things you want on it.)

In addition to the normal set of windows mobile os stuff, you get preloaded google maps, opera web browser (which I personally don't see the hoopla but maybe I just haven't used it enough yet, one big thing that pops out right away is that a double click zooms in and out), you tube application (which suprisingly works very well), music handler app, several weather apps, Bing (?), visual voice mail (? apparently downloads the messages to the phone for later review if you don't want to use the regular voice mail...this could be very handy if you want to archive your voice mails for some reason), every popular real time chat app there is (be careful if you don't have unlimited text messages t-mobile used to count every send as one text message), Weather Application, favorite persons app, your account (replaces t-zones) info, HTC calendar, MSN weather, news, etc. app, TV out app (presumably you can serve movies or other video off your phone?), my faves, a utility that speeds up gps usage by downloading the files the gps needs to keep track of the satellites over the web connection (which means the gps doesn't have to do it itself....makes that first lock on that much faster), Handango in hand (pew), microsoft store (like handango), Bing, 2 games, Telenav (paid gps software), two backup utilities one to t-mobile servers and one that works via your windows live account, acrobat reader for handheld.

What can you put on it?
This is windows mobile, sometimes older stuff not written for the newest version of the OS may not work...but you'll also find a ton of old stuff that does work fine (and a good bit of it freeware or cheap tryware).  I have the memmaid application from before, it works fine (but later it knew it was loaded on another phone so asked for more cash, I didn't renew it), so far I haven't been able to get iguidance to work..that may need an upgrade...they have a new one out anyhow so hopefully that one will work on 6.5 properly.

Microsoft store?
There are apparently plans for microsoft store similar to that available for Android (and another duplicate, it's like Handango).

What I love:
The weather app is cool, it automatically picks up your nearest city from the towers(or the gps, not sure) and when you hit update you get the weather for where you are.  Nice, but I wish you could customize what info you get, I for one would like a marine weather option with water temperatures and wind speed/direction. 
The program selector is cool, you can put whatever you like in a very iphone like menu for easy selection.   
The decent, not wonderful but decent, amount of free ram and program ram (more than the wing or mda had) makes it a versatile phone; at least more versatile than anything t-mobile had before.
The conference setup works very well, activated by turning over the phone.
Stereo bluetooth (a2dp) works correctly on this phone, on the wing I was constantly losing stereo and had a extra app that let me force it on for the stereo headset, this phone has fixed that (probably the bluetooth standard mostly or the drivers for the individual bluetooth devices.
For most newer bluetooth devices no more need to put in that stupid code when you pair it...my older gadgets still want the 0000 or 9999 code put in during pairing but my new headset and my old motorola 820 didn't even ask for it.

What I hate:
The t-mobile MYFAVES application is HORRIBLE on this phone.  What were they thinking?  Or were they just too cheap to do it right..or perhaps it was a last minute port that didn't work right till it was rewritten...bad, bad, bad, bad.  You get a choice of the my faves bubbles or a nice home page with a clock and other things you can setup, even on the wing myfaves could run minimized as a part of the today screen......not here.  You just made this great phone look like a herring guys.
The location of the sd card slot, again it's on the side but it's so close to the back that if you can't get your nail in there just right you have to pull the back off to easily get to the card slot...dumb.
No dedicated shutter button like the wing had, to take pictures you tap the screen...well might get used to it but still prefer the button.  There are lots of other complaints about the removal and location of buttons, I agree that with the tilt up screen the power button should have been moved to the top right because it's too easy to tap when you type with the screen tilted.  Others miss the joystick style directional pad the wing had...I only used that occasionally but I agree that was convenient instead of having to open the keyboard to use arrow keys or try to scroll efficiently to what you want with your finger (I find the finger scrolling too spastic, more controllable with the stylus...there should be a scroll speed setting someplace, if it's there I can't find it).
Ten bucks a month for telenav......I would rather buy a standalone package and pay one price for unlimited usage than pay $120.00 a year for something I may use two months out of the year...if they let you turn it on and off as you needed to use it I may consider it.  I also don't know if telenav downloads complete maps when cell internet is available...if it doesn't then it will be just as useless in bf nowhere where there is no cell service as google maps is and you're hopelessly lost. I used telenav for a trip over the last couple of days, not impressed at all, it just quits when you get too far off track--doesn't seem to recalculate the route at times and at the end of my trip it was whining about weak gps signals and not giving good instructions at all--I'll give it a miss thanks.
No built in gps application to give you longitude and latitude and a compass...something can be added via add-on software but why doesn't that come with it..it should.
Bluetooth foibles, I believe I'm finding that some plantronics (or just non-motorola in general) headsets are not working properly. I've got an older plantronics that I keep at work that seems to work perfectly all day long.  I have a generic handsfree in the car that whenever I turn it on the phone asks me if it can connect(?) and a really new plantronics 835 that works until the headset hits sleep mode and then doesn't work anymore. (There are some extra settings for some devices when they are active, need to play with that at least on the car handsfree to see if that helps anything.)
No apparent battery charge indicator that I can find, you have to go find it in system settings (it hides on the top of the screen to get it to pop up you press at the clock at top right and it will pop up showing charge and signal strength, dumb place to put it)...need a desktop program to add those things to the today screen...no choice of what shows up on the today screen anymore apparently.  I'm hoping the author of batterystatus will upgrade for the 6.5 os his product was excellent on my wing.
No apparent way to disable the internal gps in favor of an external gps.  This may end up being a software issue but telenav doesn't offer that feature, that's for sure.

To get used to:
The lack of sliders, you use the finger to move up and down to other screens.  If you aren't careful you activate stuff accidentally.  I suppose I'll get used to it but it's an adjustment, wish you had the option for good old sliders. 

Accessories:
A word on accessories: The outside dimensions of the phone may vary a bit according to the service provider that sold it to you.  T-mobile, AT&T, Sprint...each one of these touch pro 2 phones apparently have slightly different outside dimensions, so while a battery may be standard across each version, stuff like cases, battery doors and face plates are not be the same. I'm seeing a lot of annoyance that they aren't.  Before you buy a face plate or hard case be really sure it's made for your version of the phone.

Right off the bat get a bigger battery if you aren't home every day to charge it.  Just moderate use takes that battery down 25% in no time at all; especially if you leave the bluetooth on all the time.  Mugen (excellent quality battery!) makes a 3200 mah battery and rear coverplate for the t-mobile version that is right now going for about 90 bucks on ebay(aaack!)...probably my first big purchase.
A good case.  The case that comes with it is ok till you get something better and it won't hold a phone with an extended battery installed.  I found a GPS case with reinforcement in the front to protect the screen at big lots for 6 bucks, it fits the phone inside (has enough room an extended battery should fit too) and a bluetooth fits in next to it; outside it has a pocket for memory cards and perhaps a usb cable, this is my new phone case till I see something better.
Colored and graphic face plates...you're beginning to see these on ebay but not much selection yet.
If you plan to use it for navigation in the car..an external bluetooth gps unit should be purchased...would you really want to leave your three hundred plus dollar phone in the sun on the dashboard of the car for any length of time so it can pickup the satellites? (of course now the challenge seems to be figuring out how to select an external gps if you don't want to use the internal one...I know that older phones with gps came with a way to deal with this...so why doesn't this one have it?) 
Again if using it in the car, some sort of holder for it to keep it easily accessible and viewable.  I don't like the ones that clip onto the ac vents, think about what you're subjecting the back of your phone to if it's there...Heat or cold, the cold may not be bad but in the winter with the heater going...nope not me.  I have one that fits in the cup holder, works fine.  You may also want one of those things that transmits sound over your radio..hmm may work with your bluetooth too..not sure..if the car is noisy and you can't hear the verbal instructions from the gps software if you have that feature; you need something extra to make it audible.
I use microsoft office with the full version of outlook, backs up everything and is a half decent mail app, I think office is overpriced don't know what they want for just outlook...

Overall thoughts:
This phone is ages ahead of any phone of it's ilk that t-mobile has ever had before it's also got as much garbage on it as the wing did; would be nice if you had more ability to choose what you wanted and download the rom you wanted but I suppose that would be too much work.  Heck I'd even pay twenty bucks for a slimmed down rom but T-mobile is notorious for not wanting to mess much with a phone other than what the manufacturer provides, I guess that's another way they cut costs.  If you carry your life in your phone like I do, then you'll enjoy this. 

The only thing this doesn't have that I would like to add at some point is a tv app and a new home screen with a battery charge indicator and possibly bluetooth controls.  The you tube app is great, even over the cell network videos load fairly quickly with only the occasional pause to load a really big file.  The screen is sharp and readable and the back light works fine as you set it.  There are options for font size for us old blind folks and the new capability to backup your contacts to the t-mobile server or to a microsoft server via your live id is a nice feature.  I used the conference call feature (just flip it over with an active call to activate it) it worked very well and no one could not hear me sitting about two feet away (the room was also quiet and not noisy, need to try it in a noisy room sometime).  Usually with conference setups you're getting cuts in and out and someone says they can't hear you etc.  Calls are clear and the location of the microphone means you aren't accidentally covering it with your hand all the time like I did on the wing. The phone is substantial, it doesn't feel like some plastic piece of junk or like a kid's toy.  Task manager is still available in the upper right corner and now when you touch that you get a memory use indicator and a wrench icon that is the task manager itself (so why they didn't put battery charge indicator here too...just dumb).  There is supposedly some sort of proximity detector when you're on the phone, if the screen shuts off it will reactivate when it's near your face(??? I haven't seen this maybe it didn't come out on the production phones or maybe just not on t-mobile's version).  The phone does wake up when you pull out the stylus like some other HTC models. 

I've had this about two days now, I've noticed that google maps doesn't use the cell towers to find you until after the gps doesn't work (as indoors) I think google maps needs a little fine tuning for this phone..but they will..I'm confident.  I'm also not 100% certain that my external gps is actually being used......  Google doesn't tell you which gps it's using..I think that my iguidance software which doesn't work on mobile 6.5 apparently, does give you that info but until I upgrade it..that may not get tested.  The settings section still has options for the external gps but it really doesn't tell you if it's working properly other than the fact that it thinks it's connected...the bluetooth area will also tell you if it's connected but I don't know if that means it is actually "communicating" or not.   The horrible myfaves implementation was at first annoying until I found the people app which lets you save folks you call a lot and it displays pictures just like myfaves...as long as you have properly input phone numbers either through myfaves on the phone or through the t-mobile web site you will have those calls treated like a myfaves (unlimited) call so no worries if you shut off the myfaves like I did; the people app also has a text option with the call option.  I don't feel like the today app is quite as functional as it used to be, I have a ton of background files from my old wing that don't apparently work anymore on this phone.  I think that some of this is because HTC has their own stuff and the stuff built into the os kinda argues with it sometimes.  The os apps for notes etc. adds a new thing called "one note" I have no clue what this is..presumably makes it a little easier to use notes off the phone on your desktop; haven't looked into it but my full version of outlook 2007 detected it immediately.

As for battery life...it seems to vary a lot, I have not yet gotten a low battery beep even after the phone was not charged for nearly two days. I leave bluetooth on all the time which if I shut that off it may help.  As you may know, cell phones are constantly chattering with the towers nearby and that also affects battery life.  The sound is very nice, sound controls are on the side where they should be.  Microphone is located so it isn't blocked when you hold it.  The directional button the wing had is gone, probably due to the new touch features or perhaps they're thinking of implementing the gyro feature a bit more (i.e. tilt the phone up down to change screens etc.  Internet explorer is as good as it was before and adds zoom capabilities, surprisingly the security is good enough to get onto my bank's account info web site and make transfers etc; bill pay still doesn't work however...no surprise.  Opera is cool because it will store entire access info (username and password), this might be a dual edged sword if you lose your phone but then even if somebody can look at your bank account what are they gonna do with that?  They can't write themselves a check or anything with that; I'm not worried about it, it's handy to not have to mess around to check my balance. The google mail app I had on the wing no longer works on this phone but apparently google mail is now more mobile friendly and seems workable here without the app just going via net.   I also had a similar type of app for yahoo, haven't tried that yet.

The speediness of everything is a huge improvement over the wing--of course the cpu is twice as fast, there's more memory and the 3G network is a ton faster..it should be more speedy.  It's taking a little getting used to but I think I'm really going to love this phone.  Right now if you are anywhere close to being able to get a phone upgrade (and customer service said something about that stuff changing with T-mobile recently) you can pick this phone up online or through customer service for $265.00 (with two year renewal), before when I didn't think I could get it till April the price was at least $350.00, or more (like 500.00) without a two year extension.  So far I love it, will love it more with the bigger battery and when I get a bit more used to it.  I thought it was worth it at $350.00, even happier at $270.00 pays to watch the web site.  There was an $18.00 phone upgrade fee and $5.00 shipping (the thing arrived within two days not seven), if your credit is good with T-mobile they'll let you pay the phone off in three equal payments on top of your phone bill...I was considering going to an unlimited everything plan (99.00 with a 2 year contract) but they also have something new with no contracts but if I'd done that I would not have gotten the good price on the phone..no matter...no plans to go anyplace else any time soon at least in my area t-mobile is the best bang for the buck.  It may take them longer to add new stuff like the 3g network but paying a good $75.00 less a month for the same service..... and t-mobile also allows unlimited tethering off the phone for a laptop unlike some providers that want to charge you extra for that capability...I don't plan to go anyplace else for service anytime soon.  In addition to my cell, which is pretty much my primary phone for work and business, I have a voip phone (you must have broadband of course) for a mere ten bucks a month (was a special promotion) that is unlimited everything except text of course so if I want to talk to the relatives for hours that doesn't go against my minutes at any time of day (the cell is unlimited after 9pm or on weekends and for a bit more, unlimited to in-network phones). 

Love this phone, happy t-mobile finally got a good pda device in the USA (Europe has had several for years..apparently the higher profit margin there means they get more goodies).  I look forward to long happy service from this phone.  One more thing...when you get this phone if you had internet on your old phone you have to call T-mobile customer service to switch your internet over to Android internet...why it's Android internet I don't know because this isn't an Android phone but perhaps that is just what T-mobile calls it. 

More comments:
Remember that weather app I said was the cat's meow?  For some reason over the weekend it started refusing to know where I was for weather forcasts, for a bit there it just said "Florida" instead of picking up the individual nearby city.  The strange part is that on the today screen...the weather app there was picking up the correct city but the app itself wasn't (aren't they the same thing?).  I used the option to add/delete or reorder cities, my earlier entries for pinellas and pasco county were gone for some reason.  I put in Tampa because new port richey and port richey were not on their list of cities (i think they were?), then it suddenly didn't pick up st. petersburg it was saying clearwater all the time.  I'm wondering if perhaps this may have to do with power saving features kicking in to save battery life.  When the battery gets low enough apparently (when the screen is shut off) the phone cuts 3g access to save power (you can see it drop the connection as the screen blanks out when you hit the power button)...perhaps that's why the weather app gets all confused.  Another big annoyance is with bluetooth, at least with the relatively new plantronics 835 headset I have the phone loses communication with the headset constantly. I don't seem to have the same issue with my Motorola 820 stereo headset and this didn't used to happen on the wing with the 835 so ???. Last comment is on the program screen, you can add or remove programs you want to use that don't appear on the fancy sliding menu.  In portrait mode (keyboard not extended) you scroll by putting your right thumb on the screen, waiting for one of the icons to move a bit and then pushing up/down.  In landscape mode the hot spot for scrolling isn't on the right, it's on the left side....why?  Still love the phone but t-mobile or somebody has some more tweaking to do here, if there are problems with certain bluetooth headsets they need to issue an advisory to that effect.

Phone tethering for internet: just tried the tethering for the first time.  Pretty easy, start up the sharing application, plug in the usb cable, hit connect and away you go.  I'm not sure (because it was already loaded on my laptop) but you may have to have already loaded active sync (on Xp) before your laptop can see your phone for the tether.  It takes a few seconds and the phone may complain about your usb cable but it will connect eventually, if it doesn't unplug the cable and replug it and it will most likely connect properly.  I'm in Orlando, I'd think 3g would be available here but the phone doesn't show 3g indicator but it does seem to be a bit faster than the last time I tethered off my wing on the old edge network.  Useable, not speedy but useable (better than 30 bucks a day for hotel wireless and this place even charges for wired ethernet....sigh).  So tethering works good too.  Tmobile apparently still not supoorting simultaneous voice and data, guess that's something we may be waiting on awhile if it ever happens, I suppose you have to give up something for the better price for the service.

update on the weather app thing: I figured out that somehow something is changing my time zone from east coast to indiana, we're both gmt -5 but whatever is doing this is screwing with the weather app (i.e. it shows the moon when the sun is up in florida etc.) I suspect this may have to do with some of the location settings that automatically update where I am etc.  Sounds like there are still a few bugs here but I still love the phone over what I had.

update: Bluetooth often needs manual device connection even after being previously paired (if there's a setting for this someplace...always connect is turned on in the settings but that doesn't seem to happen).  As far as the external gps goes, google maps does have settings hidden in options to remove windows auto handling of gps...you put the com port that the external gps is active upon (you set this in the external gps app in settings) in here..make sure bluetooth is on...and make sure the bluetooth gps is connected to the phone (another device that you appear to need to initiate a connection because it doesn't seem to happen by itself). If telenav has a similar ability I can't find it anywhere but I'm already thoroughly turned off on that thing anyway; will be loading my own so it works anyplace and not just where there's a cell signal (and many spots in Florida away from cities often don't have service at all or it's spotty at best).  You need a gps with its own maps that doesn't depend upon downloads on the fly----if I wanted that I have google and it's free.

update: now had this a few weeks.  There is actually a battery indicator without going into settings...you click on the clock at the top and a display pops up saying how much battery is left and shows your service signal strength.  I find the MSN weather app is a bit more useful than the one on the bottom menu, still no marine weather there but it does show windspeeds (if you ride a motorcycle windspeed is a big deal if it's a smaller bike).  Now a little more used to dealing with the touch screen controls.  The visual voice mail is sort of cool but we're still down to the scrolling problem with the programs listing when the screen is folded out, sometimes you get no scrolling at all or controls on the right, sometimes on the left sometimes both but I usually find myself folding in the screen to select a program (that needs repair).  Calls from the handset have always been clear and understandable. I haven't used the conference feature a lot yet, one time somehow the phone disabled the conference feature (I don't think I shut it off it just spontaneously didn't work one day).  The calendars both the microsoft app and the HTC app link together, i.e. the HTC is just a cooler interface.  The alarms work fine, no longer do we get to deal with the bug that mobile 5 had where alarms set would often go off even if the box was unchecked so they should not have gone off at all.  Only new thing I'm noticing that I don't think I like so much is that whenever your phone is connected to the pc the screen seems to be on at low illumination for extended periods.  I often use my pc usb cable to charge my phone just because that's more convenient than plugging the charger in the wall, I don't think the wing did this...having that screen on so much may erode the life of it.  I seem to get somewhere around 36-48 hours of decent use from the battery, less if you leave a lot of applications running.  You have a choice of setting programs to quit by hitting x quickly or holding it down; I find myself accidentally shutting things down so I chose to need to hold the close x.  My setting means sometimes apps are left running after I thought I closed them.  The phone can run multiple apps and the same time but it's a bit more difficult than it was on the wing to get multiple stuff going because of the lack of the drop down that we had on the old today screen and the fact that the cool little scrolling menu on the bottom of the screen is not available all the time.  Now that I've played with Opera a little more I see why folks like it but it does have an annoying tendency to open up multiple pages without telling you and then you suddenly get told you've got the max number of pages open; that needs tweaking.  I think I've only had about 2 dropped calls in all the time I've been using the phone.  Worth what I paid but as always I think T-mobile did their usual half way job of implementing it.

On email: Buried in the programs listing is "email" when you open that up it covers google mail and outlook mail.  For the google you just log in with your password (probably why the other app wouldn't install anymore it's built in now).  For the outlook mail you need your incoming and outgoing server names from your provider.  Yahoo mail is built into the yahoo program already on the phone.  I suppose for excite and hotmail you can just surf there with a web browser.

On batteries: Each version of the phone apparently has a different back battery door.  I'm seeing extended batteries and backs for other carriers but the only one I've found for the tmobile version is made by mugen (excellent batteries, but pricey) and goes for 80 bucks with the extended back.  I've seen conflicting info on the battery, most seem to agree batteries are all the same while others say one version has the contacts on a different side.  You can find 2000 MaH batteries on ebay that fit under the original cover for around 10 bucks and have half again the capacity of the original battery.  I go camping a lot, probably going to be digging out the solar charger or using the jump pack for the car to keep the phone charged.  I love that so many of these phones have gone to usb because the chargers are fairly universal and work on everything.

More updates: The Microsoft store is up and operating, I hate the gps package on the phone. I downloaded n-drive, for the price a fairly good package although primitive, new version due out soon so hopefully that will be a big improvement.  Tried downloading pocket live tv from handango, so far doesn't run perhaps because the phone is now os 6.5 (they don't list os compatibility of course just says "all" phones running windows mobile). I've found through fiddling that the utilities built into the os sometimes argue with the HTC offerings.  Myfaves is beyond clunky still, no updates in sight that I've seen.  The backup utility for tmobile works good but be sure you turn it off if you want to clean up your address book...I forgot about it and couldn't figure out why all the deleted entries kept reapearing in triplicate.  I've had three dropped calls in the last two days, called tmobile today that had me go through the usual pull the battery routine and they said they'd switch me to a different tower, no more dropped calls today yet.

update: Grrrr right after this phone comes out t-mobile releases the HD2, faster processor same os but no keyboard and it has tv capabilities...this is just soo annoying. I wondered why the price had dropped by nearly half..guess that's why..they knew they were dropping a better product in the mix.  T-mobile never tells their stores what is coming or allows anything to be advertised online or anyplace else...just what sense does that make?  I guess they want to get folks to sign two year contracts for a phone they might not really want now instead of telling them what's coming out and have them wait till they can get what they really want.  The HD2 has a gigahertz cpu but no keyboard (except for on screen keyboard), I would rather have that even though I like this phone with a keyboard...even if it's just for the tv features.  I got a plantronics voyager pro headset, usually plantronics bluetooth are excellent and this headset is too..when it works that is.  I had dropouts that I was blaming on the phone but plantronics is saying this phone is not on a problem phone list. Lots of reports of voyager pro dropouts with some other models of htc phones.  Still like the phone and the ability to load my own apps on it, I've got google latitude going now and a moon phase program and a business mileage tracking program...I've found a somewhat bigger battery on ebay that still fits under the original back, still want that big mugen but until the price comes down from 80 bucks that isn't in the budget future.  I had a problem with the sim card a week or two ago but a new card fixed that issue.  Still very happy but I am miffed at tmobile for not advertising the HD2 before I bought it.

update: Still love the phone.  In my job the phase of the moon is obvious by the phone calls I get (lol, the lunatics are out when the moon is full) so I tend to pay a lot of attention to the moon phase.  I had a app on my wing that displayed the moon phase and listed sunrise and sunset times daily (handy if you fish a lot because you can pretty closely guess tides by when the sun rises and sets in florida).  I found a great app called sun/moon at least for now freeware, you need to download the new netframework for mobile before it will work, it can be loaded in system memory or on the memory card...I try not to put anything more in system memory than I absolutely have to.  I love this app it shows moon phases for a long period (many moons (months) lol) and what sign of the horoscope you're in (libra, taurus, etc.) which must be something the charting folk are into) great app for a freebie(most likely betaware test).  The version of google maps that comes on the phone does not have latitude built in but you can easily add that...also like that.  Bing comes loaded but recently downloaded a new version and updated itself, bing shows local movie theatres and what's playing, has a map app and a few other goodies, it's notable because you can "speak" your location, works pretty good.  I was pretty happy with ndrive but there is apparently some conflict between regular ndrive and ndrive usa..I upgraded to ten and it wouldn't work without a serial code, ndrive and regular ndrive tech staff completely unresponsive so microsoft store gave me a refund, shame I liked it so I guess I'm back on a search for a navigator package I can live with.  There are finally some competing batteries other than the mugen that offer long life for the phone, mugen's is 3200 mAh, I found a 3000 mAH for 25.00, so far I've not charged the phone for 4 days and still have 80% charge with bluetooth running the whole time and moderate use--solves my problem with battery life.  As I said before the larger batteries I was finding did not come with the proper back for the t-mobile..I found someone selling just the good quality extended back that comes with the mugen on ebay for 15.00 so in effect I got an 80.00 battery for about 40.00; so far very happy with the purchase.  Only drawback is the big battery makes the phone somewhat heavy, but I can live with that and it fits in the gps case I got at big lots, still carrying that have not found anything better as of yet.  I still salivate when I see the HD for the tv apps it comes with but then I consider the lack of keyboard and think how much I'd miss that.  Looks like t-mobile may be releasing some newer phones soon, they have another android phone out now (besides the g1 and g2).  Only true annoyance I still have is the on screen keyboard, I can't figure out how to "shift" for numbers and special characters without going to the number keypad...I guess I'm just retarded on that, it's probably obvious but I just don't see it, so I either just switch back and forth to the number keypad or use the regular keyboard.  The google mail app is great but I can't figure out what messages forward to the phone and which don't..not everything gets forwarded.  Love the phone still especially with the new high capacity battery.