Cell Phones : T-Mobile Dash

Had phone for 3 days before the LCD screen broke with no obvious trauma, not a scratch on it, had it in my pocket. Phone has a 1 year warr. LCD screen not included. Wonder why? Tried to return it to TMobile, they told me I had to eat it. Customer service was terrible and quite frankly, abusive. Hide Full Review

The T-mobile Dash is great phone/PDA, but ONLY if you take the time to customize it.



With a few hours of customizing the Dash phone, you have potential to: play video games, watch TV, save DVD movies, view google maps, use GPS navigation (with external bluetooth device), stream music from sirus, direct push e-mail, talk on skype, go online with built in wifi, connect to FTP servers, terminal access, write HTML, view PDFs, read the news, check the weather, play MP3s... and the list goes on.



There is just SO MUCH this phone is capable of... but only if you make the effort to load third-party programs.



People using this phone right out of the box might not be very pleased, because there are TONS of third party programs that make this phone phenominal.



Think about buying a computer with practically nothing on it... it would be a pretty boring computer. This phone is the same way. Most people are use to buying phones and enjoying them straight out of the box, but to truly take advantage of this phone you MUST take the time to load third-party software, find hacks/bug fixes, etc.



Blackberry might have an edge over this phone in terms of ease of use, because it's one of those "right out of the box" types... however, the T-Mobile Dash has so much more potential, and can be an incredibly powerful device.



First things that one should change are: lookng up the hacks/registry settings to use the volume strip as a scrollbar, increase the speed, change the homescreen, and modify the button assignments. Quick Yahoo! Search will return ways of doing this.



I am very happy with this phone, and with a little bit of ingenuity, I think you will be too. Hide Full Review

Being a hard-core fan of Samsung, T-Mobile/HTC had to work pretty hard to get me to switch. Since Samsung didn't release the Blackjack to T-Mobile, I decided to give the Dash a shot. Being privy to playing with the iPaqs, Blackberrys and the Blackjack - the Dash wins hands down. For being a person with fat fingers, the keyboard was the easiest to use amongst the group. I was able to type messages with ease within minutes of purchasing. Having Wi-Fi that connects to even WPA2-encrypted access points is definitely a plus (I work in a very secure area tht uses WPA2). Being able to browse real webpages and not wap-ported pages is great but with the small screen - text and resolution is limited. But no complaints there, scrolling functions and the ability to expand frames are great features. Bluetooth works great out of the box with all major headset manufacturers, tested thoroughly myself. I don't use the camera much but worked fine when I needed to take pictures of my recent auto accident. Speakerphone works great without any crackling like others. The ability to customize ringtones and sounds within WM5.0 is great. Tested with a SanDisk 2.0GB T-Flash card and works great! Ability to have a phone, wifi & gprs/edge access and play audio and video - just like a laptop. I use my phone to check corporate mail thru IMAP Proxy and works great, thru Wi-fi and Gprs/Edge. The skin of the phone is great, I don't have to worry about smudges or anything. BTW - don't try it yourself but I accidently left it on my dash in the truck with the windows down during a turn, still have my phone! Score for T-Mobile/HTC! If they get rid of the twitchy volume strip, ability to adjust volume of callers (or make outdoor the default profile) and constant lockups (maybe fault of MS or T-Mobile with their firmware version). Battery life is of no importance for me since I charge up at work thru mini-usb cable, car charger in the vehicle and home charger when at home office.



Thumbs up:

- build quality

- wifi (wpa2 capable)

- gprs/edge, bluetooth

- full IE browsing

- easy-to-use qwerty keyboard



Thumbs down:

- locks up daily!

- having to remove the cover to insert/remove memory card

- twitchy volume strip

- default profile is to low



I have heard that getting it reprogrammed to HTC S620 (the original manfacturer fixes the lockup issue). That's my two cents. I would rate it higher if it wasn't for the constant lockups, which require removing the battery at times. Several of my friends have had their firmwares updated and even recent units shipping now lockup more often. So I'm sitting still with my old firmware version until HTC comes out with a better model.



When I first bought it, it came with 64MB @ $149.99. Decent value for me. Solved that issue with a 2.0GB T-Flash card for $25. Must haves: screen protector, phone skin (if you drop it often like me) and a car charger. Hide Full Review

Initially I had purchased the 'WING' thinking that it would be a great device but I returned it within 24 hours as the OS is very slow/pokey... not happy. I decided to try the DASH. Had trouble with the WM5 OS like freezing (it has probs)so I upgraded to WM6 and the upgrade went prefectly smooth. It's nice to have WORD and EXCEL for my job and I just added a blank doc of each program in the MY DOCS folder so now I can create both WORD and EXCEL on my DASH. That is so great!! OH, and Not one "freeze up" since my WM6 upgrade! I ran out and bought a 2gb micro SD card and started to add MP3's to it...so awesome. Setting up the email, wifi, etc. is super easy and my EDGE coverage is pretty darn fast, where I live. I wasn't real happy with the browser so I downloaded the OPERA mini browser and it rocks! Try it if you haven't yet. WiFi is really fast and I cruise the internet constantly. Battery life is fabulous...I go for a day and a half after surfing the web, playing music, texting, talking. I have small fingers so the keyboard is easy to type on. The volume strip works much better on the WM6 OS and I had disabled it on WM5 but turned it back on after my upgrade. I read about a few hacks online and plugged some in like one for making the voice recognition work on my bluetooth; reminder tweak; annoying text msg "sent" warning. I downloaded a bunch of flickr pictures, cropped them small and use them as homescreen backgrounds. Also, I downloaded AUDACITY and clipped a bunch of my favorite MP3 songs and applied them as ringers! That is one of the best things about this phone, to not have to pay $2.50 per ringer! Never again with this phone. :) This phone is so awesome because you can "personalize" it like crazy. The list goes on and on. I'm pretty tech savvy so that does helps in tweaking this phone but just googling 'hacks' for the DASH, there are so many smart, techy people out there that post step-by-step instructions that it's pretty easy for anyone to do anything. Anyway, I love my DASH and I'm not getting an iphone...looks like it might be fun at first but there are too many restrictions with that phone. You can't add or tweak anything. For that steep price, forget it. Nancy Hide Full Review

I rarely take the time to voice my opinions in these forums, but I had to on this -- I love this phone. After using a Treo that was a tank, had to be repaced twice, and constantly froze, this was a godsend. I can't believe it hasn't gotten more press -- the Samsung Blackjack and Motorola Q can't touch it. It's sleek (much sexier than it appears in pictures), the rubber-like casing feels great in your hand, the LCD is beautiful, and it functions well. It's not without it's problems, but they are minor - small keys, volume strip is touchy, OS occasionally locks. Overall it has been awesome. By far the best cell phone I have ever owned. Hide Full Review