Need a good alarm application for 700wx

[korz]

I've had my 700wx for almost two weeks and I'm disappointed in it and the apps I've downloaded.

My Handspring PDA is on its last legs and my phone needed replacing and I'm tired of visually searching through hundreds of pages of spiral notebooks to find info I had written down at meetings. I decided to consolidate my technologies into a single unit and to take electronic notes at meetings. My primarly goals were to be able to do the following things with my 700wx:

1. make and receive phone calls,
2. program reminders to myself for meetings and to-do's,
3. take informal notes at random times throughout the day, and
4. take notes at meetings with a foldable, full-size keyboard (ordered).

I am used to PalmOS's DateBook+, which I have been using on the Handspring Visor Neo, and I had hoped that the Treo 700wx would be even better.

Here's what I found out so far:

1. Voice quality not as good as my Motorola V710 or my wife's V265, and pressing the send key only shows you your most recent *outgoing* calls... why not show outgoing *and* incoming, so you could easily return calls you've missed? Also, my old V710 got three bars of signal strength at home and three at work. Now I get only one bar at home and one at work. Also, the built-in Contacts manager is a pain. I prefer to look up people by their first name. I can't do this unless I insert underscores in place of the spaces (e.g. John_Smith) or it will make it "Smith, John". Contacts also stuffs a space in whenever it sees a period, so that when I create an entry for "GuitarCenter.com" it becomes "GuitarCenter. com" and comes up in the list as "com, GuitarCenter." Even if I go back and fix it, Contacts adds that silly space again. I'm tired of having to put underscores in my Contact names. I've entered some contacts such as "Dr_John_Martin" but it seems that anything that starts with "Dr_" comes up as "Unnamed" in the Contacts list. What's with that?

2. The 700wx's calendar is not nearly as easy to use as DateBook+... creating a new entry is cumbersome, especially setting the time, I've yet to find how to make the default appointment length to be 0 minutes, the stock alarm sounds are all quite short and easy to miss if you are in a loud room, and you have limited snooze capabilities (relative to DateBook+). On the plus side, I am very pleased with the way I can switch the phone and the built-in calendar to vibrate mode with one switch on the top of the phone. I tried to get a better, 3rd-party "reminder" app, but the highest-rated one I found (alarmToday) is only marginally better and it's alarms all go completely mute (i.e they don't vibrate) when you move the switch on the top of the phone. I think I might be able to put some longer alarm .mp3's in for the built-in Calendar, but I still have to put up with the clumsy UI.

3. The 700wx's "Block Recognizer" is different enough from Graffiti that I have trouble with it. Some of the letters I can't seem to get right at all. I'm getting better at the mini keyboard and I have the option of the "Letter Recognizer" if I don't try to write a captal R (comes out as a capital I and a capital Z). I'm trying a trial version of PhatNotes and PhatDraw, which are okay, but it doesn't solve my trouble with the character recognition.

A general problem is that occasionally, the phone will get weird... I answer a call and talk for a minute, but when I hang up and look at the screen, the Treo has decided to go to the System Alarm screen for no reason. The phone sometimes locks up on some screens. Once I even had to remove the battery to get it to respond at all.

My main complaints are the character recognition and my having to choose between a rather lame calendar app or a 3rd party one that goes completely mute when you switch to the silent mode with the switch on top.

My questions:
Is there a better, 3rd-party Contacts application?

Is there a better, 3rd-party alarm application... one that vibrates when the silent mode switch is on?

What is the directory into which I need to put other .mp3's so I can have more selection for the built-in Calendar app?

Can I get a genuine Graffiti interpreter for the 700wx? Will it cause the top half to automatically shrink and gain a scroll bar or will it just cover up the bottom half of the screen? That would not be acceptable. Even the built-in "Block Recognizer" just covers up the bottom half of the screen sometimes.

I have only two weeks left to return this to Verizon and get something else. I'm considering the 700p, which will run authentic PalmOS, but will not allow me to use WiFi (I'm told... only the 700wx works with an SD 802.11 card).

I'd like to get used to it, but I'm frustrated by the above difficulties. I know that a lot of you have praised the Treo 700wx highly and that gives me hope that maybe you've overcome these problems and can share your solutions with me.

Thanks!

korz
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[Bumba220]

Heya. I'm still new to the Treo 700wx myself. Been using it less than a week and still trying to get used to it and decide whether or not I'll be returning it within the next 30 days or not. I've had to do a couple soft resets already, but usually after doing some heavy settings changes.

- About the signal strength, I've noticed less bars than I've had on my previous Razr as well, but I'm not too concerned about it only because I haven't had any reception problems. So far I've been able to make and receive all calls without and dropped calls, so it could be a matter of the way Microsoft represents the strength. When I'm outside though I get full bars usually but I'm in the burbs of Philly which is a great signal area all around.

- When you press the send key it'll display all your recent outgoing calls like you said, but at the top all you have to do is hit your center button on "call log" and poof, there is your entire call log with all your outgoing, incoming, and missed. It's one extra button but I don't mind.

- I'm not sure why you don't like the calander program, it's simple Microsoft Outlook. I probably don't use the calander prog. as much as someone like yourself, but I personally like it. Keep in mind, I've never used an Palm OS so I've nothing to compare it to.

Sorry I can't help you with a better alarm app. as I haven't installed any new software at all on mine.

As for me, I'm still on the fence. My Treo has been working great so far, if it keeps up like this for the next two weeks and I don't run into any major problems I'll probably keep it. I just make sure to close out running apps in the background by holding down the "OK" button for second, and stopping them. I've found much less lag and freezing by doing this.

[korz]

I did find an alarm application that met my needs and just barely headed off my returning the 700wx and exchanging it for a 700p. The application is called alarmPal and it's made by pocketMax in Austria.

My main complaint about the Calendar app that's built into WM5 is that it will give you an audible reminder (or vibrate if you've got the mute switch on) for your appointment, but if you don't hear it or don't have time to deal with it (say, you're squeezing through traffic), it doesn't automatically give you an *audible* reminder. AlarmPal does that. You can set it to remind you every 10 (or whatever you choose) minutes for a specified number of times (1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30, or unlimited). I have it set to 10 minutes and 30 times.

It worked great for me and I was going to stick with the 700wx until this morning. I had a doc appointment at 8am and set the calendar to alert me 90 minutes before the appt. This was my wakeup call. I got up and started getting ready, but did not dismiss the appointment, so I had expected reminders at 640, 650, 7am... etc., but it didn't. No reminders at all. I've got an email in to pocketMax with some possible reasons (like that I created this particular appointment before I installed alarmPal), but unless I get a good answer, I'll be trying the 700p for the remainder of my 30 days and if that doesn't do any better, then I'm going to just get a regular phone and a separate PDA. I hope I don't have to, but I need reliable alarms. I rely on them to wake me up, to take medicine, to take the recycling to the street on recycling day, appointments at work, doctor appointments, etc. I can't afford an unreliable PDA.

I should also mention that pocketMax has a nice app called alarmToday, which allows you to specify a different alarm for every appointment (music for my wakeup alarm, "alarm4.mid" for meetings, etc.). I tried it before alarmPal and it didn't do the reminders, so I removed it. I've got an email in to pocketMax asking if I can use alarmPal and alarmToday simultaneously... I would think that you should be able to, but you can't make any assumptions.

korz