Rating: 
Summary: Too many problems
Review: I recently moved back to the east coast and into sprint coverage. Having carried a PDA and phone for many years, I promised myself that when the time came for a new phone, I'd get a PDA/phone. After reading the reviews, I decided on the i500. I really liked the size and design (more like a phone than a PDA) but was disappointed and ended up returning it after a week. I had used a PALM before but most recently have been using an IPAQ with Pocket PC. It was hard to go back. It took me awhile to sync the i500 with my computer. The Palm software is an older version and I found the syncing not nearly as intuitive as working with my IPAQ. Also, the phone itself wasn't very powerful and I had to go outside to get and hold a signal. (The replacment phone works inside very well). I could've put up with the above problems but the final flaw was an inability to sync at work. My work computers have the newer version of PALM already installed and would not allow me to remove it. This caused the newer version to compete with the older version that came with the phone. I was able to load the older Palm OS with the help of a system administrator but was only able to successfully sync once. Also the computer (both at home and work) had difficulties recognizing the USB cable. I had to install and uninstall the driver several times. After spending hours trying to get this thing to work, I went back to my IPAQ and exchanged the i500 for a non-PDA phone.
Rating: 
Summary: Samsung i500.....I'm Lovin' It!
Review: I recently purchased the Samsung i500 and I am lovin' it! First, I am constantly on the move and could not live without my PDA and my cell phone, so having a combination is essential. Originally I had a Samsung i330, but found it to be bulky and not very easy to use as a phone. Once I saw the i500, I was in love. It is so compact, yet very hefty in feel. I am not worried about it being fragile, but at the same time, the flip design and the size, renders it optimal as a phone and as a PDA. I adore the size and the flip design! Second, I am a Mac User and the fact that is syncs natively with MacOSX (i.e., right out of the box with no 3rd party software necessary) puts it way above the competition! My last four PDA's required that I purchase additional software to sync with my IBook or I could not sync at all. Third, and this may be trivial to anyone other than me, I like that the flip design allows the i500 to look like a phone, which to me (a) does not make me look silly when I am making a call and (b) makes it a little less attractive to potential thieves. I love the screen and find the color more than acceptable. I have found the memory to be fine, I have downloaded several games, a skin application and several skins and still have significant space. I dig that the phone buttons light up, which is great for making calls at night. All in all, I am very happy with the phone. The only complaint I have is the price, I wish it were about $200 cheaper......but then again, I still bought it and truth be told, I would do it again! I love it, love it, love it!
Rating: 
Summary: Great phone/Palm combo -- almost everything I wanted!
Review: I sorely needed a new phone to replace my trusty StarTac and my aging Palm V, but delayed doing so for a couple of years because I just didn't see anything out there that I thought would combine their functions effectively. I wanted a clamshell phone that wouldn't accidentally dial people from inside my bag. And the Treo phones and other stick-style smartphones just seemed too big. Although I'm fine with a thumb-board (I carry a RIM for work), I prefer Graffiti, so I wanted a phone that allowed me to input using Graffiti. I tried out my husband's Treo 300 and frankly missed the Graffiti functions. I also thought it was too clunky. I've found that the i500 is almost everything I wanted out of a Palm/phone combo.
The pros: Sleek clamshell design -- compact and stylish, even with the hefty extended-use battery. It's solidly built -- no flimsy flips like the Treo 300. The screen is surprisingly big for such a small phone. The color and resolution is quite good -- the photos I keep on my phone look good. I like the Graffiti writing space -- it's small, but easy to get used to. The Palm functions are well integrated. It's easy to call people from your address book, and it's easy to save phone numbers (like from incoming calls) into new or existing entries. With the extended battery, I can go for a few days without having to charge up -- even the slim battery gets decent performance. The cradle offers one-button syncing, and can charge a spare battery at the same time as the phone -- a nice touch. Using hacks easily found online, you can put just about any photo on your screen as your wallpaper. You can also set unique rings for different people (no photo ID, though).
The cons: No speakerphone! This is a really strange feature to leave out, since it makes it hard to use the Palm at the same time as the phone. You can always use a headset, but that's just another step you shouldn't have to take. I also think it would be nice to have a caller ID screen on the outside of the phone so you don't have to flip open the phone to see who's calling. And I miss the dual-function keys on the StarTac -- functions you can easily access just by pushing "FNC" and then one of the numeric keys. I used to be able to switch the phone to vibrate by hitting two keys -- now I need to ratchet down the ringer, which can take up to 10 button presses, depending on how loud you have your ringer volume cranked. I also used to be able to mute my phone easily using the FNC button -- I have no clue how to do it on the i500, but it's certainly not a one-button thing. The screen is sometimes hard to read outside in the sun. Minor quibble -- there's apparently no way to add to the polyphonic ringtones supplied with the phone. There are plenty of options, to be sure, but it would have been nice to be able to add to them to truly personalize the phone.
On the high price -- I bought the phone used, which brought the price down significantly for me. Would I have paid the full retail price? Maybe, especially since I probably would have paid more to buy a new Palm and a new phone. At the deeply discounted price, however, I definitely got my money's worth.
Rating: 
Summary: Too Expensive
Review: I think the phone has a lot of great freatures. It is by far the best combo phone on the market at this time. However, it is really overpriced. At $600 plus at least another $100 or so dollars for needed items like, ear piece, car charger and a better carrying case it is just not worth that type of money. It may be a great investment in a year or so once newer model drives the price down.
Rating:
Summary: A year later and still loving it
Review: I waited somewhat unpatiently for this phone to appear on the US markets last year, and was one of the first to buy this phone. I used to carry around a Palm, cell phone and pager, and wanted to consolidate. Unfortunately I still have the pager, but the i500 is awesome. The battery power is great, screen visibility (yes, under direct sun), you get two batteries, the ring tones (why do you need to download more?), memory holds all my company's contacts plus my own. I don't want or need a camera, and was glad this didn't have one - why pay for something I don't want. I don't think the price was unreasonable. You pay a couple $$ for a Palm anyway. The size is perfect.
So there are a few things that are bothersome, but not big enough to make me return it or give it less than 5 stars. The ear-phone plug cover gets in the way - I've debated whether to just cut if off. You can't turn off the power-off and -on sounds. There is no quick turn-off-sounds button, you have to reduce the sound level all the way to vibrate then quiet.
Just my .02, even after a year.
Rating: 
Summary: Wanted to like it but can't ignore 3 replacements in 8 wks
Review: I wanted to love this phone - when it works it's the best - but but have had nothing but problems. And Sprint has replaced it 3 times in approx 8 weeks. Two of the 4 I've had total have had severe problems with the touchpad and calibration was continually malfunctioning and other replacement due to audio -for some reason audio stopped working all of a sudden and I had to use headset continually to be able to hear properly. I've finally decided to give up today when calibration and started to malfunction on the latest replacement I was given. I believe there is a serious flaw in the design and will not waste any more time with this model. Sprint has also recognized the problems and continual visits for Tech Support and has offered to give me a comperable phone to avoid future problems. I love the idea of a pda and phone in one but have no confidence in this model at all based on the last few weeks. My advice - avoid at all costs and keep looking - there are too many flaws in this one and not worth the high price and downtime spent trying to resolve the continually issues I experienced.
Rating:
Summary: Great phone, great "form factor", but ya gotta dial Sprint
Review: I wrote a review early on my site, and thought I'd share here. You can visit us at: http://www.badassreviews.com
"
When I put this site together, I thought that part of the goal for any aspiring bad ass was to find those must have things in life: love, liberty, and cool stuff. In the spirit of this pursuit, I present to you a pretty remarkable piece of technology that I have come to love (and detest) for variety of reasons.
The single best quality of this phone is that it marries a phone with the full blow Palm OS 4.1 Palm's latest and greatest OS is up to 5 and soon around the corner probably 6. But Palm 4 still continues to be the dominant OS of the PDA market (I could be wrong on this, but I don't think Windows CE is quite there yet, and Blackberry is well.. that's another story). Essentially, this PDA allows you download and install from a collection of thousands of software titles. Check out Palm Gear). If you ever wonder if there is something you wish you could use to track, organize, reference, play with, learn from, at a bus stop on cold winter day, you can be assured someone's already thought of it and made it available at Palm Gear.
"My Treo 600 also does that, what's the big deal?"
What Treo users, and essentially all other PDA/Phone users can't do, is look good using their PDA's. "Form factor" is the term given to a device's design, and how much space it takes to be a functional piece of equipment. The Samsung i500 has the single best form factor of all other PhonePDA's. Most of the PhonePDA's on the market look like heavy soap bars, some of them like the Treo's have a tiny keyboards mashed in, with badly beveled buttons that require some getting use to.
Samsung's i500 does away with all this and leaves a simple writing area that you use a Palm style (also snuggly available on the phone) to write into the system. This is not for heavy email users! If you need to send emails/messages back to the office on daily basis, you'll probably need some more functional than aesthetically pleasing.
But this Phone/PDA rocks, looks good, and is an easy conversation piece at the bar. Never mind the fact that it has a stylus that doubles as a pen.
Inside Scoop:
This phone is offered by Sprint for and astounding rate of $500 new. You'll be able to find it on ebay for around $200-$300 depending on how used it is, what accessories come with it, and if it fell off a truck in Jersey or not. My recommendation is to pick one of them up from ebay. This phone is constructed very well, and I have dropped and it has survived couple times already without any protection.
The Dark Side:
Sprint. By far and away, Sprint continues to be a promoter of pioneering technologies, at the same time, crippling them of the basics. The single largest issue with this phone is that SMS messing service that Sprint has neglected in providing. In order to actually use the SMS system on this device, you need to purchase and install i500SMS v0.31. According to some users groups, you can call Sprint, complain and have them purchase the software for you (check out PDAPhoneHome)
Still, anyone SMS messaging you, better enter their name or initials to the message, because unless they are on the Sprint network, you will not be able to know what phone sent you that message. This is just one of those things where the rest of the world seems to have a good grip on, and we in the U.S., the greatest country in the world, are still struggling to figure out how to deliver it. Technology does move like molasses sometimes.
We still thing is the a pretty cool phone, despite it's short comings.
"
Thanks!
B.A.R.
http://www.badassreviews.com
Rating:
Summary: Best PDA Phone Combo
Review: I've been a hardcore Palm user for years, owning 3 palm devices before the Samsung. I've had it now for 3 months. Very nice device in every respect. I don't need a camera or an MP3 player in my phone. I'll pass on the Treo-style thumb board (I'm graffiti literate). The phone has been very stable, and have not had digitizer problems at all. Here are some things I wish it had it does not. An MMC slot (but I have yet to need it), but can see I might. Also, the graffiti area is plastic and not hard plastic. I'm a little worried it might not be as durable as the glass areas on my previous palms. While expensive, well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: So far, a great phone
Review: I've had my phone for about 3 months now. So far, I love it. I was sick of carrying my phone and my Palm Pilot around. So, when Amazon had a great deal on the Samsung, I purchased it right away. I looked at other phones like the Treo, but I was looking for a flip phone that was still small and had the PDA bulit in. I've had no problems with the phone. It works great and is easy to use if you are a previous Plam owner. The screen is bright and colors are good in my opinion. The graffiti area is a little small but I got used to it after a week or two. Actually, I installed JOT and I can graffiti right on the screen, this makes inputing data a little easier. I really love the voice dial feature, calls are a breeze. Open the phone, push the button, say the name and the phone does the rest. Great when I'm driving. The internet works good, I changed the dispaly to grayscale (4 shades of gray) and the speeds seem faster. Works great for checking the weather, stock quotes, sports scores. I can even check my e-mail at Yahoo. If you need a good alarm clock, you'll need to download software for that. I installed BIGCLOCK and that has worked great for me. Wakes me up every morning. I would give it five stars, but I wish it had an external caller ID and an expansion slot for more memory. A speakerphone would be nice, but I can live without it. One other thing, I wish the volume buttons and voice dial button were raised a little more. Maybe a rubber button? They are plastic and flush with the phone, I find it difficult to push when I'm trying to make a call with one hand and sometimes push the button above or below it on accident. Other than that, I love it. Word of caution. If you order the phone and want to activate your SPRINT service, you might want to take it to a SPRINT store. I've had some problems with customer service, especially long hold times (30 minutes or more?). It took 2 months to get my number ported after repeated calls to find out what was going on. Sprint did refund my first month of service to try and compensate for the delay?
Rating:
Summary: Nice but not worth the money
Review: If it's not for the rebate , this phone is really not worth the money. With phones that are free after rebate and some that you can get CASH BACK. This phone does not have digital camera ability and hence restrict the use of VISION package provided by Sprint. My advice for all those whom wants to have this newest toy. ... Buy this phone only if you have never have a palm pilot before and does not know what to expect from the palm pilot! The flap on the phone can be very annoying when you are using a ear piece, it tends to get in the way!
P.S. I am NOT saying I do not like this phone, I'm saying IT IS NOT WORTH the money!!! My husband has the same phone and loves his!
EXPENSIVE ACCESSORIES - example, The stupid case that came with the phone is worthless, spend another $29.99 and you get yourself a decent holder ; It does not come with the car charger like most phone do, it is yet another $39.99 to purchase this ; Hands-free ear piece will cost you $15.99 or more! DO YOUR MATH, ADD THE FIGURES UP!
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