Report on the Neopoint phone:
I bought two, and am seriously considering returning them. The phones themselves are quite nice, but the interface program does not work properly to interface it to the computer. The program is filled with idiotic problems:
1. It will not install unless the computer is in 16 bit color mode. On an older computer this required me to drop to 800x600 due to video memory limits. Talking to a phone does not require 16 bit color. This is stupid.
2. It will apparently not install correctly on a network drive. When attempting to install on what was essentially a diskless workstation, I attempted to load the software on a network drive, and received numerous error messages.
3. It does not support current versions of software. It claims to interface to ACT!, Outlook, and Lotus Organizer. I don't know about Lotus, but it does not support either ACT!2000 or Outlook 2000. I also stored my ACT! database as a version 4 and version 3 from within ACT!2000, and it still refused to synch, saying it doesn't support ACT!2000.
4. Once the program is installed, there is apparently no way to change the synch options without un-installing the program and then re-installing it. According to Sprint, you click on the "phone" icon in the lower right hand "tray", but there is no such icon in the tray. Clicking on the program itself simply attempts to run the synch program, and does not bring up any screens or options.
5. Sprint knows very little to nothing about this phone, and less about the SoftSynch program.
6. Neopoint technical support has had my complaint since last night and chose not to respond at all. I didn't even receive an automated response saying that someone would be in touch. I sent another message to them tonight.
It's too bad, because the phone itself is really nice, with voice commands, a To-Do list, scheduler with alarms, contact list, a micro-browser, and nifty T9 input more that autorecognizes words. It appears that it could hold about 1000 contacts or 100 voice commands, or some intermediate combination.
Carl
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