Pro vs TP2 & new 6.5 features (esp. Contact Management)

[rddt]

YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!:
Thanks Big D5 (and Malatesta too!) for being persistent heroes of the modern tricorder, helping us mobile power user geeks to navigate the myriad features and select among the best.


WHAT I LIKE:
I'm a SERO user trying to decide between the Treo Pro and the Touch Pro 2 (apparently the two best phones available to me). I have only owned the Treo 700wx and have rocked it hard, sending tremendous amounts of SMS to several hundreds of different contacts, Google-mapping, note-taking, websurfing, voice-commanding (music playlists and calls while biking on the go), copy/pasting, tethering and shortcutting (Start button, one-letter quicklinking) my way into high efficiency multitasking speed user territory.
Also really important to me is excellent reception & call quality and longest possible battery life.

I'm tempted by the Touch Pro 2 for its large screen real-estate, nice keyboard (far less cramped than the Treo Pro), GSM capability (for Int'l travel) and cushy features (such as nice homescreen w/ weather & add'l HTC & slick chef-brewed tweakage) that Malatesta hints at.


WHAT I'VE LEARNED:
The two most helpful reviews I've seen are Malatesta's:
http://www.wmexperts.com/review-sprint-touch-pro-2-confessions-black-slab-skeptic
and this somewhat more negative one by Waveydavey:
http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/re...0610-htc-touch-pro-2-review-week-my-life.html

This latter review highlights a couple things that I noticed testing the phone out in the store:
No OK button (WTF?! I use that button constantly to surf through menus!)
No D-Pad
No customizable button (how else will I initiate voice command?)

I also tested out the WinMo6.5 based Samsung Intrepid, and even with the presence of these buttons I found myself very annoyed that I couldn't reach my favorite programs in two button presses by pressing Start+Shortcut letter, and that I couldn't easily highlight txt for Copy&Paste without digging through a couple menus first.


ADD'L FEATURES I WANT:
I would LOVE to have the following features to better manage all of my contacts & calendars, which I currently can't do on the Treo 700wx.
Are these available on either new phone (either by default or with a tweak or app)?:
1. Send SMS to MUCH more than 10 contacts at once (a limitation of the Treo 700wx or Sprint or Windows Mobile 6.1 & earlier?), preferably through contact lists/groups
2. Search through Contacts for specific keywords in notes I made about people and generate contact lists/groups (there's a search in WinMo5 but it doesn't work 80% of the time)
3. Integrate with Facebook contacts, WebOS-Synergy-style for contact list/group management
4. Synchronize my Google calendars (1 minimum, more desirable) & Contacts for free (GooSync used to be free, not any more)


WHICH PHONE IS FOR ME?
Now that there's this brand spanking new update to WinMo6.5 for the Touch Pro 2, does this phone's new features match up better with my needs?
I'm willing to install chef brewed specials on either phone, I just really want to get all I can out of whichever phone is the best for me (or is there another SERO compatible phone I'm missing in my search?). Thanks for any advice you can offer, and thanks for being such wonderful resources for the true power user community!

~Rich DDT

How do you disable sense?
Go to settings tab tap menu all settings/today/items tab un check HTC Sense
Do any of the following tweaks require a hard reset: xda shutdown, 16 quicklinks, background on all tabs?
No
Is Resco 2008 a good registry edit app?
Yes
can I launch these tweaks from SD card?
Yes
I hope I haven't used my question quota up
Keep them coming that's what we are here for



That cab is to remove the tile background around the quick link to give it a more transparent look that is all it does. Sounds like you need to read up on Max Manila then try it out it can do what you are asking.

 

[rddt]

Its all the form factor bottom line both devices will fit your needs. If you realy like the front facing qwerty then stick with that but if you thing you can get used to having to use 2 hands to type then the TP2 will do. I had a treo 700wx then the 800w but in the end i just cant deal with the small screen.

I took some more time to play with the TP2 & Treo Pro in the store and I have a couple more specific questions about both hardware buttons and the new 6.5 update.

Limitations of the TP2 (as compared to the Treo Pro):

HARDWARE:
No OK button: Correction- Well it turns out the Back Button is also the OK Button, however there is a long delay after you press it until it activates. Compare side-by-side to tapping OK and you'll see what I mean. Same long delay for the Start button. This really slows navigation down tremendously - is there any way to speed up these buttons?
No D-Pad: Yeah, I still miss that, D-Pad would be much faster than your finger esp when flying through long menus.
No customizable button (how else will I initiate voice command?): Correction- You can actually customize the Send button so that a Press+Hold becomes a custom button - Nice.

Keyboard & Word Completion:
Damn I really miss the Treo700wx keyboard - Treo Pro is slightly too small & TP2 is slightly too large for my hands. The Treo Pro has excellent word completion however (configurable under Setting->Input->Word Completion), this really enables me to type faster on the Pro. The TP2 does NOT have this feature though! Also slowing me down on the TP2, or rather missing from the SenseUI/TouchFlo3D interface is the lack of 1-Letter Shortcuts to jump to commonly used program names or items in long menus.
Is there any free & recommended 3rd party program that will provide word completion or 1-Letter Shortcuts on the TP2? Maybe there is an updated virtual keyboard for SenseUI/TouchFlo3D that features this?

Speaker Volume & Call Quality: I discovered the Pro has a louder speaker phone and speaker in general, with shriller highs that are easier to hear in noisy rooms. However, TP2 sounded less choppy than the Pro.

Reception: I couldn't test this - is one better than the other?



Critical Upgrades I seek - for EITHER phone:

SOFTWARE:
Contact Groups:
As I hinted at before I have a million contacts to manage and the single most compelling feature about WinMo 6.5 for me is the ability to use Contact Groups. Is this new feature well integrated into the People/Contacts interface of SenseUI/TouchFlo3D?
If it is not, is there some other free & recommended 3rd party program that will let me group contacts for SMS or Email?

Search/Copy+Paste:
Likewise for searching info within contacts in order to add them into groups - has Search been improved in 6.5 and is it better integrated into SenseUI/TouchFlo3D?
And within a contact card, though the new HTC interface looks nice, I can't find a way to copy/paste the information there - I use this feature all the time to txt a contact's phone or address to another person - what's the best way to grab and send that info in SenseUI/TouchFlo3D?

Facebook:
Another compelling feature of SenseUI/TouchFlo3D is the linkage of a Contact with a corresponding Facebook profile. I REALLY WANT THIS FEATURE. However, pre-upgrade this feature is a major disappointment - all it can do is add a photo and birthday, and in fact I tested it and the birthday part is broken. It has an Updates & Events section within the contact card, but Facebook info (which info I wonder?) does not update there at all. All it can do is update the photo. LAME! It should pull phone & email from Facebook, and current status too!
Has this been fixed in the 6.5 update? If not, is there some other free & recommended 3rd party program that will let me integrate like this?

Calendar/Contact Syncing:
What is the best way to do this? Ideally wirelessly with Gmail & Facebook, rather than having to plug it in and sync with Outlook via the USB cable.

Voicemail:
Is there any way to restore those Voice Mail Buttons (on the Treo 700wx it was under Today->Speed Dial Options->Voicemail->Menu->Edit->Advanced)? That feature makes flying through VM so much faster! Maybe it comes with a package (if it exists) to restore Picture Speed Dial?


From all these feature requests you can guess - I'd jump to WebOS or Android or even iPhone in a heartbeat, if I wasn't so attached to SERO on Sprint

Any further advice and links to the appropriate ROMS or CABS would be very much appreciated!