Matthew Miller

Contributor

Matthew Miller started using mobile devices in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since. He was a co-host, with Kevin Tofel, of the MobileTechRoundup podcast for 13 years and authored three Wiley Companion seri…es books. Matthew started using mobile devices with a US Robotics Pilot 1000 and has owned more than 200 different devices running Palm, Linux, Symbian, Newton, BlackBerry, iOS, Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone operating systems. His current collection includes a Google Pixel 4, Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, LG V60 ThinQ, Google Pixelbook Go, Microsoft Surface Pro 6, and many more, along with plenty of wearables, accessories, and classic devices like the Apple Newton MessagePad 2100 and Sony CLIE UX50. Matthew can be found on various discussion forums under the user name of "palmsolo".

Matthew is a professional naval architect by day and a mobile gadgeteer at all other times. He purchases his own devices and then sells them on Swappa to buy more. Many other devices are sent for review on a typical 30-day or long-term loan basis and then returned to the carrier or manufacturer.

Latest from Matthew Miller

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How well does your smartphone support your Exchange server?

How well does your smartphone support your Exchange server?

Now that the iPhone 3G S is out and available half of the premium smartphones coming to us this Summer are ready for people to purchase and try out. The T-Mobile myTouch 3G is coming next month, the HTC Touch Pro2 devices should be coming in July too, and the BlackBerry Storm 2 will be coming at some unknown date. We do have the Palm Pre, iPhone 3G S, and Nokia N97 and I personally purchased all three of these devices with one being returned so far. One of my evaluation criteria for a smartphone is its ability to work with my Exchange account. Windows Mobile sets the bar for Exchange support since Exchange is a Microsoft client and this is one area where Windows Mobile does things right. A bit surprisingly, the new iPhone 3.0 OS found on the iPhone 3G S offers the second best Exchange experience with only one thing left to add for me to be truly happy and no longer reliant on a Windows Mobile phone.

June 22, 2009 by in Enterprise Software

AT&T announces first WM 6.5 devices, the HTC Pure and HTC Tilt 2

AT&T announces first WM 6.5 devices, the HTC Pure and HTC Tilt 2

AT&T jumped the gun a bit and today announced the HTC Pure and Tilt 2, both running Windows Mobile 6.5. I have an HTC Pure here in my hands under evaluation, but cannot post my full review until early Tuesday morning when the embargo on Windows Mobile 6.5 lifts. In the meantime, you can check out the official press release and even visit your local AT&T store as I understand many of them are actually selling the HTC Pure now for just $149.99 after $50 mail-in rebate and 2-year contract.

October 4, 2009 by in Enterprise Software

MobileTechRoundup show #117, Freeware Extravaganza

MobileTechRoundup show #117, Freeware Extravaganza

You will want to check out the Freeware Extravaganza that we have for you in MobileTechRoundup show #117 this week as we talk about 6 free applications for your mobile devices. You can also hear about my decision on the T-Mobile Shadow. James picked up an iPod Touch and is quite impressed with the browsing experience. Kevin likes his Eee PC and talks about more usage of the device.

November 20, 2007 by in Enterprise Software

Image Gallery: First impressions of the Pharos Traveler 137

Image Gallery: First impressions of the Pharos Traveler 137

Pharos has been making Windows Mobile/Pocket PC devices with a GPS navigation focus for years. They have been rolling out higher end, more modern devices lately and with the Traveler 137 we see the very first Windows Mobile device that supports T-Mobile USA's 1700 MHz 3G wireless data service. The device has a large 3.5 inch, 800x480 pixels resolution display, FM radio, and more.

June 12, 2009 by in Enterprise Software

Image Gallery: Windows Mobile 6.5 disappoints with lack of customization and stylus requirement

Image Gallery: Windows Mobile 6.5 disappoints with lack of customization and stylus requirement

I had high hopes for Windows Mobile 6.5 to at least provide a better touch experience, but it only does so on a basic level. We now see no customization support in the Start menu or Today screen and an overall lack of consistency across the platform. Windows Mobile needs major work and I am not sure people are willing to wait until the end of 2010 for Windows Mobile 7.

October 5, 2009 by in Enterprise Software

Palm announces the Centro for US$99

Palm announces the Centro for US$99

Today Palm introduced the long rumored Palm Centro that will sell for a low US$99 on Sprint. While the device may not knock the socks off of the smartphone enthusiast, the Centro is a very capable Palm OS 5.4.9 device. Specs include a 320x320 color display, dual-band CDMA2000 EV-DO with 1xRTT, Bluetooth 1.2, 64MB usable storage, 1.3 megapixel camera, 1150 mAh battery, and microSD card slot. It comes in both Ruby and Onyx. I personally think Palm did a great job getting everything seen on most Treo models today into the Centro in a cooler, slimmer form factor.

September 27, 2007 by in Enterprise Software

iPhone web apps are good for S60 too

iPhone web apps are good for S60 too

Jason posted on the fact that there are now over 150 web applications for the Apple iPhone, which is quite encouraging. I then used a Nokia N95, that has the same web browser base building block that the iPhone does, to visit a couple of the application index sites. The index sites work best in landscape mode on the N95 and you still have to do a bit of scrolling side to side. I recommend zooming into 50% on the N95 to make the experience better. I did find the information driven web applications, like GoMovies, to work quite well. Games and other apps that require you to interact seem to be hit and miss as chess did not work, but blackjack played fine. While these are not stand-alone applications and you must have a wireless data connection to use them there are many helpful titles already available and they are all free.

July 16, 2007 by in Enterprise Software

Nokia announces N810 Internet Tablet with GPS and OS 2008

Nokia announces N810 Internet Tablet with GPS and OS 2008

I enjoy using the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet for web browsing from the couch and for making Skype calls. I would use it even more if I didn't have so many mobile devices floating around and think it is a great mobile terminal. Nokia just announced the Nokia N810 as a successor to the N800. The N810 will be available in mid-November for US$479 and it looks like there is another candidate for my self-purchased Christmas gift.

October 17, 2007 by in Enterprise Software

Is the Amazon Kindle going to be a monthly fee nightmare?

Is the Amazon Kindle going to be a monthly fee nightmare?

The internet is all a buzz about the Amazon Kindle that was just officially announced. The Amazon Kindle product page is live and you can place your order now for this US$399 ebook reader. As I scrolled down through the product page I couldn't help but start adding up how high the monthly fees for this thing could possibly be. There are monthly subscriptions for newspapers from US$9.99 to US$14.99, magazines at US$1.99 and US$2.99, blogs (yes free blogs) for US$0.99 each per month, and Word document and photo email attachment support for US$0.10 each. I think the device hardware is a bit steep to start with, but you could easily be paying a monthly subscription cost that dwarfs the hardware cost over a rather short period of time.

November 18, 2007 by in Enterprise Software