I’m a big fan of TomTom Traffic and the Vario II handheld.
I’ve used the TomTom Traffic service successfully with a Sony Ericsson W900 i phone. However I recently switched from Vodafone to T-Mobile as I needed a strong signal to my home location and T-Mobile appeared better than Vodafone.
I went for the Vario phone as part of this switch. It seemed to do everything I needed – phone, camera, web, HSDPA and Microsoft Exchange support.
However the phone just cannot maintain a connection to Tom as I am travelling – It’s fine if I am stationary – but this rather defeats the point! To be fair to TomTom, they do not list the Vario as a supported phone – but they do support the Sony W900 i.
I also checked that the Vario phone can maintain contact to the web whilst I am moving (say on a train). Sadly it was pretty poor at this too.
I have checked the firmware against downloads from the T-Mobile site – I have the latest (June 2006) – so no joy here.
So my conclusion is that the T-Mobile MDA Vario II only works well if you are stationary – a great pity.
