snip

Re: Shadow. Yes on EDGE; the camera does a credible job but don't throw
out your Nikon. I carry a seperate camera when I'm sightseeing or taking
family photos but the phone's camera is perfectly adequate (and about as
good as my Motorola v6) for the occassional snapshot of an unexpected
event or to photograph samples of things.

It'll use EDGE, but the proxy slows things down a little. It still Beats
GPRS though.  (My MDA replaced my 3650!)

I think the 0.3 MP camera in the 3650 outperforms the 1.3MP camera in the
Dash or my MDA.  I haven't tried the Shadow yet, but given HTC's track
record with phone cameras, I'd assume it's lousy.

UPDATE:

Thanks for the responses. OK, I had the Shadow for 6 days now, and
whay I found so far:
I basically like the phone, nice size, lots of functions, will connect
to wi-fi and EDGE easily, and call volume is great. Speaker phone loud
but tinny. Pictures seem OK, nothing great, and videos are kind of
small, like my Nokia 3650, but the Shadow has a better video quality.
Do other phones produce larger videos? (Screen size?)

I am still  thinking about returning this and trying the Dash instead
or a similar Blackberry (forgot model number), but I cannot afford too
expensive of a phone. I tried Bluetoothing a PDA file over to the
phone from my PC, which worked, but when I opened it in the PDA app on
the phone, it was unreadable, I tried all page width and zoom
settings, nothing would properly fit the text on the page, without
having to scroll every line left to right. Actually the PDA file was
the Shadow's manual from the disc. Unusable in my opinion. Maybe the
Dash's more landscape screen will help? However rotating the text on
the Shadow still didn't help. Plus the Dash has a little bigger
screen???

I addressed before not being able to set an IE homepage, or rotate the
browser to the landscape position, but I figure the homepage trouble
is with that browser and I can download other browsers? (I know a
registry tweak was mentioned, but I don't feel like poking around in
the registry at this point).

Other concerns I have with the Shadow, is the plug they provide to
chrage doesn't always fit very securely in the jack, and very easy to
pull out just touching the phone when it's charging. I understand the
Dash also has this? I like the simple plug that my Nokia 3650 has,
just push the sucker in, no fumbling around with tabs and then trying
to figure out which way the plug goes in, especially when you want to
charge it at night and you're sleepy. I see the little tab/cover for
the port is getting worn already, doesn't want to go back into
position. Lots of fumbling around here.

Another annoyance, I tried twice to go to my myspace page using the
Shadow's IE browser, using my wi-fi connection. Both times the phone
froze, the bottom of the display said something like 1646KB, which
isn't that huge. I had to remove the battery both times to reboot the
phone. I can't figure out how to put Java so I can see looping weather
radar maps as it doesn't display them, I assume the problem is Java.

I wish there was a volume control for dialing from the number pad,
that is loud! I don't see any settings and again I don't want to fool
around in the registry, shouldn't have to do that for simple settings.
I'm wondering about the average user who buys the phone may not have a
clue and either lives with it or returns the phone because of that.

The last big concern is battery life. Again, I'd say maybe two thirds
to three quarters of what I got on my Nokia 3650, and online reviews
claimed the N3650 battery life was a bit short, IIRC. I kept a log, so
here we go:

Yesterday 11:00 am, battery fully charged, green light showing, I took
it off the charger and the battery says 100%. I get good signal here,
usually 4 bars, and I don't think this phone displays more than 4
bars, which is all they show in the pictures in the manual. So I guess
that's good for battery life. I was at home all day yesterday too, so
the phone wasn't used in any areas that had poor signal.\

I notice wi-fi uses about 5% of the battery per hour, and that's
mostly letting it shut off after 2 minutes, but when I wake the phone
up again, it reconnects. 45 minutes of calls, with no wi-fi or
Bluetooth on brought a charge from 98% to 80%. After using Wi-fi for a
few minutes to check weather, but left wi-fi on for about a half hour
around 5pm, down to 72%, with wi-fi switching off after 2 minutes of
non-use.

I left the phone sit last yesterday and last night with no BT or Wi-fi
going, and it was down to about 60% by about 2 am. I woke up at 6:40
am today, nothing extra running on the phone and it's at 35%, a big
drop in a few hours! Then leveled off a bit, 30% at 8:55 am, 7% at
11:00 am , another significant quick drop, and 11:10 am at 5%, again
with just the phone on, no wi-fi or BT. At that point it went back on
the charger. It does charge quickly, maybe a little more than an
hour.

Should I go for the Dash or Blackberry, thanks much again.