I have had this phone for over a month now, and the more I learn to use it, the better it gets. A lot of people complain about the low volume, so that was a concern, but I found several ways to make the phone louder. The simplest way is to change your profile (the Outdoor setting is sufficiently loud for me). Another way is to modify the profiles' volume settings (I overdid this the first time and nearly fell off my chair when my phone rang). You can also increase the in-call volume by adjusting it during a call (use a second phone to call yourself and adjust the volume then).I really just wanted a good phone with some basic PDA features, so this phone truly exceeded my expectations. I can record videos, take high-res pictures (the phone has a MiniSD slot which now holds a 512MB card), listen to mp3s, and assign real music ring tones. Oh, yeah -- it has Outlook and IE, among other things. Lots of neato downloadable software at handango.com. As for how to use/optimize/troubleshoot the phone, I learned a lot by going to howardforums.com (look up Microsoft Smartphone). I'm not exactly the techy type, but so far, those who are that play with my phone get pretty impressed (to quote some of them, "SWEEEEET!").