While I pretty happy with my HTC Touch, the limitations of the hardware & operating system has began to show it ages as time go by. I even tried to flash my phone to WinMo 6.5 to see how it perform. Sadly, it just doesn’t perform under my HTC Touch, it is so lagging that it became frustrated to use it, to add in the injury, my phone itself is also dying. Screen having problems, battery cant really last and the charger spoiled!!! LOL To be fair, I still can use a normal mini USB to charge my phone through PC, so is still useable.
But because of all this, I been looking at either iPhone, Androids, and Windows Phone 7 for my future purchase. I scrapped iPhone out due to me don’t want to be another “iPhone users” + some of the limitations that impose by Apple itself. Seriously, iPhone is useless without iTunes! But I can’t deny iPhone itself is a fantastic phone with the best amount of apps + best touch screen you can find on the market. Yet iPhone is just not for me (I have tried iPod myself)
I been honestly waiting for Window Phone 7 due to the integration of windows live with the OS. However since Windows phone 7 will only available by December, being a tech guys in profession; I know really well that early adopter will always suffer, any tech products require times for the market and hardware to mature. Just look at the first generation iPhone, iTunes, windows Vista and various gadget / software / applications / OS ; iPhone really started to mature after the 2nd & 3rd iterations. So for Windows Phone 7 I believe it need at least 6 month or more to mature, honestly I just can't wait that long; also by then there will have come up with better spec phone.
One of my major beef with winmo 6.5 is that although I can sync my windows live contact (this one works wonder!!!) + mail wirelessly, but there are absolutely no ways for me to sync my phone calendar with my windows live calendar. So if I want to sync my calendar, my only ways is plug into my pc and sync it with my outlook. . . . .
In terms of apps, Windows market place is still a joke. Honestly, if you are looking for winmo apps, it is better to google it yourself (where you can find millions of apps + games) then rely on Windows Market.
If you have actually tried HTC UI for windows mobile, I can absolutely assure you that you will not like Windows default theme. While it subject to user own opinion, to me HTC UI is one of the saving grace for windows mobile thus far, and it also one of the reasons that there are so many 3rd party UI provider on the market, because windows default UI is just not up to the task.
I can continue to bash the short coming of windows mobile 6, but it is really unfair to do so. How can I be so unhappy with such platform and still stick with it for 3 years? For me the pro outweigh the cons in various ways.
If you want Mircosoft Exchange support or Active Directory integration, no questions ask, windows Mobile will be your best bet! But in Brunei here, I haven’t come across anyone that need that. . .
Windows live integration is one of the best feature that Microsoft have implements, and still one of the major reason I stick with it. All my contact is sync with Hotmail contact, so whatever I changed on my windows live contact it will reflect on my phone once I synced. Best thing on that, is I can sync it wirelessly! Not need to plug in to pc, or limit to only this or that computer or software. I can honestly said OTA (On the Air) synchronization is really the future for smart phone platform, and it is good that Windows Phone 7 is working on it while iPhone still decided to stick with their almighty iTunes.
Contact / Calendar /Documents sync with pc using Active Sync is pretty good by its own, and you are allow to connect up to 2 PC for same data synchronization, so one for work, one for home. If you phone condemn or one pc die, you can get another windows mobile phone /pc and still retrieve the same data and sync it.
Applications out of windows market is still plentiful, though it is hard to find a great freeware, but some of the paid apps is really good. I been using SPB finances for my expenses tracking and Pocket E Sword for Bible reading, both are one of the best app I have and can’t live without.
Music player can’t compare to iPhone at all, but HTC music player is ways better on its own compare to windows media player; which cannot arrange song by track order, and I was like “What The Heck!!!” Thank God HTC music player can or else I might use other platform sooner :p
Windows mobile by nature is fully customizable, to the point you can change startup screen, icons or even flash it with other roms. Just think of it like your old pc that came with windows XP and then you decided to format and install Windows 7 instead. But windows mobile platform can do more than that, and that is why such community exist to cook their own rom and share it with others.
Hmmm, this is one of the longest blog that I think I have ever wrote thus far. I will continue on 2nd part with my general usage and opinion with Android next time :p
