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Need Advice Picking PPC Phone Please

I'm getting ready to buy my first PPC phone and wanted some advice from people who have used these devices.
I've owned a cell phone for about 3 years now (a basic one). I'm a heavy computer user (mainly PCs with Windows or on rare occasions Linux). I love to tinker and build my own PCs.
What interests me the most about a PPC phone is making my life easier. I buy the computers for our school (I teach 5th grade). I'd like to get a phone that can keep my Google Calendar and Gmail on it plus browse the web from time to time. I'd also like to be able to do other stuff on it, like watch video clips, listen to MP3s, and take the occasional picture. Games might be fun too when I'm waiting around. I don't have much use for GPS at this point (though I admit it would be fun to play with sometimes). I like the idea of getting after-market applications and games to make the PPC phone more productive/enjoyable. Being able to have control over how it handles phone calls is another plus. Size isn't too important to me. I'm more interested in functionality and smart design. I like the idea of a big screen and a QWERTY keyboard.
I've thought about Palm OS. It seems very smartly designed, but I don't like that it can't multitask. I will use my device for a variety of tasks at the same time (like I'm doing with my PC at the moment. I don't know much about the other OSes beyond the Windows flavors.
Right now I'm leaning toward getting a Treo 750 when Cingular comes out with it or a Cingular 8525 (HTC Hermes). From what I've read it appears that the Treo is one of the best designs (easier to use and more functional). The 8525 has better hardware specs and a bigger screen. So, I'm not sure which way to go.
I'd love to hear some of people's opinions and advice. At this point I'm not even sure what things I need to focus on.
Thank you in advance for your input.

I'm getting the Hermes next month when my contract upgrade is due.

Well I Like "enough to recommend to you" The QTEK 9100, since i got mine and thanks to this forum, i can tinker till the cows come home., I've flashed it, unlocked it, downloaded and experimented with its ROM and external ram, upgraded the phone skin, completely made it into a totally different beast from when it was shipped from vodafone...
I can connect without cost using wifi (54G) to: internet, msn,skype, pocket news reader (spb insight), and internet radio.
I can sychronise with active sync, my documents, calender,contacts and others, I can setup many email accounts for downloading to the device
watching films, jurrassic park is 113megs at QVGA resolution, and can be viewed full screen too, the keyboard ejects out the side of the device and lights up in dark. comes with office suite, and windows mobile 5 devices today are very good, you can use gprs too the whole package is the best device i've previously owned the following devices.
nokia N91, HDD corrupted after 4 days, crashed more times than Barry Sheen!
Nokia 6630 good phone but boring...it was symbian os
HP Jornado 928 (ppc 2003) crashed a lot, eats battries like hell
Nokia 6600 good phone bit basic really
Nokia 9310i good phone, good screen, poorly made
Nokia 9110i well made, black and white screen, liked it then
and the Qtek 9100 has satisfied all my demands and given me great freedom
TOM TOM 6.010 runs flawlessy for 7 hours continuosly without a charge and there was still 10% battery left, what other device will do that for you eh!!!!
The device is not perfect but out of all the other stuff out there, it's the best i have owned yet.

whoster69, I have similar needs to you and I have gone for the Palm treo 750v. After using it for 3 days I can say I have not needed to use stylus even once this is how good one handed usage of this phone is. This is the only WM device that has been designed for being a phone. Wizard and Hermes seem as if phone functionality was added as an after thought.
Battery doesn't seem to be as bad as some people said it is (still haven't needed to recharge yet), coming from Wizard and Magician screen took some getting used to but now its ok.
One of the reasons I didn't get Hermes was of the sliding keyboard. I used to loathe Wizard keyboard as everytime I needed to type something I would have to slide the keyboard and wait for the OS to adjust itself. I am very happy with Palm keypad. Although the keys are smaller but the shape and tacitle feedback means they are very practical.

I'm officially done with windows mobile

2006 was my 1st attempt at the Palm OS and I hated it after a loooooong month never to return again. 2007 is the 1st time I tried windows mobile, 1st with the HTC Wizard (8125) and then with the HTC TyTn.
Both of my experiences with the 2 devices and the windows mobile OS was horrible. For one HTC has terrible phone hardware, you could barley hear the person you are talking to on the phone and the antenna in HTC phones suck completly.... This is on BOTH 8525 (TyTn) AND 8125 (Wizard).
Combined with the poor phone hardware is a OS that is to hard to use for novice users plus takes you to too many menus just to get to an option. Pocket Internet explorer sucks. On howardforums.com which is mostly text with little images the pocket internet explorer lags soooo badly.... Dont even mention sites like gizmodo.com and engadgetmobile.com. Typing is a nightmare and with a 400mhz processor programs still lag and hang. My N75 loads up the camera app faster with less RAM than the HTC TyTn (Cingular/ATT 8525)!
Office mobile sucks also. I have anethesia notes for class that I have on my SD card on my nokia E62 that I wanted to see how they'll come up on word mobile and it didn't even open the document! Mind you this is windows mobile 6 and they're .doc files created on XP while my E62 can handle .docx files created on Vista!
All in all my windows mobile experience has made me appreciate Symbian and show'd me what multitasking with little effort means....
I'm selling my mint condition, 3 week old, windows mobile 6, unlocked ATT 8525/HTC TyTn. Private message me with offers. THANKS.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out! j/k haha
If you ever decide to try it again I'd suggest the Touch. Different league. You just don't get all the super specs(unless you get the Sprint version). But what it does, it does well.

please separate what is PDA and what is phone
your N75 is a nice phone, but, phone is phone, not PDA and cannot be compared with PDA.
Symbian system is suck with Touch screen.. u can see how Sony Ericsson P series work.....really suck...

Why do you have to make an official announcement? I've switched back and forth between Palm, WM, and Symbian - or more than one at a time and switched between smartphones and pocket pc's. Notice no announcement posts for me nor do I need sympathy

I think it is a matter of personal preference and how much patience you have to familiarize a new environment.
I have been using windows mobile for 4 years now and am generally impressed with the the power of the operating system as well as the quality of HTC hardware. A few months back I attempted to switch over to the Nokia E90 but the lack of quality 3rd party software and the poor hardware quality were enough to prompt me to get rid of the thing in less than a week. I am back to windows mobile for good

shannoncole05 said:
Why do you have to make an official announcement? I've switched back and forth between Palm, WM, and Symbian - or more than one at a time and switched between smartphones and pocket pc's. Notice no announcement posts for me nor do I need sympathy
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... and I use both Symbian and WinMo at the same time. The Nokia N95 has a definitely superior hardware for 3D gaming & multimedia to any HTC device out there; therefore, that's my music source. And, I use my Universal when need to browse the web in hi-res (if low-res is OK, I prefer browsing on the Nokia because it's lightweight - as opposed to the Universal). I also read my mails on my Nokia - it's far faster to load new mails than WinMo from POP3 accounts with more than a thousand mails.
Finally, I use a cheap HTC Oxygen (s310) for calls because it's sturdy, cheap and is the very few HTC phones to allow for call recording. (The Nokia also allows for the latter, but it's too expensive and I am afraid of dropping it when used as a phone.)

ive been a windows mobile user since the very begening and have gone to symbian and other forms as i have frequently got hacked off at the crap software, but if you stick with it u soon realise there are enougth fixes n hacks to make WM devices become far superior to anything, i love my athena at times and sometimes i hate it but i know that nothing can beat it yet as a single device to do everything i need. just have a little patience

Well, the Symbian platform is a great platform. But as it grew more advanced, it also got less stable: my Psion 5mx NEVER crashes, my Nokia 6260 sometimes just kills its modem process or just hangs. That being said, it still is one of the more stable platforms out there, allows for a huge amount of free softwares, but runs on IMO more limited hardware.
I always intended to stay with Symbian, but did choose for a HTC TyTN as I liked the form factor, and as I needed to run one particular software that is Windows Mobile exclusive. I have my gripes with Windows Mobile (it looses points on the functionality as a phone, e.g. lack of profiles, but also on easy taskswitching and in user friendlyness), but I'd rate them quite similarly now: each has their upsides and downsides.
Still, for an advanced phone, nothing beats Symbian. For a PDA/phone the edge currently is with WM6, but Symbian is catching up (new S60 ought to support touchscreens as well, and S60 is IMO more mature than UIQ).
Jörg

I must admit that, for the first 3 months of windows mobile PDA ownership I felt the same way as you. I kept wondering why I had given up my trusty P900 smartphone to come over to endless lockups and freezes, poor reliability, etc, etc.
A year down the line my views have changed enormously. OK, I have had to flash to WM6 and use cooked roms and other technical solutions from off here; however I have also moved away from the MS standard/office/web browsing apps and gone onto more fit-for-purpose items.
The fact is I now would not move back to a Symbian platform. I can do so much more with the PDA phone, customise it to my hearts content and beyond, use it for business with a reasonable degree of confidence, use it for fun whenever I like.
Yes, I have had to work at it and spend light years of my life on this forum to get to work out how one gets round some o the issues, but its been worth it.
You can only speak as you find and your comments are valid; however its always a case of you pays your money, you takes your choice.
All the best.
WB

Its always irritating when somebody moans about how a PDA is not like a phone. Duuuuuh! Symbian definitely got more free stuff,something had to make up for the lack of true functionalism. Theres an entire shift in mindset required to adjust to moving from another OS to windows mobile. Some struggle more than others I suppose.

Interesting, my 8125 is great! I don't understand what you mean about hardly hearing someone. With my volume on max its so loud sounds like Im on speaker phone.
I get an awsome signal anywhere I go, then again could just be my service and area I live in?
To bad the devices are not what you perfer but glad you found something that works to your needs. Just a couple of points I wanted to make on this reply,
1.You do not have to discredit the phone hardware or functionality because you can't find a way for it to work for you. My phone has been dropped etc.. used a lot and functions like it did day 1 without having hardly any blemishes on it.
2. It's a windows mobile phone, you can get just about any software and install it to fit your needs! I'm sure there is some simple solution to the .docx? But these phones are not meant for your everyday normal phone user. Best fit for those who are always on the go on a corporate level needing to be able to pull up real time email push etc.. and organize.
PS: I will have to look up the E62 to see what its about to compared to wm6.

Well, I like my Touch a lot but my first WM (than still called Smartphone 2002) experience was very bad as well. I owned an original SPV with smartphone 2002. Man did it suck! It was so bad that it would sometimes actually crash when my phone rang while listening to music. Opening the sms inbox also regularly made the phone hang. Manually clearing memory was needed a lot, nothing would launch when the phone had been on for more than a few hours.
Still it had some good things other phones didn't have. Apart from crashing, the sms inbox was really nice for a phone. I still like pOutlook on WM standard a lot, better than on WM pro.
To sum it up. The SPV, and MS smartphone, was so bad I decided never to get a WM phone again. I only changed my opinion this summer after checking out a Touch.

Maybe he needed a phone all along. Run on home,Forrest! You cant be a serious business person and sat things like that with a clear concience. WM is as comprehensive as its gets.Every now and then it'll play dressup with the Cube and iPhone,but its more than about sms and pictures.

I am interested for your tytn?-where are you from? (can you send by DHL?)

And Tell Me The Price Of Course..........

I used symbian for a long time. I made my first experience with the Siemens SX1 which was for that time more than great. Even the camera made very good pictures. I was totally satisfied in that time. But after phones god faster and smaller I switched over to Sony Ericsson K700i. I used it a long time and I have to say it was really fast. I just missed my StorageCard.
After a while I also missed the possibility to install programs so I switched to the Samsung SGH-D730 which also has symbian. But what i noticed on all symbian devices is that it tooks a long time to open the contacts and menu.
Of course you have a lot of different programs to install, but i personally think that windows mobile has just better apps.
After i got in touch with a touchscreen I decided to buy a Himalaya and after that the Hermes. Right now i am very happy I made the decision to switch to windows mobile 6!
To sum it up:
Symbian feels very slow to me and hasn't the features windows mobile gives you.

for me, once i started using wm phones, i find its not possible to go back to normal phones. even new symbian phones doesnt attract me.
my first wm5 was the Prophet and i used it for 1.5years, really satisfied me, i didnt thought of changing phone at all.. then i decided to try the htc tytn. even better with a keyboard!
i think ive fallen in love with wm ppc. never gonna go back to normal phones. haha..

Exciting News for everyone!!!

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/what.s-w...ow-wm7-and-wm8-are-going-to-fix-it-333536.php
Very interesting article

Wow, that was a great article! The author hit his points right on the head. Sounds like WM8 will be the one to go for, however who knows how long that will take to come out.
Also, in the meantime HTC has to get their heads out of their asses and release some quality and speedy hardware! What the hell happened to the OMNi, the Universal successor?! There's still not a decent phone that can replace it yet, and the Uni is over 2 years old! On the other hand, the i-Mate Ultimate 9502 looks like a decent piece of hardware (spec-wise) but its ugly as sin and the build quality will most likely be lower than HTC...I also hear that i-Mate is in financial trouble now too...
Oh well, I have finally completed the process of flashing a new WM5 ROM that I'm happy with, and my Uni is working great for now. I just hope that the future looks good for WM8 and HTC...I'll be sitting in my waiting chair for now, to see how this all develops over time.

well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile#Photon_.282009.29
wm7 will be out next year so it could take awhile before wm8 come around

The article is so sad. I have been using WM for years and it does everything I want and more. Every point the guy makes is easily fixable with any task manager, there are heaps or free ones.
A non power user dosen't care if the apps close or not.
Iphone is all about the hype, anything that it does WM has been doing for 10 years.

Thats how I feel too. I have very little problems but a new OS is always exciting. I know I was losing my mind the first time I found Faria's Crossbow for the wizard. That was my first taste of windows mobile 6 and it was great.

I almost wanna check out the ETEN x800. I havent seen any in the states. But im gonna keep my eye out. I love my Herm200 but hey thats got the memory of a 8925 and I think its like 500.

scar45 said:
There's still not a decent phone that can replace it yet, and the Uni is over 2 years old!
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I think I'll go back to the separated-device route. The iPAQ 214 for the workhorse, quality PDA and the Nokia N95 for the phone + GPS + camera + 3D hardware-accelerated gaming machine + HSDPA modem + push mail client.
scar45 said:
On the other hand, the i-Mate Ultimate 9502 looks like a decent piece of hardware (spec-wise)
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Too bad it's only PXA270-based... already outdated. A no-go for me. Why would I buy a non-PXA310-based device in 2008, when the iPAQ 214 already has the new CPU?

@Menneisyys
I think you may have made a tiny error, the iMate 9502 is the ugly one with a Qualcomm MSM7200 processor.

njakobs said:
The article is so sad. I have been using WM for years and it does everything I want and more. Every point the guy makes is easily fixable with any task manager, there are heaps or free ones.
A non power user dosen't care if the apps close or not.
Iphone is all about the hype, anything that it does WM has been doing for 10 years.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not to get into a WM vs iPhone debate, but I disagree. I have about every iteration of WM device and still choose the iPhone on a daily basis. I am not really a mac user or care about any of the hype, for me it is simply a great device and os. Yes, WM can do most of the things the iPhone can, but not with anywhere near the same ease of use (i.e. can anyone figure it out), speed (no task manager needed with a 600+Mhz processor) screen clarity (see it in sunlight!), touch screen responsiveness (capacitance vs resistance) accelerometer for auto landscape of the browser, pictures and iPod, and the amazing build quality. I won't even go into the applications and how amazingly intuative they are. To make my Touch XL or Tinity work even close to my iPhone it takes over ten added applications that don't always work together. If you think the iPhone is only hype, you likely have not spent any time with one - it's addicting. My point is simply to state that, as a WM user the iPhone has raised the bar both on the hardware and software side and I hope it is not years before Microsoft and the manufacturers catch up.

2manyphones said:
Not to get into a WM vs iPhone debate, but I disagree. I have about every iteration of WM device and still choose the iPhone on a daily basis. I am not really a mac user or care about any of the hype, for me it is simply a great device and os. Yes, WM can do most of the things the iPhone can, but not with anywhere near the same ease of use (i.e. can anyone figure it out), speed (no task manager needed with a 600+Mhz processor) screen clarity (see it in sunlight!), touch screen responsiveness (capacitance vs resistance) accelerometer for auto landscape of the browser, pictures and iPod, and the amazing build quality. I won't even go into the applications and how amazingly intuative they are. To make my Touch XL or Tinity work even close to my iPhone it takes over ten added applications that don't always work together. If you think the iPhone is only hype, you likely have not spent any time with one - it's addicting. My point is simply to state that, as a WM user the iPhone has raised the bar both on the hardware and software side and I hope it is not years before Microsoft and the manufacturers catch up.
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Click to collapse
I guess you are right in a lot of aspects. However, Apple's flaw (and quite possibly the iPhone's downfall) is the lack of capability for the power users. Both my mom and my brother have iPhones so I have had plenty of chances to mess around with them. Not only did I not find it addictive, but after using it for 10 minutes, I just put it down and started messing around with my Blue Angel (now 3 years old and running WM6). I personally consider myself a medium (on the salsa scale ) power user of WM, but after watching a couple of YouTube videos and scrolling through album covers with my fingers while tilting the device back and forward, I started thinking: "well, now what?"
There are numerous advantages of iPhones over WM devices and vice-versa, but the article is mainly comparing the WM interface with the iphone's interface, and that is what this is all about. M$ interfaces have been progressively getting worse over the years (or at least not getting any better), while Apple completely hit a homerun with their interface. This sole fact gave birth to the future of WM. If you do not believe me, check out the "development and hacking" section of this forum and tell me how many new UIs you can see floating around. I personally have 4 in my device (FreeStyle, PointUI, iTask (came out yesterday), and Slither's Cube.
Hopefully, they will be able to do something based on what is out there (i.e. HTC X-Button (true closing any app), PointUI, PocketCM, TCPMP, etc, etc...). But make no mistake, there is a lot to be done to our devices, and hopefully M$ truly knows about it and are planning to do something about it...
Long Live XDA-Devs!!!!

another thing with iphone which may work agenst it in eu and asia is lack of t9 not very fast to write sms's in 10sec
heck here kids write sms's on their phones even in school under the table so the teacher dont take their phones even if the iphone keyboard is easier to use the defualt ms tiny keyboard phone pad and normal phones got a better chance of being used "blindfolded"

I do agree, the WM UI sucks by default and the usability leaves a lot to be desired. The good thing is that almost anything is possible. Luckily HTC and the devs of this site have fixed a huge number of WM flaws. My Touch was pretty usable out of the box. The devs here improved it even more by adding PocketCM for example. I just flashed the Shadow Wm 6.1 rom yesterday and it's damn fast, like having a new phone.
I would like a better browser and a more finger friendly UI. PointUI looks very promising but still has some issues. We'll get there, it just takes a while.
I do think WM has made big improvements over the years though. I remember my first WM phone (Orange SPV, Smartphone 2002), it was the worst phone I ever had although it did have some nice things at the time. I swore I would never ever buy a WM phone again. This summer I fell in love with the Touch and keep tinkering with it.

Rudegar said:
another thing with iphone which may work agenst it in eu and asia is lack of t9 not very fast to write sms's in 10sec.....
"
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Very good point Rudegar, another reason the iPhone will never fly in Asia is the lack of stylus for writing Chinese characters. MANY people who buy a touchscreen devicedo so exclusively so they can handwrite characters. The iPhone is going to have to change a lot for that to happen. Really, people shouldn;t think about the iPhone so much. It's going to probably never even make it to the asian market, which frankly is such a large market that US iPhone sales don't even make a difference. The real powerhouses are going to continue to be the people who dominate the asian handset markets.

Why the Lag !

I been using the iphone today.....what a smooth operator...everything just flows...the page animations the opening of applications...the look and feel, the way touch works. The typing (mind you Cooteks Touch and icontact is on par with it )very impressive...it even takes batter pictures than the cruise and its only got a 2meg camera...using my cruise everything is laggy....I cant wait for the drivers or update. If people like larna and others can do wonders to the speed of applications then what the hell are original developers and manufacturers doing. I say thank you for this forum...If HTC/Microsoft had been thorough as Apple was with the iphone the cruise/WM would be a different beast altogether.
I think Microsoft must be going through what Mercedes and BMW went through when the first Lexus model came out and caught them sleeping.
Nice phone the iphone but very limited when compared to ours....but things could change.

I think much is about WM. And dont forget, Apple spend all their ressources to get their OS running on one Hardware. WM runs on hundreds of different Hardware.
Be sure, if the people at MS would optimze WM only for the Touch Cruise it would run much smoother.
I think a capacitive Display would help much. I'm often not sure if pressing a soft button worked. That makes working on it feeling laggy (beside slow program starts).
The WM developers have ignored any work on the UI for years. Now they got payback, the WM UI looks like an ugly Windows 95 UI and is totally outdated.
You can see that a smooth UI is possible by looking at pointui.
But do not forget the WM advantages.
All the availabe software, for example WMwifirouter.
That on iphone? I think it will never be...

Agreed....I can only fault Microsoft in Slow Deveopement....whereas the Manufacturers trying to make everyhing generic compatible instead of optimizing....now if they even aimed for the latter, no only would our devices be useably versatile, they would be decently fast and efficient.
We can only hope that WM7 will better developed for touch and hopefully not a memory hogger ...aka Vista.

On June 2008 the rumor say we will have a 3G Iphone + integrated GPS + open SDK. All for not more than $500 USD.
Nobody will touch the touch cruise with a stick at that point (unless the price will be reduced to $250, or something close). So I believe we're going to see new phones from HTC pretty soon.

This is s stupid discussion really The iPhone is a completely different concept than Win Mobile. The real question is: Why do you use Win Mobile? If it's for the coolness factor than iPhone is the much better alternative. If you want productivity than forget the iPhone It's that simple.

This is s stupid discussion really The iPhone is a completely different concept than Win Mobile. The real question is: Why do you use Win Mobile? If it's for the coolness factor than iPhone is the much better alternative. If you want productivity than forget the iPhone It's that simple.
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With the SDK, the iPhone could potentially have all the important software of the WM. What company wouldn't want to make their mobile software compatible with the iPhone (with millions of users worldwide).

Noam23 said:
With the SDK, the iPhone could potentially have all the important software of the WM. What company wouldn't want to make their mobile software compatible with the iPhone (with millions of users worldwide).
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I hate to say it but I think he's right.
I can and only will speak for myself, even though that may be the case for everyone else as well; but I use a WM based device because of the software. While the iPhone is faster, better looking, smoother flowing...as of right now it is locked down and requires hacks just to browse the file system!!
TheOnly1 said:
This is s stupid discussion really The iPhone is a completely different concept than Win Mobile. The real question is: Why do you use Win Mobile? If it's for the coolness factor than iPhone is the much better alternative. If you want productivity than forget the iPhone It's that simple.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are reffering to the current iPhone, i would have to say you are DEAD on. However, if the new one lives up to what people are saying about it (an SDK, gps, 3g),
Then apple would have successfully created something that achieves both outcomes: A cool device with a fast, smooth flowing UI WITH functionality and productivity.
remoh said:
I think much is about WM. And dont forget, Apple spend all their ressources to get their OS running on one Hardware. WM runs on hundreds of different Hardware.
Be sure, if the people at MS would optimze WM only for the Touch Cruise it would run much smoother.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, it is up to the OEMs, not microsoft, to optimize windows mobile for each of their devices. This is where HTC fails time after time in my mind.
Microsoft gives them every opportunity to implement things accelerated graphics, among other things. HTC does not do it!!
And then has the audacity to blame the customers for buying devices based on their chipsets instead of what is actually implemented (or NOT implemented -- LOL).
Since my last HTC purchase of the Touch Cruise, which cost me almost $900 I am extremely upset and dissapointed, not to mention disillusioned. The kaiser and the TC could have been great, but HTC did not want them to be -- they are slow, clunky, unresponsive at times, and i don't see why HTC even put a camera on them 'cause the pictures and video are better left not being captured at all.
If the new iphone lives up to it's promises, i see no reason to ever purchase, nor use another htc product ever again. That is the thing though...Apple is one of those companies I just do not trust and/or like....but just having the possibility of a device like the new iphone will keep my interest peaked!
If everything goes as planned, I believe that mobile developers will definately take advantage of the SDK.
While it will take many months for all the developers out there to create good applications, it will happen.
I'll actually go as far as saying that iPhone software will in fact exceed that of WM software in the future -- Provided that apple releases a decent sdk and does not place absurd restrictions on developers.
Think about it...how long have WM devices been out for...and what is their popularity?
Compare that to how long the iPhone has been out for, and it's popularity...
While currently they are for two completely different concepts;
one for user friendly every day usage, and one a "business" device...
apple seems to be combining both concepts into something that I would consider a "dream" device that I have been waiting for from HTC to put out for years now.
I thought that the TC would in fact be something closely resembling my "dream" device -- And after I actually used it and saw all of the problems with it first hand, I quickly recognized I was completly wrong.
Let's see if Apple can successfully accomplish what HTC has consistently set out to -- and subsequently failed to do so many times.
If they can pull this off, I will definately consider myself a proud iphone owner / user.

i have to admit the only reason i did not buy an iphone its because i did not want to switch to at&t and evryone where i work has one. i just wanted something different so i bought the touch cruise. i am regreting it even as i type. 700plus usd down the drain. when the new iphone is out this summer i am definitely getting one and switching to at&t

i wish i could get my hands on one of the htc developers. i would beat the life out of him. for real. i am mad and pissed. even the clone iphone, the hiphone which i saw with my own two eyes and held in my hands is better than touch cruise. its only 200usd

There are a lot of Touch user using WM device not having too many complaint. I like UI and build of iPhone, but I never forget the experience what smart phone of Nokia and Sony Ericsson running in Symbian. People will just imagine what Apple will enhance the iPhone and offer what we have used in WM device. Just like people asking why manufacturer not offering VGA device. Why don't have a look of the delay of Sony Ericsson X1? Keep an eye on what Apple implement the SDK into their iPhone and software developer introduce program, and to compare what we have with WM device. Looking forward to have a device running in X OS with VGA display with weeks of power with plenty choice of softwares .... and lastly without lag. Just like years ago we are looking for a VGA WM device. Manufacturer like HTC will make such device if it can.

Are you guys serious about the Touch Cruise camera being poor? It has one of the best cameras I've ever seen on a mobile, save for the lack of flash.
-3 Megapixels
-Autofocus
-Excellent macro mode (try taking a picture of anything close up (~3inches) with this vs. a normal camera under normal lighting...TC holds its own, or better yet take a picture of something close up and compare those results to those of an IPhone)
-Auto switch to night mode in poor lighting (remember camcorders with night mode also exhibit lag in night mode, but normal cameras don't lag as they don't use a night mode since they have a flash!)

I must agree with Sonus on the camera. I actually printed out some pictures I took with my TC and they were pretty much OK on paper.

i do believe the tc is a very good device with advantages and disadvantages same as the iphone.
the thing that annoys me most (also while writing this text) the input lags in the touch keyboard or other apps, e.g. switching the t9 language is so crappy - once i click the triangle next to "20", it takes to 5 seconds open the dialogue it similar with other apps.
the good things are:
100% customization
tons of apps - navigation, wlm etc
lastly, i have see the iphone hanging - it could not connect immediately to wifi

I'm positive Apple is not going to put HTC out of business on June 2008, when the 3G iphone is supposedly coming out.
HTC will definitely release formidable competition on fall 2008, probably the dream machines we always wanted to have. My only complaint is that the Touch Cruise / Kaiser have the hardware to be much of that "dream machine", but aren't so because HTC doesn't think it is necessary since these products are competitive enough as it is, in today's market.

I agree with the only1.
Just think of it in business terms, the iphone and touch cruise are aimed at different markets. HTC could probably produce a iphone type device but why should it. HTC devices are more business orientated and sold as such, they are not (imho) trying to compete with consumer based ideas and what looks sexy when playing music or videos. They are aimed at different markets.
If people want a device to look good show off pictures and videos and play music they buy a iphone, for gods sake its a ipod touch that makes calls, so no comparison.
If people want to do all of the above and have a device that can be used as a great business tool buy a touch cruise.
Okay there are some faults but they will probably be fixed on the next device but that too will have its shortcomings and we will give out **** about it and compare it to the newest goddam wonderful iphone, jphone, kphone or whatever with hdtv or can make coffee but thats life. I know we paid big money for what we have but for jaysus sake its "not ****en dark". i.e. you could see what your were buying.
Just my opinion.
A bit strong maybe but thats life.

I dont know what you guys have done to your devices to make the camera so good, but unless i am taking pictures outside when it is sunny out, it will NOT come out clearly at all -- it is very distorted and grainy, not to mention it slows down to a crawl! I have a sony cybershot 2.1 MP camera from 2002 that takes better pictures than a TC cam -- and it cost about 150$ 6 years ago. When its dark or indoors, the LCD on the cybershot doesn't slow down to 1-5 FPS.
Now people say that the TC is a business device and that's true.
But, I for one am sick of trading off functionality for performance on the business devices produced from HTC.
Why can't it be both at the same time?
Unfortuneately, I did go in the dark on this one. Before I bought the TC I didn't research the video driver problems.
I only looked at the specs, researched the chipset and thought I was getting something that would (at least) out perform my PPC-6700 that I purchased over 3 years ago. I was wrong. I don't think HTC will go out of business...not at all, but i DO think that alot of people are in a similar boat that I am in...betrayed by HTC and will continue to hold a grudge against them, and subsequently switch to someone who can provide something better in the future...hopefully, that can be Apple...but I definately have some doubts to say the least, considering what the current iPhone came out as -- a Media player with a phone on it.

PseudoReal said:
switching the t9 language is so crappy - once i click the triangle next to "20", it takes to 5 seconds open the dialogue it similar with other apps.i
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMG, i have the SAME problem...it is the WORST!!
you have to tap the stupid triangle like 50 times just to get it to switch.
It's an atrocity. Devices from 3 years ago do not even have this problem.
Business device or not, this is just plain unacceptable.
Unless there is a fix for this problem, or I am doing something wrong and do not know about it?
How many ppl have similar experience?

I have that same problem. Takes multiple clicks and major lag to get the input keyboard to show up. The reason I have to chance keyboards is I often use Opera 9.5 and for some reason none of the Touch keypads work with it, so I have to switch them (I think that's another problem could be related to Opera still being beta). Also every once in awhile I can't get to the PocketCM keyboard and instead get the lame Windows default one. But that also is another problem.
Back to the lag, every once in awhile I will get lag here or there, e.g. will click on the task manager on the top right and not get anything, keep clicking around with no response. Then all of a sudden all the clicks take effect and I will see the task manager menu open and close in succession real quick.
All in all it's a good device, great functionality, just a few quirks here or there. Maybe it's time to hard-reset or flash a new ROM that might solve some of these things, who knows.

Oh forgot, as for the camera lag with the low FPS in low light conditions, check out this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=365345
HTH

thanks for that... the "trick" described in the first post does increase the response by 10 fps or so, but the thing is, the picture quality also goes down...its a lose/lose situation i guess lol...I also noticed that there is a new .dll fix on the HTC E-club, but only for the kaiser. I tried to login but it says theyre doing maintainance right now, so I can't check if there's anything released for the TC...even so I doubt there is
but my issue is, and always has been..why should i need to do all of these tricks and patches for a device that costs as much as the TC does? I shouldn't. No one should.
also another thing that came to my mind...people and HTC say this is a "business device"...so i was thinking, wouldn't business users want their devices to be MORE responsive than a media player / cool trendy "sexy" device?
I mean when you need to wait 5 seconds and tap the screen multiple times to play a music file, it's not really that big of a deal...it's an annoyance yes but it doesn't result in you losing work time..or a loss of productivity
but when you need to tap the X button 5 times to close out of a document and switch to your email...or taking notes and browsing web pages for work related stuff...or trying to switch between SIP's...and having to wait because the device lags worse than windows 95...it becomes a loss of productivity...
even if it's only seconds, those seconds add up, and the annoyances stock pile into one big ball of rage for me at least, heh.
I do admit that my own foolishness and quickness to buy a new device is partly to blame here. I should have looked into it more. But I also think that HTC holds a good part of the blame as well.
hopefully the geniuses here can come up with some good fast custom roms that will deal with these issues...i won't hold my breath waiting for this patch to come out from HTC at the end of the month. I'm doubtful that it will do anything at all.

I'm getting tired and disappointed of WM

Ok, where to start? Well from the beginning of my short smartphone experience. My first phone was a Motorola A1000 with UIQ. The phone where not as good from the beginning but after some turns with the ROM cookers it became a pretty descent phone. It had GPS, a great app for mp3 (PowerMP3) and for that time an Opera webbrowser that worked on the most common sites.
Ofcourse the webbrowsing was slow and the GPS took ages to get a fix and the sound from PowerMP3 started to glitch when I had it in the background and did other stuff. But hey, I accepted it because it started to get old.
So, anyway. When the Xperia was annonced I found it as a great replacement. It was a smaler phone, it had full qwety, highres screen, wlan, gps, radio and finally 3.5mm jack. A friend had the first tytn phone (my first contact with XDA) that i thought was a bit slow. But still, it was an old phone and with the specs of the xperia I thought that WM would run smoth as butter.
Now, I have had the phone for 6 mounths and the honymone is over. Ofcourse the ROM cookers here have done an amazing job to speed it up. But still. Sometimes the phone is less responsive than my old UIQ phone. There is still no fully working webbrowser, the GPS does somtimes have problem to get a fix (not as long as 10 minutes though) and loading times eg. for showing pictures, open menues is the same as on my UIQ or worse.
I am getting tired of the chronic statment soon... the next version of Opera, when skyfire is ready, the next version of windows mobile, the next radio or ROM upgrade, the next version of manila etc.
And still, phones with weaker hardware is working smoth as silk with ROMs from the manufacturers like samsung, Apple or OS like Android. Why can't MS make an OS like that? It dosen't have to be "cool" as iPhone. But why not make it run smooth with less loadingtime?
As it is now, I can't lend my phone to a friend if he/she whan't to test it or browse a webpage without having them to wonder why nothing happens if they press this or that because of the loading times. "How could you pay that much for this phone?" And, no, I can't answer that anymore.
Ok, now I have let off some steam. And I havn't eaven mentioned the worthless casing on the phne that have cracked for the second time... ohh, now I have
Peace over and out

I wrote almost the same words today on a Dutch forum. I have my Xperia now for about 7 months. Out of the box it's a piece of sh.t. Thanks to the cooks it's an acceptable phone now, but my next phone will be no WM phone anymore. Thinking of buying the new Iphone when it comes out. Better/faster hardware doesn't say anything when WM is the OS.
Iphone here I come. If you can't beat them join them...

Although I do like my iPhone, I HATE apple. Going from my kaiser to the iPhone was a huge change. Mostly good, but putting up with apples bs is obnoxious. They are so restrictive. I miss the days of rom flashing, changing web browsers, media players, notes applications......just to try something new. With my iPhone, I can only change what apple approves, and that is very little. I am eagerly awaiting the Pre's release. Currently I pay AT&T 135.00 as month for two iPhones with the cheapest plan possible. We have the 1st gen iPhones with 20.00 a month data plans. I have no desire to pay 160.00 a month for the new iPhones when released. Two pre's with sprint will coat us 100.00 with my corporate discount.
I plan on checking out windows mobile again when wm7 is releases but not before then.
Jeff

take a break play with the iPhone and crapberry you'll be back within 4 months. Honestly, it took stupid applications like iBeer to make me want to go back to windows mobile. When I walk into work people with iPhones and BB's ask me why my Fuze or my Tilt looked more appealing than others they have seen. Simple answer, "I got no luck in the game of popularity therefore I spent over a year learning of the capabilities and the love what goes into windows mobile, outside of microsoft". Personally, I think they will never understand but when you show them easy written applications like "positions" and pdf reader "hustler" or "playboy" magazine, for some reason they believe you are a porn star, cause its that real...
edit: actually iPhones in Boston are played out so if you have a nice looking Tilt or Fuze it will get you ass. However, you may have to pay for an expensive hotel and some cheap ass beer too go along but that is how i roll. Nobody stops my floss.

Well, iPhone is no option for me. I like the modding that was possible with both my UIQ phone and WM. Android is what I now think will be the smoothest and more loadingtime free OS. I'm sad that it isn't possible to have android on my xperia. To me the xperia actually is the most good looking phone on the market today.

I could'nt say that my experience with winmo was bad. I had always enjoyed tweaking, ROM flashing, looking and exploring for new and better application software, trying out all kinds of different user interfaces, playing with registry, etc. I had always thought of winmo as the best thing since slice bread - until I tried out iPhone. To be honest, I had always brushed off iPhone as just a toy, as something that I would give up a week after owning it, etc. Had always been annoyed with people arguing that iPhone is better than winmo device.
Then, one day, an XDA-developer forumner whom I respected a lot made a post saying that he had already switched to iPhone and has never looked back. That was when I first took notice, and started to research more seriously about what iPhone could do. I thought all along that I would have to give up all the cherished applications on my Athena if I switch, so I first spent time finding out what applications are available on iPhone. At that time, I could not find any credible solution on GPS navigation and Office document editing. I also thought that I'm too addicted to my Tengo software keyboard to want to give up. In addition, I read a lot of posts saying there are serious 3G reception issues. So, based on that, I decided to buy a Touch HD instead.
I was estatic with Touch HD and made recommendation to a few person who too made the purchase. It was'nt perfect for sure. The response time was inconsistent at best, music playing stutters, album was slow and often causes freeze, camera capture taking too long to save and come back, picture is poor under poor lighting condition, etc. But I was still perfectly happy, perhaps because over the years, I had developed such a high tolerance for imperfection.
The iPhone purchase was probably an impulsive purchase because it was selling cheap. To be honest, the first day when I used it, I did'nt like it too much. Many things I did'nt know how to do. Did'nt like not being able to multitask, copy and paste, no video, no MMS, and the user interface looked set in concrete and unchangeable.
But then, I learned to jailbreak the phone. It was difficult in the begining because I did'nt know of a good forum to get help from, after all, I'm a winmo and XDA person, right? After that, I'm now really happy with iPhone.
- at the system level, my iPhone multitask, I can do global cut and copy, send MMS, do video recording, customise my springboard (desktop) to my heart's content, easily get music/movies without any restriction whatsoever .
-In general, my replacement application programs are far far better than the equivalent that I had on my HD.
- I can find lots of useful applications (don't listen to those who tell you that you only get iBeer and iFart from Applestore) from both the applestore and Cydia store. Many of those programs are simply not available on the winmo platform.
- VOIP calls that I make with my iPhone is far clearer than with my HD. No echo. No breaking up of voice. No need to use headset.
- All my videos play smoothly now. No more synchronization problem between video and voice. No more dropped frame.
- Camera captures really fast, including in poor light. It does'nt have autofocus and flash though, so this is still an area that iPhone should improve on. On the other hand, the camera softwares are excellent. You can change the contrast, exposure, and sharpen the picture after they're taken, and this compensate somewhat for the poor picture.
- I like the way it notifies me of any update to my applications, and they are all free. Even if I had previously installed and deleted an application, it tells me that I had already made the purchase (even the free ones are considered purchased) and would let me download it again free (even if now it is no longer free).
- Love the responsiveness. Even with very tiny area, such as the little link on XDA site that brings me to the first unread post, could be easily activated without zooming it.
- Consistent user interface is another really appealing aspect of it. On my HD, I had programs from Vito Technology, Resco, SPB, and they all look different. Some have full screen and have their own finger friendly keyboard, some still use stylus. Not a serious issue, but it was really good to have consistent UI.
What I still don't like about iPhone?
- I don't like the fact that I cannot change battery in the middle of the day. With my HD, I carry a spare battery because one isn't enough for me.
- We still have no credible GPS software on the iPhone, at least not outside US. In US, G-Map on iPhone looks like a pretty good GPS software that works without internet connection, but outside US, there is'nt any that can operate without internet connection. Even if there is, I am not willing to use anything not as good as TomTom 7, which among other things give me overspeeding, red light and speed camera warnings. I still use my HD to run TomTom, Garmin and Mapking (because TomTom does not have maps in all the countries that I visit).
I had been keeping an eye on Palm Pre and Google Phone. Google phone could be manufactured by any hardware manufacturer so in that aspect it has a better chance of becoming popular amoung the hardware suppliers at least, unlike iPhone which nobody else are allowed to manufacture. However, the applications on both Google Phone and Palm Pre are too limited at the moment. Also, because of the absence of control and openness, I think the user interface on google phone is going to varry greatly from application to application, so you will not have the same consistency as iPhone application. Palm pre's inabiilty to operate as a world phone bugs me, in addition to the fact that it is still the first generation phone, which is bound to have much unresolved issues.
WM7 is of course not to be discounted completely. It is supposed to be revolutionary. Like using the camera to detect your hand gesture (wonder what it is like to operate the device in the dark and impact on battery though. Also wondering how would devices without front camera deal with it.). However, application development would have much to catch up. The biggest obstacle I think is the fact that MS tries to make the OS backward compatible. There are just too many different hardware out there by now. Pity the developers on winmo now. If they develop anything now, it would have to be redone when WM7 is available. I get the feeling that many are developing for iPhone for now, hence the explosion of software availability there.
I hope this thread is a place to share information, not to bash winmo in anyway. So, let's be courteous to each other and refrain from putting down winmo platform.

Paitor said:
Well, iPhone is no option for me. I like the modding that was possible with both my UIQ phone and WM. Android is what I now think will be the smoothest and more loadingtime free OS. I'm sad that it isn't possible to have android on my xperia. To me the xperia actually is the most good looking phone on the market today.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can do lots of modding with iPhone too, and much of those modding are not available with WM. You can even make it look like a PC if you so incline. But you must jailbreak it first in order to do it.

redbandana said:
take a break play with the iPhone and crapberry you'll be back within 4 months. Honestly, it took stupid applications like iBeer to make me want to go back to windows mobile.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, the more time I spend with iPhone, the more I grow to like it. It is amazing to find how customizable the phone is. It is also amazing to find that one single button in iPhone could so easily let you switch between active tasks, terminate program, launch most recently used programs, and with the power button do screen capture, do soft reset, etc.
Not all applications are entertainment in nature. You can get serious medical applications, enterprise resource planning type applications (including SAP and Quickbook), office productivity applications (Pocket Informant on iPhone is far more useable than the winmo version), etc.
The only really lacking area is GPS software, but that's likely to change with firmware 3.0 that removes the artificial restriction apple set.
Otherwise, WM applications are falling behind that for iPhone. There are many reasons why this is happening. Some winmo developers have discussed the reasons for this on this very interesting thread here:
http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/ed...s-mobile-apps-falling-behind-iphone-ones.html

jeffla said:
Although I do like my iPhone, I HATE apple. Going from my kaiser to the iPhone was a huge change. Mostly good, but putting up with apples bs is obnoxious. They are so restrictive. I miss the days of rom flashing, changing web browsers, media players, notes applications......just to try something new. With my iPhone, I can only change what apple approves, and that is very little. I am eagerly awaiting the Pre's release. Currently I pay AT&T 135.00 as month for two iPhones with the cheapest plan possible. We have the 1st gen iPhones with 20.00 a month data plans. I have no desire to pay 160.00 a month for the new iPhones when released. Two pre's with sprint will coat us 100.00 with my corporate discount.
I plan on checking out windows mobile again when wm7 is releases but not before then.
Jeff
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I too feel that Apple is going overboard in the type of restriction it places. That's why I jailbreak my phone, to free myself from all the restrictions.

This is an article related to the current thread that makes some interesting reading.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-18438_7-10151228-82.html

Great essay you did there Eaglesteve. I know some things about jailbreak and what comes with that because of a friend that have one. But to me, the hardware limits on iPhone is to big. The important things too me that iPhone lack is, qwerty, MicroSD-slot, changeable battery, radio (I'm lazy sometimes), photo led (great as flashlight) and a good GPS.

eaglesteve said:
I too feel that Apple is going overboard in the type of restriction it places. That's why I jailbreak my phone, to free myself from all the restrictions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, if I jailbreak, can I drag and drop my music files? I hate having to sync my music files via itunes, or Media Monkey. I just want to drag a few songs over before work and just be done with it.

jeffla said:
Hey, if I jailbreak, can I drag and drop my music files? I hate having to sync my music files via itunes, or Media Monkey. I just want to drag a few songs over before work and just be done with it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes you can. You can also name the music file anyway you want rather than having it renamed by ITune. The music file could be copied to your own sub directory.

Paitor said:
Great essay you did there Eaglesteve. I know some things about jailbreak and what comes with that because of a friend that have one. But to me, the hardware limits on iPhone is to big. The important things too me that iPhone lack is, qwerty, MicroSD-slot, changeable battery, radio (I'm lazy sometimes), photo led (great as flashlight) and a good GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks Paitor,
One factor that puts iPhone on the negative light is the fact that no hardware vendor other than apple through Foxconn is allowed to make the handset. This is both good and bad. Applications are easier to test and bugs more easily fixed. Also, having just one company controlling it nobody could pass the bug to another company if the graphic accelerator does'nt work (wink wink). You also don't have the risk of undersized hardware specification and slow device. On the other hand you don't get lots of choices in handware specifications such as those you've outlined.
Actually iPhone hardware contains the FM receiver all along, but disabled at the moment.
I believe Tom Tom will soon be available once OS 3.0 is released.