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Impressions from HTC Cruise - Windows Mobile
Hello All,
I have been relatively new here, but I thought I could contribute in the forums by posting my (unbiased) views about HTC Cruise here, hoping other people may find them useful. I am a software developer, so although I do not have an experience with hi-tech PDAs and smartphones, (never owned such a device before), I am fine with the technicalities of such devices.
My everyday phone was a simple sony ericson K510i . What had always annoyed me was that in most "simple" phones, it was quite hard to control the phone via my PC, do backups, backup contacts, SMSes, etc. My sony was good, I had found "MYPhoneExplorer" which pretty much did all those things for my phone. The screen was little bit outdated in terms of resolution, but I did not mind much.
And then came iPhone (which I never owned). I was impressed by its design, usability and user friendliness. I also liked the idea of having WiFi on it. I was close to buying that phone and using one of the available tools to unlock it, (noway I would pay for a contract - I am UK based). My brother who is into mobiles and gadgets more than I am, commented on the fact that iPhone is an "old" generation phone in terms of phone technologies and overpriced. I soon realised it was quite overpriced and started looking at alternatives. I was happy to see HTC would release a really cool phone, which I could get as my Christmas gift (yes, dream on, I had my eyes on it since November and managed to get it this February)...
So, what are my impressions so far?
I dare to say, quite mixed...
On the one hand this device is really wicked and cool! It has all the things I had always liked and needed in a single device. Packing a GPS, a radio, 3G, WiFi in a nice package is just amazing. I can now listen to music, watch videos, find my way around using GPS and have a nice PDA. These are really cool things! No need to have my pockets filled with separate devices...
On the other hand, this phone costed me little bit less than 400 pounds. One can argue you can get a laptop for that price, but then again, a laptop is not a phone. The video issues has not been much of an issue for me, I encode my videos at QVGA and all is well. However, I do get *very* upset when I realise that there is hidden potential in the hardware platform which has not been utilised. What I found bad straight from the moment i used it, is that when i press the "phone-call" hard button, there really is a lag when drawing the blue rectangle above the dialpad, (I am talking about the area which shows the names of your contacts as you type the numbers below.) I mean, come on, so much CPU power, and I can see the blue area being drawn? The other things is that if a couple of applications are running, then the phone does not seem to be operating so smoothly. Again, in order to be fair, it is still very usable. However, as things stand now in the market, in terms of specifications this phone is easily on the upper part, so in my opinion it should be fast, not just "very usable".
My other bit of criticism is probably related to Windows rather than HTC cruise. I find this OS quite interesting on the device, there is a huge applications' base and the things that are missing can be coded by talented people. However, I find the platform a little bit of a pain to use in a pure phone context. Why do i have to check an option everytime I want to get back a delivery report for my SMS? Why do I have to hack the registry to make this permanent? I set a wallpaper in my phone, then I set its transparency, then I realise it is hidden by the today plugin, which I can of course disable. If I disable it I loose certain features which are accessible straight away. I can of course get a new plugin that matchs my needs. Why is it so hard to have tabs with incoming/outgoing/missed calls? This is a feature that phones that cost 10 times less have. Of course Windows 6.1 has this, but then I would have to "install" a new ROM. Simple question: Why do I have to do these things? Why dont' they get it right from the beginning? Don't get me wrong, I am a technology enthusiast and I am sure I will manage to set up the phone the way I want. A number of users out there will do the same thing. However, is this platform one that non-enthusiasts would find user-friendly?
Look at all those skins and modding. Really cool. And the moment you press a button on your really cool new Today plugin, an ungly Windows application will pop up.
I hope that my criticism will be received well here! I like the phone, Windows is cool on it, but I think Microsoft has quite some way to go in order to make their platform really simple to use and user-friendly (think iPhone for example, my parents could use that, but I am quite sure if I show them my phone, they will not know how to make a a phonecall with it!)
In many ways some requirements are contradictory: Being user-friendly means you may have to hide settings, having your platform run on a variety of hardware means you cut corners here and there. Hopefully Microsoft will get it right with version 7 and 8, screenshots look quite good.
As for HTC... They lost a little bit of their credibility with a couple of issues for me. First the sound issue with the french rom which was initially denied and then fixed by people in this forum, then of course the drivers issue. I intend to make good use of this cool phone and customise it to my needs, it just takes time.
For your information, I find these applications useful:
Coreplayer (obviously!)
TouchPal keyboard works good for me
WKTask (and get rid off that default task switcher)
MyMobiler installs on your PC and a little "daemon-service" on your phone, (which you can disable). Then it allows you to control your phone from your desktop.
PocketCM did not particularly appeal to me, so I removed it
FunContact was cool, and loved it. Unfortunately, two things were not so good:
a) Splash screen and loading time
b) sometimes it made my phone freeze
Thanks for reading this (long) post,
Michael
Good post...Here are my impressions as well.
I used to carry a Palm Tx and a Motorala SLVR. I have been looking for the most ideal device to "do it all", PDA, phone (quad band gsm, tri band umts), wifi, and gps. There was nothing realy that appealing on the market until I read about the HTC Touch Cruise.
I read about people's complaints about the "driver" issues and hardware acceleration, and decided to take the risk and bought the phone from a gsm seller online. The phone was unbranded and did not have any stupid carrier proprietary software.
For the most part, I am very happy with the Touch Cruise. I have dumped the palm pda and the slvr, and have not looked back.
I just spent the last 2 weeks traveling to UK (London), Germany (Frankfurt), and Italy (Padova). As a mobile phone, the Touch Cruise functioned flawlessly and had 3G connections where they were available. Couldn't have asked for better features out of a "world" phone.
The TomTom GPS also ran quite well (Western Europe maps). Had to drive alot in Frankfurt and never got lost. Even traffic reports were right on the money.
As for a PDA, it blows the Palm syncing and calendar features out of the water. I used to be a Palm pilot only person, but Palm has become a dinasaur in their attutude to features and interface. The pocket pc has in my opinion surpassed them.
As a portable media device, it does kind of ok . Core Media Player is a must install, microsoft's media players still suck and are not usable and dont support all codecs. This device is not really ideal for video in my opinion. You have to re-encode videos to QVGA for ppc level quality, then video will play fine. You cant simply take a wmv file and dump it on the device to view, it wont work. As for music/mp3's, it works great. I got on a 10 hour flight from UK to US, and used it play music and games, and still had 40% battery charge left over and used an hour of GPS on the way home, with 20% left over.
In all fairness, the HTC could run a little faster, but I blame Microsoft and HTC for hogging up the cpu and not using hardware acceleration.
Since media (video) is not high on my list of required features, I am quite happy with the HTC Touch Cruise.
darkazally, I tend to agree with you really...
I guess if one did not have such a device before or had a really old one, then HTC Cruise is really super. On the other hand I can see certain people's frustration with Cruise. It is mostly people who owned 3 or 4 PDAs before and were probably expecting to be blown away by its specs; I kind of sypathise with them....
I read in an article written by someone at Microsoft, that companies tend to overload Windows with their own propriatory software and then the whole experience goes downwards. He mentioned that for the next versions of windows mobile, they intend to post stricter requirements just because of this situation.
As I also read in these forums, people who got their devices from O2 (just to mention a single company), seem to have more issues with HTC's performance...
I enjoy using the phone everyday and I am in the process of customising it to my needs, though it takes some time!
Uhhh mymobiler is amazing thanks for posting that! That is frickin sweet!
Great review, I tend to agree.
As far as PIM Management, I came from using two devices, a slim panasonic phone and a Xircom Rex 6000 PDA in the early part of this decade (circa 2001), like you I converged them into a Sony Ericsson phone (T610>T616) which had limited capabilities and lacked a lot of features my Rex had. In 2006, I got my first Windows Mobile smartphone, a Qtek 8310 (HTC Tornado), and now I have the HTC Touch Cruise.
Ever since getting into Windows Mobile, I thought that HTC/Microsoft had delivered great functionality, but poor usability and way too much lag for such high powered devices. Take for instance the settings panel. There are probably over 8 programs (4+networking icons, 3+ button config icons, ect) in there that only have one check box, when I'm sure HTC/Microsoft could very easily put them into one or two easy to use program with a Help feature.
But at the end of the day, I don't care if no one can use my device as long as I understand it. Additional consolation is provided in the fact that this phone looks so damned sexy
My Own impression
First of all, I'm new here & let me introduce my self...
I'm Richard & i'm from Indonesia.
I've waited for +3 months, before I decided to buy HTC Touch Cruise.
My other candidate are Atom Life & Nokia N82.
Soon (2 days) after my pal (who own a PDA shop) introduce me to Touch Cruise, I bought it
First impression is luxury.
Second impression........Windows Mobile sucks......
I have done hard reset for 4 times now....due to mis configure the registry....
I've done quite intensive test on my Touch Cruise, including Video,Audio,GPS,3G & Internet,Battery life & Applications.
This is my score (0-10):
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
2. Looks : 9
3. Dimension : 8
4. Features : 8
5. Usability : 8
6. User Friendliness : 6
7. Battery Life : 7
Average score : 7
The Driver issue doesn't bothered me yet, so I'm very pleased with my new Touch Cruise
NOTE:
FYI,try not to uninstall anything from your TC.
Microsoft Windows product tends to leave "garbage" into the Registry & it will slow down your TC.
Choose wisely before installing & if you have to uninstall,search & delete any leftover inside the registry.
d4rkkn16ht said:
1. Stability : 3 -> Typical Windows product
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
You know, there are certain lag things that I don't think are due to video drivers. I mentioned this in another thread "Why the lag" but I used to have a Cingular 8525 and supposedly that device had video drivers. It still lagged with a phone skin when you hit the phone button. Rotating the screen was still slow. I hate little things that lag like that. it should be smooth navigation / interface.
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to. You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps. Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer. You need to install your own video player. The HTC video browser app only shows videos with certain extensions. It's like you have to have a specific app for every little thing and then it feels like there isn't a streamlined feel to the device.
I gotta give credit to HTC for trying to improve the interface with their apps, the Windows interface is archaic. It's just the combo of the 2 doesn't allow for a polished interface.
hambola said:
The device doesn't have a cohesive feel to it when we have to customize the **** out of it to get it to work the way we want to.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the other hand, thanks to HTC for a platform that allows us to do so and even greater kudos to all the xda-developer wizards who make it possible (and relatively easy for the most part).
Not enough can be said for xda. Although I'm a new poster I've been reading these forums for about a year now. Helped me out greatly with the 8525 and is proving to be helpful with the Cruise.
>You're right when we make a today screen look good then all the underlying apps are ugly windows apps.
I am happy we agree on this, I just wish it had a little bit of the Apple touch on it, that's all....
>Your transparency issue, that can only be done from within the Windows picture viewer not the HTC photo viewer.
All I wanted is a kind of minimal interface, so I can set my own wallpaper and not have it hidden by the huge HTC today plug-in. I have installed spb shell for a couple of weeks now and it looks great. I also discovered the HTC Home Customiser which looks cool, so, that's nice too.
>You need to install your own video player...
I think HTC should actually write a very generous paycheck for the people that developed CorePlayer. Without that one, Cruise would be a *little* bit of a disaster.
Overall I guess Windows is a versatile OS with lots and lots of space of customisation and at the end you do get it right, it just takes a lot of patience and resets to get there...
rev3nant said:
What's wrong with stability? I'd have to agree that it is probably not the best device overall, but I didn't have a single stability issue with it. Maybe, you've got a defective one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After some intensive test, I found some irritating bug that caused stability issues.
Quick Menu sometimes disappeared after running several applications.
System Hang at random cause.
Some system settings cannot be changed even if you've already change it.
Redundancy in Registry Entry that can cause stability issues if you change the entry. (not considered a bug if you don't change it)
and some other (not quite sure yet...)
Have you tried a different ROM?
Is it possible to view the camera of another ppc via bluetooth? whether i need to install a program on both ppc's thats fine.
i just want sumthing where i can connect my two ppc's, put PPC1 sumwhere.......and watch PPC1 on PPC2 via bluetooth.
thanks a lot
,Andrew
Well your post has been up longer than most and still no reply.
Allow me to take your forum cherry. The reluctance of replys is probably down to the nature of why you would want to watch ppc1 on ppc2 via bluetooth (taking into account that you have a 10m range)
So could you please answer me this survey, and i will be happy to answer your questions.
1) Are you planning to "watch" others, when they most likely are unaware that you are hiding (less than ten metres away)?
2) Have you got an atractive collegue, who rarely checks under the desk?
3) Are you planning to watch the public enter pin numbers into cashpoints, so that you can jump them later?
You get the picture.... I am sure you have a very good reason to want to see something 10m away, or maybe in the next room.... but, validation of the purpose would get you more response.
Please don't take this the wrong way, for all i know you could be my neighbor
oh lol haha.....soz, yeh i see where ur coming from
umm.....not anything particular (like getting passwords or perving at people LOL).....just like viewing something from another perspective.....say....im up at the front of the classroom.....i might be able to see wots happening behind me without even looking (by setting up ppc1 in front of me sumwhere).
i dont have any malicious reason .....just more of a different way of looking at things sorta point of view if u get wot i mean? just to see wot i look like to other people and such.
thanks if u can help me
,Andrew
hmmmmm?
Well i have gathered that you are most likely a teacher.
Now hoping that you are not a gym teacher and "the other side of the class" means the girls changing room........... most people have relied on a technology known as A MIRROR to view themselfs from the other side of a room, this highly advanced piece of "GLASS" has a reflective quality... i kid you not.... ive seen one, and the mind boogles.....
I do not know of any program specificaly designed for this function. however i do remember a thread somewhere about using your ppc as a web cam.
now if you were to use some sort of logmein or orb program that allows you to take control of the host web cam, in theory this would be possible.
But the question is.... has anyone had any experience with this... or what would the data/connection limits be? surely a hsdpa connection would be needed or wifi. in which case would it not be easier to install ORB on a pc at the end of the class (or wifes office, whatever)
I cant answer this question just yet, but rest assured, i will be combing the internet for an answer..... you may of triggered a voyeristic switch i had hidden.......erm.....
haha nah im not a teacher lol.....im in year 10 this year hehe
the cameras are always off unless the device have it started using normal camera app or videocard
and
"(like getting passwords or perving at people LOL)"
how on earth would a front or back camera be able to get a password?
it dont get the image from under the screen it cant see whats being displayed or written on the screen
it would be possible to do but would require an app running on both the sender and reciever
and it would prob have pretty poor fps
MS Portrait is software which can do peer to peer video, and with the right bluetooth stack, or even WIFI you could set up a peer to peer network connection.
I think its certainly possible, and I imagine such a setup would be useful if you wanted to keep an eye on your car outside while being in another room, or as an impromptu baby monitor.
Surur
Ok. i may have a solution
There is a program for ppc called coolcamera. This allows you to use your ppc as a web cam. Apparently you can use Webcam mode through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPRS/EDGE without ActiveSync.
If this is the case, rather than using a desktop pc you could use ORB or VNC to view the ppc1 image on ppc2.
And now that i understand that you are only in year ten, I feel increasingly guilty, as i am seriously doubting that you will not be using this "unethicaly"
As mention above, both ppc's will need to be set up, and active. so expect poor battery performance, and possibly awful fps.
Referring to the announced WinCE-based EP2501 watch phone / this thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=393226 I wanted to ask if there are already implementations of Windows CE/Windows Mobile for watches or similar devices? For the EP2501 they seem to use a customized WinCE, if the pictures of a prototype I found on gadgetcraver (http://www.gadgetcraver.com/worldsfirstwindowsmobilewristwatchphone-p-177.html) are adequate, that is (not that it would seem to be finished yet). Now if only you could use WM-apps without much hassle...
lol... imagine running word & outlook mobile in your watch
Hope it doesn't run as hot as my Diamond does
Just found some new pictures of the EP2501 on centraltronics.es (http://centraltronics.es/tienda/pro...d=125&osCsid=21c4919626513ca030bc8c1b3b193942). It seems to be exactly the same prototype as seen on gadgetcraver.com, though. The clock shows a different time on the photos from these two websites, btw, so it really seems to be a working prototype...
Im sick of the most useful apps being developed for the iPhone only.
Take this app for example
http://www.mobiletechaddicts.com/2008/11/16/tv-plus-sky-remote-for-iphone-updated/
This app would be SO useful to UK WM users. The ability to remote record programs on your Sky+ or Sky+HD box would be extremely useful, yet we are being left out in the cold yet again.
This is seriously the last straw, im almost ready to jump ship next gen of phones.
Does anyone know of a WM equivilant?
darthbane2k said:
Im sick of the most useful apps being developed for the iPhone only.
Take this app for example
http://www.mobiletechaddicts.com/2008/11/16/tv-plus-sky-remote-for-iphone-updated/
This app would be SO useful to UK WM users. The ability to remote record programs on your Sky+ or Sky+HD box would be extremely useful, yet we are being left out in the cold yet again.
This is seriously the last straw, im almost ready to jump ship next gen of phones.
Does anyone know of a WM equivilant?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As you might have seen on the "application" you linked in your post: it is again not a real application but a web service packed in an executable file for iPhones - something the world really does not need since service providers such as TiVo are launching their own stuff:
http://news.ebrandz.com/miscellaneo...e-for-programming-remotely-for-tv-freaks.html
omg
you want you diamond to be a your sky remote???
ill sell you a sky remote for £10.....better than £400...the cost of a diamond
Junner2003 said:
As you might have seen on the "application" you linked in your post: it is again not a real application but a web service packed in an executable file for iPhones - something the world really does not need since service providers such as TiVo are launching their own stuff:
http://news.ebrandz.com/miscellaneo...e-for-programming-remotely-for-tv-freaks.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im not talking about TiVO (which is not available in the UK), im talking specifically about Sky+.
dude you can alwys try slingplayer for slingbox users, duh
dortyboy said:
dude you can alwys try slingplayer for slingbox users, duh
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you guys dont get it, this isnt a remote control app nor should I be required to buy a slingbox (expensive). The iphone app is simple, you sign in with your sky account username and password, you pull up a complete TV guide and you set recordings from the app. The app communicates with skys servers which then in turn send a signal to your sky box from wherever you are in the world and your box will record that programme.
Now, granted you can do this from the sky.com website, but typically its one of those sites that just doesnt work in Opera or pocket IE.
Tivo Mobile
Tivo Mobile was released last month but don't know if that helps you.
no hes lives in uk. sky+ is like a uk tivo.
theres an app for iphone that lets you sign into you sky account and record a show from you phone
he want an app that lets him sign into his sky+ account with his mobile
darthbane2k said:
you guys dont get it, this isnt a remote control app nor should I be required to buy a slingbox (expensive). The iphone app is simple, you sign in with your sky account username and password, you pull up a complete TV guide and you set recordings from the app. The app communicates with skys servers which then in turn send a signal to your sky box from wherever you are in the world and your box will record that programme.
Now, granted you can do this from the sky.com website, but typically its one of those sites that just doesnt work in Opera or pocket IE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I got you already in first place! Even the iPhone Application is nothing but a modified webbrowser control, so, basically, you're loading the Sky+ website into your iPhone - and this is why I always wonder then people talk about 'aplication on the iPhone', mostly these are nothing but web services!
Sky+ is promissing and promoting the MOBILE REMOTE RECORDING on their website and I can't believe that OPERA can't view the site properly! You might wanna contact their technical support in order to get it solved!
Actually mate, it is possible to get one of the java apps for the sony phone to work aparently. Though I havent tried it on the diamond, but i did get it working on my wizard.
So, just download one of the sony ericson java remote record apps and install and try. Have a bit of a google.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=680256
You got 2 options to try here,
either just browse to the tv guide page on the sky page as normal, at the top it will give you the option for screen reader version. works a treat, bookmark it to save browsing the horrific sky homepage
you can always 1 up your iPhone freinds, grab skyfire browser, full web browsing including flash. just tried will check if it worked when I get home. Downside is skyfire needs good connection i.e wifi or 3g to work well.
either way less clutter on you phone, rather than the mess of utils you get on iPhone.
hope that helps.
That app has been around for time mate it was a java app and i had it on my symbian phone i think you can get it here they cover all versions
http://anytime.sky.com/mobile.aspx
It seems like owners of WM have to scour the entire globe to find software for their phones. While iPhone owners simply go to the app store and download them all in one place.
RubberDucky451 said:
It seems like owners of WM have to scour the entire globe to find software for their phones. While iPhone owners simply go to the app store and download them all in one place.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You forget 1 thing:
If you have only 1 single place then this single place will most likely make the decision for you which applications will be available to you and which not - this is (unfortunately) quite common in the Apple Store! I am quite happy that I can different stuff on different places! Often you get your stuff directly from the developer's website where you then find as well support and forums for the particular product.
Now, think about the following: each super market in the world would be Wal-Mart ... go a step further and try to determine what you might find in Wal-Mart if no other stores are around anymore ... go the final step and try to get support from an Wal-Mart employee for the product you bought ... brrrrr!
That java app (which I used to use on an old sony ericsson) does not and will not work on a touch HD with its lack of buttons
Good news http://www.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/tvguide/tvlistingsalternate works in opera.
Bad news - there is no way to login to your account. opera/sky site simply doesnt remember your credentials :-(
why don't you wait for a dev phone like compulab exeda
Hi guys,
I've searched this forum and haven't found an answer to my question, so I'm gonna post it here. (Hopefully I did the search right and didn't commit the felony of a double post. )
I'm planning on buying a new phone, mainly because my old HTC Charmer (WM 6.1) doesn't support SDHC cards and the maximum of 4GB of the cards I can use with it is just not enough any more.
So far, I've read quite some disappointing details about Windows Phone 7:
- No more "free" apps (by which I mean apps programmed by someone and offered somewhere, now it's the same sh** as with an iPhone or an Android phone)
- No direct USB-sync, which means you have to send your private information to the cloud in order to sync
- No "real" support for SD-Cards (and getting more storage space is the whole da** point here, otherwise I'm quite happy with my Charmer)
So, basically I thought about getting a second hand HTC Touch Pro II running WM 6.5 AND supporting NORMAL SDHC cards (meaning ALL cards which comply with the standard, not just the ones "certified by Microsoft").
But there might be one killer feature which could make me, well, not really forget, but maybe turn a blind eye to WP7's SHAMEFUL flaws: The new Microsoft Office Mobile. Often, I have some Excel spreadsheets which I need for work at different places. This is the only reason I have to take a laptop computer with me, apart from that my phone would be fine.
Office Mobile in WM 6.1 (or 6.5) couldn't display / make use of all the features the Desktop-Version offered (like extremely complicated formulae or spreadsheets and of course macros), and, moreover, after having worked on and saved an Office document on a phone, the features would even have been removed from the file in the conversion process, so the file was useless on the desktop as well.
Thus, I'm asking the following questions (which surprisingly haven't been answered on the net so far, or am I just too stupid to google it right?):
- Is the Office in WM 7 fully functional, meaning you can work on Excel sheets with the most complicated formulae and macros, or, asked more simple, can you do everything you can do with the Desktop version on your phone as well?
- If it doesn't offer everything the desktop versions offers, does it at least keep everything that was there in the original file after you change and save it on your phone? I mean, even if I can't use macros on the Windows Phone, it might still be helpful to open an .xls file on the phone, make a few changes (which don't require macros), save the file on the phone and after putting it back on a desktop computer having the file "unharmed" (meaning except for the small change I made on the phone everything else is as it was)?
Hopefully, I made my point clear enough, if not, I'm happy to answer questions on what it is exactly that I want to know. I think many users here already having a Windows phone will have tried working on Office documents on their phones and I hope those will share their experiences with me.
Many thanks for reading my post and even more thanks for answering.
Peter
Firstly,in terms of the functionalities of the excel,I don't think WP7 is suitable for you.
Furthermore,personally I prefer USB drag and drop the documents to my device,maybe you can call me old school.I just find the office useless for me since I don't have sharepoint,I don't want create a dropbox account just to upload my file to cloud and download it to my device again and I don't have a data plan.Therefore,until now, I still didn't use the office app once.
In your situation,I think you need an android phone to handle your job this moment,you can just purchase quick office,docs to go,depends on your personal preference.In addition,the only office app available is just microsoft office,no other choices.furthermore,as you said,you want transfer it back to your desktop unharm,therefore it is good to have drag and drop file transfer function rather than rely on dropbox,upload to the cloud and download on your desktop again.
On the other hand,there is no clear information about the mango updates which add more features to the office.So,I'll would suggest you to go with Android or iOS for this moment.
Thank you for the answer.
No more "free" apps (by which I mean apps programmed by someone and offered somewhere, now it's the same sh** as with an iPhone or an Android phone)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Free, in cost, there are plenty. Free as in not first checked by MS, kinda but no. You can developer unlock your device and sideload apps. However, that being said, MS are pretty good, they're only blocking apps which don't meet quality control standards (which I think is a good thing) or, somewhat contentiously, are "adult". They're not playing the same game as Apple.
I'm confused by you saying Android though. You can easily download and install programs (apk) on your device from any source (you just have to choose that option in the settings).
Office in Mango is improving - specifically:
1. Better support for formulae
2. Skydrive sync
So, yes, formulae can be created and manipulated in Excel, though I wouldn't say it's a replacement for the real Excel. It certainly can't run macros.
Skydrive is still "in the cloud" however, you're automatically registered to the free account by the virtue of having a live id. I still believe we should have USB file transfer but at least this is better than nothing.
Casey