[sub_tex]

Originally Posted by gt24

my Pocket PC is nice but it isn't the most stable thing in the world. Every now and again I have to soft reset it because it throws some sort of fit. [.......] My phone on the other hand MUST work.

Exactly. WM still has a long ways to go to be solid. Once (if?) they do get it all trim and tight, it would be a nice experience for the most part though.

[sub_tex]

Originally Posted by gt24

my Pocket PC is nice but it isn't the most stable thing in the world. Every now and again I have to soft reset it because it throws some sort of fit. [.......] My phone on the other hand MUST work.

Exactly. WM still has a long ways to go to be solid. Once (if?) they do get it all trim and tight, it would be a nice experience for the most part though.

[eugarps]

Hi,

I'm gradually getting rid of my convergence devices. I really haven't found one that's an excellent phone and an excellent PDA both. Thus I've reverted to carrying a Motorola phone and an iPAQ hx4700. If I need to communicate away from WiFi, I either link the phon and the iPAQ or plug the phone into my Thinkpad X40 and use it as a modem.

I stuck with WM simply because I have too much invested in WM software to ditch it. iPhone has been a temptation since I'm a Mac user.

[ddwire]

I stick with the WM phone for one reason only.

I do not want to carry two devices..
I am currently using the Treo 700wx from Sprint, and it is much less reliable than the PPC6601 from Sprint I had previously.
Dan

[Don Tolson]

Originally Posted by Jon Westfall

My Jasjar is sluggish to answer the phone more than 50% of the time, resulting in the need to call people back. My K-Jam's Send/End buttons were worn down within a few weeks, requiring more than a subtle push to answer the calls there. My iPaq Mobile Messenger frequently is chugging along too much with it's own internal nonsense that placing a call takes 5 - 10 seconds longer than it should. These are the ultimate phone devices?

Hi Jon... sorry to hear about your difficulties... maybe it's because those were some of the first 'converged' devices out???

I've had an Eten X500 for about 4 or 5 months now. It was my first 'converged' device and I was a little trepidatious regarding giving up my cell phone/PPC combo. Would the X500 perform as well as either? Well, I have to admit that my experience so far as been pretty positive. The phone is one of the most reliable and sensitive one's I've ever had -- it can even continue conversations in most elevators, and I get signal connection where many of my friends with conventional phones get 'No Service'. I love the convenience of having everything in one box, including my GPS, and the X500 has been reasonable in terms of performance, given its limited program memory.

I don't think I'll go back to separate units, now.

The phone 'pick up' delay may be due to the number of other applications running simultaneously, as I tend to run mine pretty lean and call pick up is acceptable.

The buttons thing is defiinitely a hardware manufacturer's problem. That just should not happen within the useful life of the product.

[Jon Westfall]

Originally Posted by Don Tolson

Hi Jon... sorry to hear about your difficulties... maybe it's because those were some of the first 'converged' devices out???

I don't know if I'd consider them some of the first converged devices. I'd say the Jasjar was the first "modern" converged device, that offered all the perks of a regular PPC and added the phone component (And WM 5). However, the XDA was the pioneer in my opinion (and I still had the same issues with it!). If I could have 1 thing (JUST 1 THING!) it would be that as soon as I hit the green or red button, the corresponding phone action would happen. Not 1 or 2 seconds later, but instantly. I still impulsively hit the red button twice upon hanging up - one time for insurance. Picked that trait up with the original XDA! Thankfully the newest devices seem to get the message the first time!

If MS wants to compete, I'd argue they need to focus on the phone aspect even more than they have already (I know they have been - recent devices are way better phones than the older ones). But they need to take it even a step further. Make me forget I'm using a PDA phone until I need the PDA functionality. From the phone perspective, a freebie cell shouldn't outshine a $600 pocket pc!

[kzemach]

I have an HTC TyTn, but am not impressed at all. Had a Treo 600 before, and it just worked. And worked well. The TyTn, most likely via the WM issues, won't properly load TomTom, crashes about 2 times/day, has had screen problems (that's HTC's fault), the keyboard has started going bad, it freezes, doesn't sync well, etc. Small things to be sure, but it's hassle hassle hassle. The Treo 600 was none of these. My basic quote when people ask me about my phone is:

"Windows Mobile: All your information in the palm of your hand. Too bad you can't get to it."

Yeah, OK, it works. Sort of. But I don't want to be my own tech support. I will seriously consider the iPhone next.

[Jon Westfall]

Originally Posted by kzemach

But I don't want to be my own tech support.

I agree with this sentiment. I am tech support for so many other people, that I've forgotten that when it comes to my own electronics, I shouldn't have to troubleshoot them - they should just work, and when they don't, I should be able to find resources quickly to fix them. A great example is the Memory error I received like crazy on my Treo 750, K-Jam, and JasJar. Eventually I found that if you moved too many messages from inbox to another folder, then synced, the sync would fail. I learned (through many hard months of wondering "Why does it keep saying "Show Details" and not syncing!") that I could either close messaging through the Memory tab, or just move my messages in batches (less than 10 at a time) to alleviate the problem. For people like me, who are anal about having an empty inbox (Inbox to me means "things I haven't read yet", so whenever I am done checking email, my inbox is empty), are few and far between. This means no one else had posted on this problem, and Microsoft offered very cryptic responses when I looked up the error.

Point is, it took me months to fix a problem that I should have not had in the first place, and at the least, should have had more support online than I found. Then again, perhaps I just had some really odd message - the kind someone via Google will have and find this post one day - to their delight!

[rookcnu]

I just want to carry one converged device. Right now I carry the BlackBerry 7520 and the Cingular 8125.

Love the Cingular 8125 for everything, but my Blackberry has Nextel Direct Connect, which is how I communicate with people at work. If they would just come out with a WM5/6 device that had the Nextel Direct Connect feature, I could get rid of one.

I also like the thumboard on the Blackberry face more than the slide out QWERTY in the 8125.

[melsam [MS]]

Thanks Jon for starting this topic, and thanks to everyone for responding. I just wanted to let readers know that people from the Windows Mobile team are reading this thread. We take this feedback very seriously and it will help us make significant improvements in upcoming AKUs and new releases of Windows Mobile. Please keep this discussion going - we are listening.

-Mel Sampat
Program Manager (Windows Mobile shell team)

[Kash76]

Mel,
Thanks for stopping in! Glad to hear that you and the team are keeping your ears to the users Now I have more to add!

As a 700wx user coming from multiple devices which always included a dumb phone and a Palm or WM device which included - Philips Neno, Compaq Aero, Palm V, Palm Vx, Handspring Color?, multiple variations of iPAQ's and a Dell x50v. I got tired of picking and choosing which 300 contacts I could put on my dumb phone so I got a Treo 650 after playing with the 600 for a while. I loved the form factor but wanted badly a WM OS on the device. I finally got that when Sprint released the 700wx.

As I mentioned earlier, the rich software is a keeper, outlook integration, etc. I'm now on Exchange 2007 and am drooling at the thought of the next WM Treo with WM6. I am most excited about the HTML email!!

With the release of the iPhone, it has some cool features but it can't replace what I have now unless I totally converted away from Exchange. Again, as I previously said there just isn't anything as slick as Exchange/WM together. I'm always listening to my Apple buddies complain about integration with other solutions.

On the enterprise side, I hope to see more enterprise management tools. It's great that the remote wipe is there now along with security enforcement. We need to see patch deployment. When the DST patch was released it was a nightmare on the WM and Palm side to patch the devices in comparison to the RIM devices. I know that Goodlink addresses some of that but Good has it's own limitations and costs.

I have a lot of third party software on my 700wx and don't really have stability problems. Maybe it's just because I had my 650 Palm OS based device soft resetting on me so often that I don't care that I reset about once a week on my WM device!?

So, first of all keep up with the good work!! Secondly, keep working on better enterprise management features.