Smartphone Follies

[Pete Paxton]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20628' target='_blank'>http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20628</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>&quot;In the article, found on the pages of a sister publication to NetworkWorld, the writer, without a doubt dwelling in the mists of the current Web 2.0 euphoria, recommends, get this, replacing Outlook with five, yes, five different web services. The decision brought on by the following: problems with Outlook, synchronization, size and lack of choice in the smartphone market, and the typing experience on smartphones.&quot;</em> </p><p>Well, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that I'm not supposed to understand everything I read. Network World has an article about some guy's reasons for ditching Outlook and using five apps instead. After reading the article I have come to the conclusion that he just doesn't perhaps have what it takes to use a smartphone. It got me thinking though. Windows Mobile certainly isn't perfect. It has some great points and also areas where it is truly lacking. So here's my question: what would you name as the three greatest attributes about a Windows Mobile device and what are the three worst? Don't be shy, fire away!</p>

[Bittermormon]

Pros:
1) Versatility. The ability to add almost whatever I want is a huge plus. I just tethered my iPod touch to my Phone's edge connection. Not entirely useful, but a good example of what can be done with WM.

2) Contact management. Being able to store and easily look up multiple numbers for a contact on my Tmo Dash is very useful. Much easier to do on the fly than either my PPC device, or my old moto "dumb"phone.

3) A2DP. I love listening to music on my Plantronics 590 at work while my phone is 15 feet away. Too bad WM sucks for media playback. (see #2 below)

Cons:
1) Texting. Come on. is this really the best they could come up with?

2) Media playback. My iPod is so nice because I can pause a podcast and it picks up where I left off the next day when I start it up. WMP and others take so much resources I always have to shut them down when not it use. Its a shame too because A2DP is soooo nice.

3) Internet Browsing. After Browsing with safari on my iPod it is almost painful to use teh WM available browsers. Opera is better but still not even close.

[Rocco Augusto]

The three greatest features, for me at least, is:

1) Smart Dialing
2) Push email
3) Open platform

[Mike Temporale]

There's so much to like, it's hard to say just a couple things or pick/rank them. I find the email support is much better than other devices I've used. (Have you ever tried setting up Exchange on one of those Nokia Nxx devices? What a pain - and even setting up IMAP on the Symbian S60 device I had was a pain in comparison to WinMo.)

Other good things include: stability, developement (support for 3rd party and LoB apps), SmartDial/filter, Remote Management abilities, etc... I could fo on and on.

What's not good, well that's pretty easy - lack of good default values for IE cache and Caller ID (granted, the latter has improved in the most recent release), long boot times, ActiveSync / WMDC. :rolleyes: