Jason Dunn
10-24-2002, 07:24 PM
<a href="http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2481.html">http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2481.html</a><br /><br />Jørgen Sundgot, the big cheese at infoSync, has put together an excellent five-page review on the new Orange SPV Smartphone 2002. He's only had it a short time, so I'm sure he'll learn more about it over time, but I was surprised at the glitches he found. I had the idea (perhaps naively) that because the Smartphone has been nearly three years in development, the software would be highly polished. Overall Jørgen likes the phone, but there are a few issues to be aware of. <!><br /><br />The blurb I quoted below amazes me - Microsoft is so incredibly stubborn about not including task managers with their devices. In September of 1999, I was one of five MVPs who got to see the beta Pocket PC OS. I was, and am, incredibly grateful for that opportunity, but the one thing that all five MVPs said was "You've given use a multi-tasking operating system with no simple means of switching between tasks or killing them". That was almost three years ago, and here we are in the same boat. Some things should be handled by third-party developers, but I feel very strongly that this isn't one of them. Why won't Microsoft relent? I have no idea. In all the discussions I've had over the past three years with Mobile Device team members, I've never been given a firm answer.<br /><br />At any rate, glitches aside, it was good enough to rate 4 out 6 on the infoSync scale of cool.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/dunn2002/orange_spv_01_.jpg" /><br /><br />"Now, with all of these applications you'd think that you need a task manager of some sort - right? Wrong. According to Microsoft, Smartphone 2002 uses the same smart minimize technology as found in Pocket PC 2002 and Pocket PC Phone Edition, and closes applications in the back of the stack if another application is started that requires more memory than what is currently available. Unfortunately, it didn't take me long to figure out that just like on the Pocket PC platform, things start slowing down when you run a number of applications - and what's worse, you don't even have the option to access memory settings and shut down single or all applications depending on your needs (which to Microsoft's credit isn't a feature that should be present on a phone even though it needs to be in this case). The performance drop is however only noticeable and not a major issue, but I tell you this; I've seen the hour glass a couple of times and it's like my worst nightmare come true - there should be no such thing on a mobile phone. Period." Source: Sweetpete