Funny isnt it

[Guest Immortalmindz]

I own an SPV have done since they wre released, but i find it hilarious the amount of people on this forum with a bias. yes you buy a new piece of kit and yes cos u own it it has to be the best (well if ur 12) But it isnt, ask anyone what they think of M$ products and if they dont punch you and tell you that 'they are crap but what r u gonna use instead?' then they are lying, so whats so different about the smartphone software thats got everyone thinking otherwise?

Again were just willing to get on with it. I have friends who have the P800 and 7650 and im not gonna say there as good as the SPV but they havent had a single problem and we have about 5 foruns on the subject of the M$ os having more bugs than your average swarm of locusts.

[Guest nickcornaglia]

I think everyone has bigger expectations with the smartphone than they do with the others because it's Microsoft. But this is a new area for them. They are applying what they know onto a device that is esentially new to them. And I think they did a better than great job for their first shot.

I like the device not only because of what it does today...but because of what it will do tomorrow. And I would like to support that progress by using the device and supplying feedback.

Every user is a marketing tool. "hey that's a cool phone!". Next thing you know...there's two more in your office. More users mean more development and better phones and OS's.

You gotta start somewhere, I applaude Microsoft for putting it out there when they did. They're foot is in the door of the the Mobile Phone Market and only better things could come of it in the future. Including, forcing the competition to make better devices as well.

It's not a half-baked device by any means. It does much more today than most phones or convergence devices out there. And it's only getting better. But that's just me.

By the way....I have a PC running windows, a smartphone, xbox, and use MSN....so it may just be the brainwashing talking. :lol:

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

ask anyone what they think of M$ products and if they dont punch you and tell you that 'they are crap but what r u gonna use instead?' then they are lying

So i'm lying then when I say,

I've never had any problems with MS, most people only slate them because their friends do (back to your 12 year old quote) it's the little people who don't like big faceless companies.

Their trading practices that I am aware due to news and media etc has

sometimes been questionable to say the least, but as their products go I have no gripes. :roll:

[Guest axe]

Immortalmindz : I think you belong more on this site : www.slashdot.org

you'll find a whole bunch of mindless anti ms folks there...

[Guest morpheus]

I work for 'O' and a lot of the operators, supervisors don't like this fone at all because many, and I mean MANY customers call in with problems every day.

I have had this phone since its release and have not had any major problems.

I try to put my point across to my colleagues about the SPV, telling them that many of the problems that occur are down to the user

( I don't include MoDaCo users in that statement )

Many customers I speak to buy the phone because it has facilities on it that are useful to them, and when they start using it, they mess it up, speak to Orange and say it's a crap phone, which makes me annoyed.

On the other side of the coin, there are a load of users I speak to that cannot praise the SPV enough, especially after I have recommended Modaco to them.

Anyway, now that's all off my chest, I have posted another thread in MAIN that I would like you all to read and hopefully respond to, so that I can use the info at work.

Many thanks

Morpheus

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

But it isnt, ask anyone what they think of M$ products and if they dont punch you and tell you that 'they are crap but what r u gonna use instead?' then they are lying

By saying that you prove you really don't know what you're talking about.

This site is SmartPhone based, and will obviously have a bias towards this OS. Go to any Symbian website and you'll find the same bias towards Nokia's and threads claiming how crap SmartPhone is.

I chose a SmartPhone handset for its good points, and its Outlook compatability. For me these outweigh the bad points. One of the best pluses the SPV has over Symbian handsets is the size.

MS have produced a good product, weak in places however this was fixed in various updates, the major failing, as has already been pointed out, is the support mechanism. Which is a failing on Orange's part, not MS.

[Guest]

Also, let us not forget (as Cornaglian pointed out), that this is Microsoft's first Smartphone, and to a certain extent we are the guinea-pigs. (Maybe one of the reasons for little if no advertising?)

I think that it's a fantastic phone, and is more capable than many other smart-phones on the market, including 3s new handsets (and I'm talking about handset features rather than network dependant features). True, it does have its faults, but that’s only to be expected as phones get more complicated.

My previous handset was a Nokia 8310, and that had a habit of crashing if a WAP site looked at it in a funny way. And in today's market the 8310 is a bog-standard solid phone with few "wow" features. The SPV does a whole lot more, even in it's "out-of-the-box" state. Yes, my SPV has done some odd things, crashings and partial re-sets, but that was mainly because I was hacking about with it. And for the "average" user (ie not computer literate experts such as us) it's easy to replace your contacts and messages if it all goes Pete Tong. Hard reset then re-sync via your PC and ActiveSync or _OTA using Action Engine.

The users on this board are a pretty demanding and critical bunch, and I am sure that the bug and wish lists are being noted by MS for use in future versions of the OS. In my opinion the SPV has a pretty stable and capable OS at it's heart, and will hopefully grow and mature. And I want the next handset running it!

[EDIT]

One other thing to note: there will always be heated discussions about which piece of technology is superior, with each side being equally biased towards itself and horrendously vitriolic about the other:

PC vs. Mac?

Windows vs. Linux?

Smartphone vs. Symbian? :wink:

[/EDIT]

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Yep, ditto that my J70e, that had just as many bugs as SmartPhone :lol:

Also i would expet the other 9/10ths of the SPV user base to not use their handsets for anything like what the majority of users here do. They will sync with thir PC and install the odd app from Handango.

If only we had a way of contacting all those users :D

[Guest]

If only we had a way of contacting all those users :lol:

THEN WE COULD RULE THE WORLD!

Mwah Ha ha ha!

:wink:

[Guest jhew]

Personally I love my SPV. Not really sure why, it's one of those intagiable things. Maybe it's because it's still 'phone-like', unlike the P800, which is more PDA 1st, phone 2nd. Maybe it's the convergance. Here's an example....

On a recent trip to London to see James Cameron's new film Ghosts of the Abyss, followed by an interview with the man himself, my SPV was amazing.... Listened to music, browsed the web, phoned and sms'd on the train there. Listened to some tunes on the tube and the walk to the Imax cinema. Once there, and the interview had started, I managed to covertly record (for my own private use!) most of the interview, and managed to take some photo's of Cameron. Once again on the train on the way back, I listened to music, and browsed the web. Suberb!

Moments like this more than outweigh the phones faults. Yeah sure the phone has it's faults and bugs, but it's nothing that I havent been able to suss, and nothing that I cant live with. It does everything I need it too, sometimes more.

As for MS, well, world domination aside :wink: their products are probably some of the best about. Windows more than pisses me off from time to time, and it has its ideosycrasies, but again i can live with it. Whether this is due to their being a lack of a decent alternative to Windows is a possibility. After all, without a decent all encompasing (dont say Linux please, cant run half the stuff I want to) alternative, there's no way to fully benchmark Windows, or give it a proper yardstick to aim for. OS10 maybe, but that's Mac, and a different proposition alltogether.

[Guest Rob.P]

Smartphone vs. Symbian

= Betamax vs. VHS

[Guest mashkhan]

James Cameron's new film Ghosts of the Abyss, followed by an interview with the man himself

Out of interest Jhew what do you do for a living then? Are you a film journalist by any chance?

[Guest Immortalmindz]

Firstly im not trying to open a debate on M$ Smartphone vs Symbian, all im saying is that I yes ME feels that with the major companies involved that the SPV isnt as good as it should be and yes that means right out of the box too.

At the end of the day im an SPV customer and this is a public forum and im entitled to my opinion, im not trying to start rows and yes i know my initial thread is a bit sarcy in places but hey thats me. I do like my SPV, yes i think it could look a hell of a lot better and you know what i actually havent had any problems with mine (touch wood) but many of my friends have as have tons of people on this board.

[Guest jhew]

Out of interest Jhew what do you do for a living then? Are you a film journalist by any chance?

As much as I hate to admit it :cry: no I'm not, just a regular punter. Got lucky and managed to pick up some tickets. Contrary to the popular rumours about Cameron, he seems a very down to earth, and personable individual. A bit of a control freak maybe, but then so am I at times. Besides, he admitted to having an inner nerd which earned him points in my book! :lol:

[Guest mores]

it isn't true that the p800 and 7650 are less bug-ridden than the spv.

i've spent a long time on p800 boards, and it's pretty much the same as on an spv board.

every phone has it's quirks, and it's workarounds and secrets you must know to use it properly. and it's the nature of these boards to bring these to light. because most of the time people start looking on the net when they have troubles. it isn't true that the p800 and 7650 are less bug-ridden than the spv.

i've spent a long time on p800 boards, and it's pretty much the same as on an spv board.

every phone has it's quirks, and it's workarounds and secrets you must know to use it properly. and it's the nature of these boards to bring these to light. because most of the time people start looking on the net when they have troubles.

[Guest mattbrown]

also remember that these phones are getting more complicated and so that opens up new areas of problems

ive worked on tech support for a major pc manufacturer and i heard all sorts of probs relating to microsoft products - most becuz the customers was under the impression that their new spangley pc would do everything at the drop of a hat - but when it didnt then they were cursing us left right and centre - you either want things to work perfectly 100% of the time (which is impossible otherwise - people like car mechanics would be out of a job) or accept there will be problems and use your logic to work around the issues

the bottom line is nothing is perfect and you can only find out the limit of something by using it - no product testing dept will be able to replicate every single problem out there -

These products are all designed by a human and they are prone to making mistakes

[Guest Johnnyjohn]

= Betamax vs. VHS

LOL!!!! Problem there was the cheaper - WORSE - format won out, interesting to see which of the big boys in this contest will win!!

For what it's worth, apart from the fault with the voice message icon, all the problems I've ever had have been from screwing with the SPV!!!

He he he, cudos to Orange for sending out the sim updates so regularly!

You got a lot of people out there who are used to their 'phone' style phones that don't necessarily know what they are doing giving Orange grief - I'll bet most of their problems could be fixed by READING THE F******G MANUAL!!! This forum has made me becoming obsessive with making my phone do all sorts and that's hardly orange's fault. (Bless them, they tried with the certification thing!! ooooh, provoke the geeks!)

anyways, rant and rave all you like as far as I'm concerned! As long as it encourages improvement - and hopefull the mess we are all making of our smartphones will help M$ see what we need and produce a better platform in the future.

Do we know if anybody from M$ or Orange looks at this site? (If so I only cracked my phone for developement purposes ... ahem ... he he he)

John

[Guest mattbrown]

here here

[Guest drblow]

For what it's worth, apart from the fault with the voice message icon, all the problems I've ever had have been from screwing with the SPV!!!

I agree!! Well, there's always gprs ... but that's another 10,000 threads already! :twisted:

As far as I'm concerned 99% of the pleasure in owning an SPV is the ability to customise & develop it, and DL fab new apps from Modaco!! :wink:

But as an experienced 'tech' user, I expect there to be some bugs etc with new products, platforms, whatever.

Ok, MS isn't the most popular company in the world, & sure their systems have got bugs - but at least they do appear to support the whole development process, & bugs are only ever really bad if they remain unsolved. They're a healthy part of any development process, right??

I have used new pieces of musical technology equipment in the past which had bugs that never got fixed (stand up yamaha digital mixing desks circa 1996!! :twisted: ), some which took a couple of years before they were right (stand up the Akai S2000) - it's all part of the process.

I don't like corporations any more than the next person, but it does seem a bit like jumping on the bandwagon as far as MS is concerned these days. Nearly everybody I meet seems to have this kind of politically correct opinion that they hate microsoft, when if you actually question peoples reasons, they are usually flimsy at best, & rarely based on any personal experience. It's all 'oh, I heard that this bloke ...' - yeah, yeah!!

Now, MS may well be evil, & Gates may well be Damien, Son of Lucifer - but personally, I've used MS products for the last 10 years-ish (like the rest of the world) and I have never personally had any major problems with them.

So why should we be encouraged to dislike them - is it because they are successful!?? :wink:

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Do we know if anybody from M$ or Orange looks at this site? (If so I only cracked my phone for developement purposes ... ahem ... he he he)

I believe both Microsoft and Orange both visit the site regulary :lol:

[Guest cybercamel]

ive worked on tech support for a major pc manufacturer and i heard all sorts of probs relating to microsoft products - most becuz the customers was under the impression that their new spangley pc would do everything at the drop of a hat - but when it didnt then they were cursing us left right and centre - you either want things to work perfectly 100% of the time (which is impossible otherwise - people like car mechanics would be out of a job) or accept there will be problems and use your logic to work around the issues  

I agree, people do expect things to work perfectly everytime and we all know that where IT is concerned it never does. But the IT world doesn't help itself. To use the analogy above, if you buy a brand new car and it goes wrong, you expect it to be fixed free of charge. What you don't expect is to pay is a premium rate number, just for the privilege of being told that's theres nothing they can do! ISP's in particular take note!!!

At least MS supports their products with regular updates for bugs etc. I know they have stopped supporting W95 and soon will stop with 98, but at least they've stuck with me (W98) for the last 4yrs. Better think about upgrading to XP soon, because I'm going to admit it, I like MS products! And yes, I have experienced other operating systems, including linux and Mac :lol:

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

"...Their trading practices that I am aware due to news and media etc has

sometimes been questionable to say the least, but as their products go I have no gripes..."

The problem WITH "their trading practices" means that you too often don't get to try out the rival products that got killed off. If Microsoft can't win by simply having a better product, then they'll find ANOTHER way to win - It's a three stage process.

(1) MS finds a market it wants a slice of, and offers a truly CRAP product to get "a toe in the door."

(2) While working to at least get their product to WORK, they start arm-twisting and working out ways to cripple the competition, and grab market share by any and every means posible. Would "giving the product away together with vouchers for a substantial discount on other Microsoft products" help sales? (i.e. PAY people to use what is now an only SLIGHTLY inferior product) You BET it would!

(3) The final product arrives. It's nothing special - it works OK - but by now there's no competition to compare it with. Slowly, against the tide of software prices generally, the cost of the Microsoft version then CLIMBS every year.

Microsoft's main claim to fame isn't that they write great programs - it's that they were the first company to comprhend the HUGE importance of market share in the PC industry. "Compatibility" is a BIG issue. Helps you to scare people into buying everything from the same people - alledgedly so that "it all works together nicely."

Back when Microsoft was working on MSDOS 2.0 (and had ambitions to enter the spreadsheet market, with a truly TERRIBLE piece of software) they had a saying: "DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run" And guess what? Their competitor's product (Lotus 1-2-3) wouldn't work under MSDOS 2.0! WHAT a coincidence!

And how little things have changed since then. The DoJ's subpoena of documents turned up a few reltating to Symbian, and Gates's comments thereon. They had him SCARED and angry. Here was an industry where a few companies had set up a standard that THEY controlled. His comments make for interesting reading - in HIS eyes, the only reason to control a standard is to abuse the power it gives you, so THAT must be what Symbian was for. If there's to be a battle to the death between Symbian and Smartphone, then I'm sorry to have to say that I'll be cheering for Symbian - and the survival of consumer choice. If Smartphone wins, the market will wind up looking like American politics: choice restricted to picking between two candidates whose views are so close they're hard to tell apart.

[Guest TANKERx]

I agree with the previous post about Microsoft's tatics. They lie and spin their way to success and haven't truly innovated anything from the ground up. I was just reading in a business IT magazine that MS are looking to enter the Anti-Virus market. In many ways, that would be good because it must surely be a positive thing that the maker of an OS creates an Anti-Virus suite. However, how are they going to do this? Buy someone else's! What!? Can't they write their own? And this is how it has developed Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Autoroute..... even Windows! I'm not sure, but here can't be many applications that Microsoft says is purely Microsoft.

Anyway, off the soapbox because back to the original post, I think that bias is inevitable (heck, we're all human aren't we?), but in the week or so that I have been visiting this forum, I have found that minds are far more open than on other famous Microsoft-stuff based websites (one in partuclar comes to mind but my Pocket of PoliticallyCorrect Thoughts says I shouldn't mention it).

Maybe it's because there are areas in the forum for people can discuss things other than the main areas of discussion and demonstrate that their lives don't revolve around their little 'devices'? I don't know, but it looks good around here anyway.

[Guest madu]

Right. I have watched this topic for a little while and it is time I guess I put my 2p in the piggybank :lol:

My view of MS and their main products - Windows - is rather simple. This IS the most versitile, flexible, friendly and thought through system. It supports pretty much everything and is tweakable to undefined limits. Their Office product is brilliant in my oppinion and if you've seen Lotus 123/Notes/whatever you can easily and honestly say - Lotus is C**P!!

As with any IT piece, the more limited it is the more likely it is to be fault-proof. Considering windows can do anything (as long as you have the knowledge), and is the single nicest OS for consumers and I dare say technical minded ppl, developers etc; I see why there is trouble with it.

Take Symbian. You can do many many things with it. But that's as far as it goes. It follows the route from A to D via B and C. In windows you can rearrange ABCD and get it to work in a way you want. As long as you know how to that is. Symbian cannot be 'pushed' in any way. The core product is what it is and it can only do ABCD. Yes you can buy E and F and it will extend functionality, but that can be done for SmartPhone too.

Their strategies are often questionable and a lot of success goes to their initial long-term contract with IBM re MSDOS. And I agree that there are better systems. You doing GFX - go for MAC. You wanna have a stable secure server - go for Linux/Unix/Apache... You wanna play games - get 98/XP. Workstation - NT/XP/98. But if you wanna do a bit of everything - you go for XP (98, 2000

And despite all the crap MS gets I say - "RESTECPA TO BILL" etc. He did a great job (well, his developers, 60% being Rus. btw) and his products rock. They may not be best in everything, but they are good.

I love their products and I think people that go slating MS for the sake of it / or coz of flock syndrome generally split into 2 groups:

- those who have no clue as to what they are talking about.

- those that have specific needs and know what they want and why and MS is not on the list.

- well maybe those that are just plain st00pid.

I have also tried BeOS and it sux. Too limited.

It's like having an accountant, a marketer, a legal advisor and a manager or having all done by 1 person. And even if he is very clever at each of those, he's bound to make more mistakes than a specialist in 1 area.

THE END.

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

Right. I have watched this topic for a little while and it is time I guess I put my 2p in the piggybank :lol:

My view of MS and their main products - Windows - is rather simple. This IS the most versitile, flexible, friendly and thought through system.  It supports pretty much everything and is tweakable to undefined limits. Their Office product is brilliant in my oppinion and if you've seen Lotus 123/Notes/whatever you can easily and honestly say - Lotus is C**P!!

As with any IT piece, the more limited it is the more likely it is to be fault-proof. Considering windows can do anything (as long as you have the knowledge), and is the single nicest OS for consumers and I dare say technical minded ppl, developers etc; I see why there is trouble with it.

With respect... that's a popular view amongst Microsoft apologists, but it's a LONG way from reality. Let's take Windows 95 as an example. It was due for release in April of 1994, and arrived 18 months late, amidst the biggest sh*tstorm of hokem and hype in the history of the world. It was SUPPOSED to be a "pure 32-bit" operating system. In fact Microsoft had assured Intel "that's what it was going to be" - and Intel launched the Pentium Pro processor on the strength of that assurance. (RIP Pentium Pro. I owned a Pentium Pro 166Mhz system for a while) Even by delaying the product's launch 18 months, they STILL couldn't get the 32 bit code to work... so they released a "Kludge" 16 and 32 bit hybrid. IBM in the meanwhile HAD managed to get OS/2 2.0 (a REAL 32-bit OS) recompiled so that it ran faster and on lower-spec hardware. This made Win95 look bad, so MS used the excuse of losing the suit over bundling Internet Explorer to move anything that took more than 8 megabytes of RAM into a different product ("Windows95 PLUS!") Note that Office 95 was touted as "running on 8 megabytes of RAM". Microsoft EVENTUALLY admitted that it didn't - and offered a full refund to anyone they'd misled. (Bear in mind that, back then, a 4 megabyte stick of 72-pin SIMM cost around £125)

So much for the background. Sales were even more interesting - as is Microsoft's claimed "recollection" of what happened (selected half truths are often more misleading than outright lies...) Win95 broke all records for software sales.... for about five days. THEN - at the point where people weren't buying a pig in a poke, but had actually had the chance to SEE the new miracle product in operation, the sales figures fell off a cliff. You couldn't GIVE the bl**dy product away. Corporate purchasers bought significantly more copies of OS/2 Warp than Win95 in the UK. Microsoft did what it ALWAYS does under the circumstances. Poor quality product unable to compete on a level playing field? TWIST SOME ARMS!!! Biggest vendors of operating systems are the system builders - they got strongarmed/bribed into exclusive deals. One major supplier (Escom) was sufficiently outraged by Microsoft's behaviour that they stopped supplying Win95 even as an option. Software developers were quietly warned that if they wanted "priveleged access" to Win95, then they's better NOT be developing anything for OS/2, or they might find themselves subjected to unaccountable delays in access...

There's considerable debate on whether OS/2 or Win95 was the better product. Personally, I think Win95's main advantage was that... somehow more applications were developed for it. Certainly OS2 was a lot less crash-prone (it's taken Microsoft until WinXP's release to catch up on the "reliability" front) Windows prominence derives not from an "inherently better product"... but from an ability to "cut off the air supply" of rival products, leaving no choice but Microsoft. Out there are dozens of products that MIGHT have been significantly better than whatever Microsoft wants us to buy... but we'll never be able to make our own judgements, as they all "met with unfortunate accidents".

"Take Symbian. You can do many many things with it. But that's as far as it goes. It follows the route from A to D via B and C. In windows you can rearrange ABCD and get it to work in a way you want. As long as you know how to that is. Symbian cannot be 'pushed' in any way. The core product is what it is and it can only do ABCD. Yes you can buy E and F and it will extend functionality, but that can be done for SmartPhone too."

In a post elsewhere on this forum someone noted that with a Smartphone the dimensions of the screen are fixed. If you want to develop a smartphone... than that's something you're stuck with. Internet Explorer is something you're "stuck with" too. In fact the "stuck with" list is quite a LONG one. Longer, I think than the similar list for Symbian. If it was otherwise, then the Nokia 7650 would differ from the new Ericsson p800 or the "Sendo Symbian" (formerly the Z100 Smartphone) by as little as the SPV differs from the Tanager - or for that matter the original Z100.