An open topic to all Windows Mobile users...

[Guest Laser_iCE]

Hi guys, I've got a HTC Touch Dual and I think it's almost the perfect phone. It's got a hard keyboard input (I can't stand anything that doesn't have a tactile feel for input), and it's in what I think is a relatively attractive looking case. The only problem I have, is Windows Mobile.

I've been using WM since around 2003, since I got my first Smartphone2. It opened up a whole new world to me, (my previous phones all being Nokias) there was all sorts of different software I could download for my phone, not to mention the beautiful looking screen and the games. The phones hardware gave me a bit of troubles (I bought it off eBay), the SD card slot stopped working after a while, and of course the classic joystick problem, where I tried to press Up and it'd press Left + Up and so on. So the outside of the phone was kinda shitty, but the Operating System was great for a standard "candy-bar" style phone.

So I stuck with that phone for 2 years, until I was out of High School and got a job at Subway. One of the guys I worked with owned an i-mate JAM -- something I had never really seen before. Apart from all the popping and clicking it did when he went through the menus, I thought this phone was the bees knees. He was a bit of a geek himself, and had all sorts of weird apps for random uses, including a couple he was working on himself. It was at this point that I realised this lack of touch screen was for suckers, so I saved up my sandwich money and bought an i-mate KJAM.

Not one of the most attractive phones out, it got the job done. This is when I realised that the connection between the physical phone and Operating System was no longer really apparent. HTC decided that they were going to try and revolutionize mobiling (if they weren't the first, then please -- correct me if I'm wrong) by adding in a sliding QWERTY keyboard, which rotated the screen to a landscape orientation, instead of the classic portrait. Obviously this wasn't an indea that had been around since day one of WM5, because the transition between the two orientations was shocking. Sure, there were ways to speed it up with registry hacks (I think?), but if you had a today screen full of plugins, it was sluggish and annoying. I put up with it though, because hey -- who else had a phone like this? Plus the big screen (but poor processor) was great (and crummy) for video playback.

So a few years later again, I own a HTC Touch Dual, and once again I feel like the connection between the actual phone and the OS is lost. There are so many little things that just don't work properly -- but do not hinder the performance of the phone enough, that as I said I did previously -- I just put up with it. But that's the thing, do we all put up with little issues? Things like in WLM, when you switch between screens the on-screen input always appears, which is especially annoying when its the onscreen T9 keypad. Yeah, I can change it to the transcriber option, but I have to select that every time I restart my phone. But, I've learnt this little fix and now I put up with it.

Or when I selected in my phones input settings to not capitalize every first letter of a sentence, but do you think it listened to me? Of course not, the input on this phone is clearly b0rkd. Example -- I can't even use my hardware keyboard as an input in Opera. I understand that Opera is a third party software, but why is there not some sort of universal keyboard input for phones? There is for computers, and software works perfect.

It's funny, now that Apple are in the game and they're pushing their shiny OS which works so damn well, but I don't like the form of the iPhone, especially the lack of hardware keyboard. But now they're competing, as well as Google with Android, I'm really hoping that Microsoft picks up their game.

But anyway, what are some issues that you've found, but have figured out a little work around that you put up with?

Does anybody know if I can become a tester of some sort? I love 99% of the things that WM does, but there are some things that could make life so much easier (like being able to swap the scroll bar to the left side for lefties like myself, even though I'm used to TouchFlo now) or make WM more attractive (like changing the layout of the home screen, instead of the boring List style) to users.

Disclaimer: Sorry if this rant seems out of place or if I contradict myself a lot of times, it's early in the morning and I'm frustrated with my phone.

Edited February 11, 2009 by Laser_iCE

[Guest awarner (MVP)]

The iphone OS does not always work "so damn well" there are numberous reports of it locking up and other bugs, Apple are just good at PR so mask over the flaws.

As for becoming a tester for devices, that's a hard one. Normally manufacturers and networks have inhouse QA and testing teams, it is normally only pre-release models that get outside for reviews and these are as close to the finished product as possible.

[Guest Laser_iCE]

That's a shame about the testing. Being in Australia, I don't think there'd be too much of that going on, considering we generally get most things 6 months later. As for Apple, from what I've used (which honestly isn't much, but I've had an afternoon or so to play with it), and from what other owners have told me, the responsiveness and the layout is pretty crisp. I'd actually love to run Android on my phone, it seems like a really neat looking OS (even though it's in very early stages). I understand there'd be even more bugs, but it'd be great to try something fresh, too.