If you were replacing your omnia what would you get?

[Guest Bouvrie]

Coming from a Nokia 2600, my i900 Omnia was a rather huge leap into the world of (WinMo) Smartphones. From this experience, I learned that:

• When a product's software design is limited, some tweaks may help to get things up to your liking. There are some WinMo applications (TorchButton, AEBPlus, HomescreenUI/M2D, WkTask) that help with this.
  
• When a product's hardware design is limited, some tweaks may help to get things up to your liking. I'm specifically referencing Brando's Rubber Back Case with the builtin stylus. Also, AEBPlus again helped workaround the limited number of buttons on the Omnia.
  
• Standard ROMs pale in comparison to what the Smartphone device is capable of. Custom ROMs/software is a must.
  
• Smartphones drain batteries faster than I'd like, especially when using all the 'smart' features they have over plain phones. :)
  
  • Touchscreen is nice for controlling applications, but I need physical buttons/keys to quickly work my way around a device when I ain't looking at the display. This includes dialing and sending text/email messages.
    
  • Having to wait a while when 'loading' seperate applications in memory is annoying.
    
  • Having the volume controlled by software is bad with applications (games) capturing the volume buttons. Also, having to load the 'volume' GUI application all the time doesn't help with a prompt volume change either.
    
  • The built-in GPS is pretty bad out of the box, without the enhanced GPS feature.
    
  • Having proprietary sockets isn't helpful at all, even more so when placed in the awkward spot the i900 has it.
    
  • Work-enforced Exchange mail policies requiring me to have a device password totally suck! :)
    

  I primarily got the phone to have something to play with when bored/traveling: having Wifi/Bluetooth/GPRS/GPS/Camera/Mic/Storage in one device is pretty nice. If I'd get myself something else, I'll probably split my interest over multiple devices. Something like an OpenPandora-like handheld device, and a dedicated phone with camera & flash, preferably with easy connectivity (bluetooth & USB). I'm done trying anything more than receiving mails on the phone in terms of Internet connectivity, as it'll always be less of an experience to an actual PC.

  heh [/rant] :)