Omnia II, Palm Pre, or Blackberry Tour?

[Guest whitj]

Hey guys,

So I went from suffering through the Blackberry storm for a full 30 days (Stood in line on release day... idiot!) and made the smart choice to get an Omnia. I want to say I've been in love with it ever since, but I haven't. I'm getting closer to loving it with the help of all the new roms coming out (Thanks guys!), however it has just never really seemed right to me that I have to jump through hoops and do silly magic dances with days on end of customizing to get a phone that works as I would imagine it should from day one. This I know is Windows Mobile's fault, and while I realize that it offers a lot of options that other OS's lack, I just think that it needs to stop patching over old mistakes with updates from 6.1 to 6.5, but just drop it and start over from the beginning.

So I am up for an upgrade in the next couple of months, and while I WAS psyched for the Omnia II with a screen that I can actually READ in the sun (Most annoying shortcoming imo), I just don't know if I'm ready to plunge into battle again with WinMo, waiting for another 6 months for someone to leak a rom so we can actually make it WORK...

My options are the Blackberry Tour, Palm Pre, and of course Omnia II. After the endless quest for the perfect keyboard, (and by "perfect", I mean the ability to finish an email without having an autocorrect replace a misspelled 'you' into 'yugoslavia' and the like) I think I might be ready to go back to hard buttons, although with the easier to read screen and the massive screen size of Omnia II, maybe typing will be a bit better. I will miss some of the fun little programs that only WinMo offers (and the sadly easy ability to get a lot of them for free) if I switch to a different OS with a limited way to get apps.

I am a college student, equally interested in productivity with emails/notes/sms as well as entertainment and multimedia, and am proficient in computers, which is the only reason why I can live with the omnia currently, lol.

So what do you guys think? I have lurked these boards a ton(part of a daily ritual of mine), but rarely post. I'd love to get the input from all of you, and I will respect your opinion(unless it's "Get an iPhone")

[Guest Turborepu]

I'm biased, samsung all the way!! :D Im not keen on the BB, but the pre does look inviting..

[Guest aceofrazgriz]

Personally, the time spent customizing my phone is one reason i actually like WinMo. The possibilities simply dwarf the other smartphone OS's. The thing with WinMo is you have the chance to make it work as you think it should. With other OS's, if theres something you don't like about it, your pretty much stuck with it. While i would love to get my hands on a WebOS device, i'd skip the Pre. Sprint has terrible coverage around here, and WebOS is still very young, and Palm is going to capitalize on the popularity and work out different types of phones for a larger audience (and more carriers, AT&T has a WebOS device coming.)

Keep up on the mobile news, look into forums for specific devices/OS's and find out as much as you can about each, only then can you make a good decision. And don't forget, the most powerful, feature-ridden device ever can be completely ruined by a bad carrier, make sure you pick (or stick with) a good one. As much as i hate some of the crap Verizon does, i just can't get any better coverage, so i'm sticking around.

[Guest whitj]

Keep up on the mobile news, look into forums for specific devices/OS's and find out as much as you can about each, only then can you make a good decision. And don't forget, the most powerful, feature-ridden device ever can be completely ruined by a bad carrier, make sure you pick (or stick with) a good one. As much as i hate some of the crap Verizon does, i just can't get any better coverage, so i'm sticking around.

Thank you for your reply! And I should've been more clear with my post. I was never intending on jumping ship to Sprint for the Pre, but rather waiting until the "alleged" 6 month exclusivity contract is up, after which Verizon is due to acquire the Pre. I agree that Carrier>>>>device in this issue.

You also struck a chord with the customizability. One of my biggest headaches with the Storm was that there were many things wrong with it that seemed to have such SIMPLE fixes, ie the inability to turn off Auto Rotate, few changes to UI, etc. I'm sure many of these were fixed by now, but it was terrible always waiting for the next firmware update gambling that RIM fixed the ONE problem you had with the device.

I suppose a lot of hands-on testing would be a complete necessity, as I now wish I had done with the Storm. I love how now whenever I go into a Verizon store thinking "Maybe I just didn't give the storm a good enough chance," and I walk to the floor models, they are either broken, frozen on a particular screen, or just glitchy as hell, lol. I'm done buying phones on release day!

[Guest Turborepu]

customizing is fun!! tis why I like my winmo!