moving from winmo to HTC desire

[Guest miguelsanchez79]

I know we've got quite a lot winmo converts over here. :)

Let me know what do you think about moving from winmo operated devices to android HTC Desire.

From my point of view difference is massive. I love android simplicity and way you can customise it but still missing possibilities of flashing and tweaking my old good omnia.

Let me know what do you think?

[Guest naguz]

I haven't used WinMo in almost two years - my last WM phone was a Samsung i780, and I have had Android for over a year.

I didn't miss any tweaking options when I moved to Android. Probably because I had the HTC Dream (edit: Not the Deisre. :) That I got a few weeks ago.), which got the most attention of devs and hackrs for a long time. I think you'll find ROM options grow rapidly for the Desire the next months, and there are quite a few tweaks to be done already, if you have the guts to try out bits from here and there that has worked on different phones.

What I miss the most is better email handling. The mail app on the Desire sometimes stalls on simple things like downloading a message without a subject, and then won't notify you of any new mails until you delte that mail from another mail program. I wondered why I didn't get any mails for the rest of the day... Basic functionality like searching for mails on the IMAP server - a crucial function on any mobile device - is not there. You can only search in already downloaded mails. IMAP_IDLE is also missing. k9mail fixes the latter issue, but has its quirks too.

I aslo found the contact framework to be seriously lacking in previous versions of Androd (basicly, it was so "simple" it downright sucked), but in 2.1 on the Desire, it seems like it is possibly to sync contacts with other systems without messing up a whole lot of stuff - a quite essential feature.

It surely has a whole different "feel" to it though. It is a more complete experience compared to what WinMo with its ugly registry and app replacment hacks was for me. It fells more like you tweak stuff "the right way" on Android, but being a linux users for five year might be the reason I feel this way.

I do miss the moe low-level access apps seemed to have on WM though. On Android it is a bit more like "if it ain't in the SDK, it won't be done". Ofc, you can work your way around this, but more on a per-device-basis, and thats not so attractive for your run-of-the-mill app devloper.

Edited May 16, 2010 by naguz

[Guest nollie]

Coming from a Samsung Omnia with WinMo 6.5 I love how smooth the interface feels. Far more polished and enjoyable to use. Quite a different experience as Android I find was pretty much usable out of the box, but WinMo needed substantial tweaking.

Though it is a little annoying having to go to the extent of rooting the phone, partitioning the SD card to allow me to use the phone how I want to.

Posted from HTC Desire :-)

[Guest afiorillo]

naguz, you've telled my very story. :)

[Guest Rdy2Go]

Posted from HTC Desire :-)

I switched too one month ago and it's completely different world - everything works out of the box as it should.

Bugs are there but are minor, the phone responds to phone call immediately - no more 3 seconds delay, smooth multitasking.

Even if I miss sometimes some tweaking (bad habit :) - I always remember that none of my WinMo phones worked as good as this one without any changes using stock ROM.

So the tweaking was more like "repairing" damage done by Microsoft and phone vendor (HP, HTC, Samsung).

[Guest EddyOS]

Had an HTC HD2 for 4 months, had to tweak it to get it working and eventually baked by own ROM to get it how I wanted it. Had my Desire a month and have had to barely touch anything as it just works - best decision I ever made moving to Android :)

[Guest craigcrawford1988]

Windows sucks! :)

[Guest NarutoDKz]

I moved from A omnia to the Desire.

I can only say that I hate the omnia and love my Desire.

The Desire does everything that my omnia did, and more, and faster.

Do yourself a favor, get an android :)

[Guest LUTRAM]

winmo had terrible interface, put up with it for a week and loaded spb mobile shell and sbp phone suite on my omnia, excellent interface and made the phone a pleasure to use, very customisable.

First thing iv noticed about android is its more user friendly and simplicity makes it a doodle to use (no instructions needed here!), "not as customisable as the spb interface but far exceeds winmo interface. choice of apps is amazing compared to winmo, winmo is very weak in this area.

Android is defiantly more stable than winmo, but then again this may just be down to higher spec phone compared to omnia, but cant say iv had my phone hang or freeze like my omnia did.

All in all I wont be going back any time soon, should have took the leap sooner!

winmo **

winmo sbp ****

Android *****

[Guest rose840]

Not very often I post but wanted to let you know my opinion...

go for it!

I went from touch pro 2 to Moto Milestone and now to desire (milestone was unusable for me)

the desire is the best smartphone i have ever owned..

and thats not a small claim..

My Smartphone history (I had a couple of Nokia smartphones in between but they dont compare lol)

Orange c500 > Orange C550 > Orange c600 > HTC Wizard > HTC TYTN > HTC Diamond > Xperia X1 > Touch pro 2 > Moto milestone > HTC DESIRE!

as other people are saying it basically, just works!

I wont be returning to windows mobile for a long time!

Cheers

Steve

p.s, love the fact I'm still a newbie... I've been a member for over 5 years lol

Edited May 16, 2010 by rose840

[Guest theboxman]

HTC Desire running android is much better.

I'm a long term PDA user who converted to PDA phones:

PalmOS ======== | Windows Mobile------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>> ANDROID

Palm Vx --> Palm IIIc --> WinCE **can't remember model number --> HP 1940 --> HTC Blueangel ---> HTC Hermes ----> HTC Diamond------|| ---->HTC Desire

Thoughts:

PalmOS - Snappy well written but underpowered. Used to have really tiny but very efficient apps because of the memory management. Usually did much the same as the memory hogging WinCE/WinMob equivilant. Slower processor, less memory. Yet somehow faster and nicer interface?.........

Windows Mobile:

All incarnations I've used vary little. You'll have problems with the amount of memory available for programs, it used to be you'd compete with storage space vs memory for programs.....they got sluggish with time and lots of customisation was necessary to get them usable. That said it was clearly capable of more than the earlier versions of PalmOS...It's just that it looked worse and ran more slowly.

Android:

Breath of fresh air. Apps all available from repositories and the market place. HTC Desire's user interface is flawless. The phone is just a pleasure to use. I doubt I'll ever go back to windows mobile....And trust me I tried every incartnation of WM since the days of WinCE.......Only downside is you'll have to root it to do a few things that we take for granted in WM - for example wired and wireless tethering - I used to use it all the time on WM....That said thanks to Paul that isn't a problem! Rooting is very easy.

Conclusion:

Android is godly. You will not want to go back. I was nervous before taking the plunge myself. I convinced myself by playing with friend's HTC Hero's and then installing Android on my HTC Diamond to test it out.

I've actually passed my HTC Diamond on to my father now and when setting it up for him couldn't believe how juddery the finger scrolling was, how unresponsive the devce was etc......You get very used to the desire's power and quick response. This phone makes the iphone look a little mentally retarded in terms of interface responsiveness!

The switch to Android was one of the best decisions I've ever taken!

[Guest miguelsanchez79]

I moved from A omnia to the Desire.

I can only say that I hate the omnia and love my Desire.

The Desire does everything that my omnia did, and more, and faster.

Do yourself a favor, get an android :)

I do own desire for about month now and love it. It's rooted and customized in the way I like ;)

What really suprise me is progress android platform done over 2 years on mobile market. It just unbelievable.

Even introducing WinMo 7 windows will have trouble to catch up.

and my omnia..... heh... t's been sold on ebay with no regret :D :( :(

[Guest Michelle My Belle]

I too am an Omnia convert.

I was using various 6.5 ROM's on my omnia from various talented chefs - although one chef (for my particualr tastes) was head and shoulders above the rest - Ock!

It is because of Ock that I remained so loyal to WinMo - the usability with his ROM's was vastly improved over anything M$ would've bothered to do.

Any way my wife decided she wanted her phone upgrade this year (so no upgrade for me) - I was left with a decision to make.

I very nearly bought a HTC HD2 - if it had been about 3 months ago, I would have bought it.

Then I got to thinking about the announcement that WinMo7, or whatever they're going to call it, was destined for a new platform of phones and would not be upgradable for the likes of the HTC HD2 :-(

There are reports that the new M$ phone will not provide anywhere near the user access that WinMo 6 + variants has.

This leaves their cut down - low-cost? version - WinMo 6.5 for existing phones and whichever way you look at it development (as in major development) has pretty much grind to a halt. They just seem to be in a phase of bug fixes and integrating newer version apps e.g. Office Mobile 2010.

They say they are dedicated to supporting the current (and read that as older) batch of compatible phones with WinMo 6.5 but I had to ask myself "How long"? and what ultimately would be the outcome...?

No software supplier is going to continue to support older phones with updates to an older OS for too long - I guess for their thinking, most people are on contracts and look forward to phone upgrades, so what would be the point?

They'll (M$) want you to get a nice new shiny handset with WinMo 7...

For me - it was a no brainer in the end:

1. Wait for a 'closed' user experience WinMo 7 phone (M$ appear to be going the same way as Apple).

2. Buy an iPhone - a very closed user experience - but good for girls :)

3. Buy Android - seemingly good and better than the other 2 options + not suffering any where near the same 'closed' user/mindless experience.

I chose wisely, I chose #3 Android ;-)

And in the end decided to buy a HTC Desire (unbranded) for £379 - I think a very good deal.

This phone 'rocks', it's every bit as good as everyone seems to be saying - works 'straight-out-of-the-box' very minimal setup required and then there's Android App Market :-)

Too Cool!

And I haven't even thought of 'Rooting' it yet...

MMB.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Michelle My Belle

[Guest drchips42]

Had winmo phones for years. Winmo and Nokia were my norm , until the desire .....

WOW !.. it all works fine ,, ( bar the 3G for Orange . which I had to tweak ) , it's fab !

Out the box in my hand. off I go .. the only issue is :

All the rubbish Orange have put on my phone.. and saving programs to my SD card , both of which I have to look at .

[Guest irishandrew]

Had winmo phones for years. Winmo and Nokia were my norm , until the desire .....

WOW !.. it all works fine ,, ( bar the 3G for Orange . which I had to tweak ) , it's fab !

Out the box in my hand. off I go .. the only issue is :

All the rubbish Orange have put on my phone.. and saving programs to my SD card , both of which I have to look at .

I think a nice MCR R3 with A2SD/A2SD+ would solve all those issues for you ;-)

[Guest miguelsanchez79]

Android 13 : 0 WinMo

:) ;) :D

[Guest bcmobile]

The day after I got my Desire, I deleted all of my old WinMo apps, ROMs, themes..... everything.

No turning back now :)

[Guest zoltar99]

The day after I got my Desire, I deleted all of my old WinMo apps, ROMs, themes..... everything.

No turning back now :)

Haha, same here. I had a ton of WinMo junk, it's all gone now. No looking back to the 'dark ages' of WinMo with almost daily soft resets and tweaks to make it a little more responsive.

[Guest angamb]

What I HATE about my HTC DESIRE / Android phone is...

I cannot put the bloody thing down! Every opportunity I have I need to pick it up, cradle it, caress it, try something out, look at something new....

I think my partner is going to leave me because I just flirt with the Desire and give it all my attention 24/7

I am so in love and it's tearing me apart!

Seriously though, after about 7 years of Windows Mobile which was incredibly frustrating, I converted to Android. Probably the best decision I ever made and no turning back.

Edited May 18, 2010 by angamb

[Guest afiorillo]

I come from three years of Palm OS followed by a year of Symbian UIQ followed by almost eight years of Windows Mobile, ended with a glorious Samsung SGH-i780 (the most funny device I've ever seen, I think I've flashed it 100+ times) leaved last year for an Hero and, now, this lovely Desire.

I miss not WM: despite its tweak-ability it was so hard to push over the edge that the resulting intrinsic instability was way too disturbing. Android catches me since the first minute or so and my "old" Hero was probably the most comfortable handset I used in ten years.

Now, this Desire is even smoother: every time i slide my fingers on its gorgeous display I feel real pleasure and everybody around aaaaaawwww looking at it. An iPhone doesn't make that audience.

There's only one thing I ate with my Desire: that crappy, stupid, absurd, illogic, I-wanna-meet-its-engineer-to-beat-his-head-for-an-entire-day-ish "optical trackpad" they've fitted into it. If it just could mount the sexy, luminescent, superglide Hero trackball.........

So, in two words: GET THAT DESIRE NOW! :)

[Guest Emmepi]

I have the "3" devices :

iPhone 3Gs

HD2

Desire

Now, i only use my HD2 as a GPS in my car, due to its biggest screen... That's all...

[Guest scotch whisky]

I agree with everyone else here. I only moved from Windows Mobile when they, apart from the HD2, disappeared from the stores. Certainly wouldn't go back now.

The only problem I have is there is not a decent program to sync. the Desire to Outlook 2007. Virtually the whole of the business world use Outlook and until calender contacts and TASKS can be synchronised the Android systems will struggle. Don't even suggest Google. Most IT Managers are horrified about the security aspects of storing stuff in the cloud however unjustified! It's this ability to fully sync with Outlook that has made the "Blackberry" so successful.

Edited May 18, 2010 by scotch whisky