What's wrong (or right) with MS Smartphone?

[Guest vijay555]

I was in carphone warehouse the other day, trying to get a voucher for my beloved SPV. And next to me was some guy, on the phone bleating to Orange that he bought a nokia 3 weeks ago, and it's crashed on him 3 times, and causing him to loose calls, i quote: "I work freelance and it's not shown me when people were calling. I've lost jobs because of this. I'm very angry (and probably own a Mac)". He was trying to get the phone replaced.

Now, i love my SPV. However, it suddenly struck me. Why do we all accept the phone, despite the fact that it has many and obvious reported bugs? How many of us would consider getting on the phone (if we could!) and crying to Orange that our phone has not indicated that i had 15 answering machine msgs?

This happened to me the other day, and i was like, "tisk, whatcha gonna do?". But, are we just too tolerant? Where's the SMS counter? The voice dialing? SMS sync? Why is the snooze on the calendar only 30 nanoseconds? On and on.

I wouldn't have any other phone available right now, but why do we keep it? If we stampeded, would Orange/MS react? What's new about 1.5 that is so great over 1.37? Where's the support, apart from "oh, dust under the screen eh? argue with us for 3 hours, then send it back for a replacement". Why is there dust under the screen to begin with?!

I know many of us are early adopters etc. And we know that since Win95 MS has had a very hands on, "let's sell it in beta form, and actively bug fix it, then causing everyone to buy the next version, which is also a beta" policy. So, i like the phone. it does 90% of what i want. I play games, listen to music, keep my shopping list, dates, phone book, emails, photos, simpson episodes, dictionary, tube map, diaries and on and on. So is buggy-ness just the price we pay?

What is a tolerable level of disatisfaction?

V

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

To be honest i'm sure there are plenty of SPV customers that have done the same. Don't forget that although MoDaCo has a large community user base it doesnt represent the entire ~SmartPhone~ user base.

Personally for what i use my phone for (pretty much everything bar streaming video) i have no issues with the way it works. Everything is pretty damn good and it (now) is less buggy than my old J70e....

[Guest TANKERx]

I love the multimedia elements of the phone and have impressed some people with watching Laurel & Hardy movies and even an episode of the The Office.

However, it strikes me that the SPV is pretty good at multimedia, just about average as a PIM and way below average for communicating with others (text/e-mail/sms).

As for the general OS, sure it's flaky and (if I'm honest) way more flaky than other smart phone platforms, but I'm a geek and I can live with it (except for those rare moments where I just want to scream at the phone and throw it out of the window).

Acceptable? Yes for me (I know that then I buy a Microsoft product, it will not be anywhere near perfect) but it wouldn't acceptable be for my dad or my boss (both of whom want a no-nonsense and reliable device).

[Guest spacemonkey]

First, why do I put up with it? Because it's got so much MORE than anything else available right now. Most of the issues is because it's the first one and I'll put up with it until a newer better one comes along. As to questions of why they treat us like beta testers... well, they could have kept the phone in testing themselves, fixed all the bugs and then released it in 2004... personally I'm happy to trade stability for getting the phone a year earlier.

So in answer, I tolerate it because it means I can get features NOW rather than later. I could get something really robust that just made calls... it's called a Nokia (not their smartphones, the other ones).

So if you said that we shouldn't tolerate then you are actually saying that Orange shouldn't be providing this new stuff. That would mean your only way to get the latest geek toy would be to pay £500 for it full retail and then you'd really get no support from Orange.

Finally, I don't think SPV is necessarily worse than other smartphone offerings such as the P800, 7650 etc, of the problems you listed "Where's the SMS counter? The voice dialing? SMS sync? Why is the snooze on the calendar only 30 nanoseconds?" Are any of these actually stopping you using the phone successfully? Are they critical features of a good phone? I would say no... they'd be nice features but nothing on my must have list.

One of the biggest complaints I've been seeing a lot recently is in regards of the voice mail not showing the icon and this should be laid squarely at Oranges door. This is not a problem with the phone, it is a problem that the voice mail system used by Orange is shite. They really need to fix this one pronto as it affects all handsets. I would say the incidence of this going wrong is no higher on my SPV than it was on my Sony J70.

[Guest vijay555]

BTW, just so i don't come across as all ludite n' all, i love my SPV, I'm it's Number One fan. I've already hobbled it's cradle so it can't walk off...

I just found myself thinking objectively the other day.

I can live with the bugs, which are generally minor, fixable, or get-around-able. And i'm a tinkerer. But it makes you wonder about how other firms do their product testing. Symbian has been in development a while, but MS Smartphone is not exponentially more complicated, is it? And MS apparently has a little bit of cash put aside for product development.

I spose if there is any gripe, it's why the bug fixes are so slow in coming. But when you code, i spose you also know that when you fix X, Y tends to break at the same time, right?!

And yup, spacemonkey, my 8210 (god rest her soul) used to have the ans machine msg indicator bugger-up as well! It is a small world.

V

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

I've never had any problems software wise at all except the messagekeylock

problem with the first DK update.

Apart from that it's served me well :)