3. Windows Mobile 6

The Touch is one of the first smartphones with Windows Mobile 6, which adds better battery life, easier search and HTML email to familiar apps and tools. HTC has provided some tweaks to Microsoft’s standard distribution, the most noticeable of which is a front screen plug-in that includes a large format clock - a useful replacement for Microsoft’s tiny little screen clock. The plug-in brings together useful information, some of which is available on the iPhone (the number of missed calls, SMS messages and unread emails), combined with the slightly less useful (a Vista-style weather gadget) and the superfluous (an application launcher). The plug-in buttons are large enough for finger use, so you could find it a useful addition to the TouchFlo user interface.

Windows Mobile adds both strengths and weaknesses to the phone. Office Mobile makes it easy to work with Microsoft Office documents, though an update that supports 2007 Office is still some way off. There are certainly more applications built into the device than the iPhone, and there is also a hefty collection of third party applications available for download. Microsoft’s mobile UI isn’t as sophisticated and polished as Apple’s, especially when you compare the Touch’s media tools with the iPhone’s. The latest version of Microsoft’s mobile Internet Explorer is something of a let down when compared to the iPhone’s Safari browser. Constrained to render every page so it displays on a small screen, it struggles to support the latest AJAX applications. Like the iPhone, it has no direct Flash support, but you can download a Windows Mobile version from Adobe.

The Touch is also a media player, though it’s quite definitely not an iPod.

Where the Touch does excel is in its email support. The latest version of Pocket Outlook is an excellent tool, and if you’re using it with IMAP mail or Exchange 2007, it’ll even render HTML mail happily. Business users will find that Direct Push gives it that Blackberry-like behavior that’s lacking on the iPhone. Sadly, thumb typing on a screen is a long way from the Blackberry keyboard experience.