Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: winmo, 6.5, upgrade | Themes: Windows Tech Talk, Smartphones
3. A Help File: An Admission of Guilt?
Windows Mobile has always been a powerful smart phone system, but that’s part of the problem. Because it has so many options, many of them designed for business, it’s not easy to see where to go to do things. That’s fine if you get your Windows phone or are set up for email and calendar from Exchange at work, but most of us have to configure things ourselves. The new Getting Started entry on the Today screen works well. It gives you links for setting the time, setting up an email account, pairing a Bluetooth device, changing the screen background or ring tone, and adding a password. You can also take the Getting Started option off the menu when you’re done.
Click through for the full list and you find some very useful options: synching information from your PC and transferring music. Most of these are options that are buried a little too deep inside the Settings menu to find quickly and it’s nice to have them in one place. But there are also the rather patronizing instructions on how to make a phone call–if Microsoft really thinks the dialer screen is too confusing then it would be better to make it simpler than to include instructions.
The assumption is that you will take Getting Started off the menu when you've completed your initial setup, so what you get is a page of instructions in each case, with a hyperlink to the task itself. It’s like training wheels. We’d rather be able to turn off the page of instructions, turning the links into shortcuts with the option to pick and choose what you wanted on here. Bluetooth pairing, turning WiFi on and off, changing the time zone or your ring tone: if you could have quick links to the tools you need, the Windows Mobile interface would be far more useful.
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I upgraded from windows 5 last week to the HTC Touch 2. Even though there isn't alot of hype at the moment there will be. My contacts, photos, calendar, sms's automatically copy to the net a few times per day. This happens even though i am on prepaid with no internet plan. I go into a secure myphone website put in a password and everything is there. If i copy the contacts from the computer they also automatically copy to the phone.
I think is a step in the right direction. I've been using WM 6.5 for several months now and I like the changes that were made. That being said, it's still nowhere near as polished as the iPhone, or the Palm Pre. The real beauty of Windows phones is the work that the makers put into customizing the software. HTC does a great job and the Leo looks absolutely fantastic. Samsung's Omnia II looks to be a killer phone also. The real upgrade is going to come once Windows Mobile 7 comes out...
Of course you should upgrade IF your phone manufacturer offers it. If not there might be an unofficial rom thats been cooked up for your phone too. I'm running an unofficial 6.5 build 23069 on my lg incite, and it works great. This is more current code than any official upgrades. The only thing that's been driving us crazy is the accelerometer driver from 6.1 does not work well with 6.5 and causes a lot of issues, so we're crossing our fingers on an official release from lg so that we can grab the newer drivers out of it and incorporate it into our cooked builds.
An article on WinMob6.5 on the 19th of October. When did they release it again? Point made.
I do prefer 6.5 over 6.1 BUT it's not enough. Even though Windows Mobile pretty much offers the same level of facilities and in some cases, more than other manufacturer's, the damage has been done with previous releases. Heck, 6.1 on a qtek 9090 flies with NO junk from providers installed. Funny that.