Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: winmo, 6.5, upgrade | Themes: Windows Tech Talk, Smartphones
7. Record, Amplify, and Connect
Windows Mobile has always been packed with features and utilities and 6.5 adds more tools, including the option to record voice calls. You get a record button on the phone screen when you’re in a call and there’s no limit on the recording length beyond the storage space available (recordings go in the same folder as Voice Notes). You can also set the format and quality of the recording. If recordings don’t come out loud enough–or too loud–you can turn on volume leveling on the recording to compensate.
If you’re listening to music or watching video when a call comes in, the music or video will pause. Music will start playing automatically when you hang up but you’ll have to press play on the video, which makes sense because it’s more irritating to have to rewind the video if you weren’t ready to go back to watching it. Music carries on playing if you switch away from the media player, but video pauses automatically.
Alarms can be activated, even if you turn the volume off or set the phone on vibrate. This means you can finally use your phone to wake yourself up without worrying about getting woken by phone calls and text messages in the middle of the night.
Not all the improvements are about sound. If you’re connecting a Bluetooth device, Windows Mobile will automatically try common PINs like 0000 and 1111, and you can set WiFi to turn off if you don’t connect to an access point within a minute to save power. If you have a phone number in an appointment, it turns into a link you can call. You can do this when there is a phone number in an email as well, and Windows Mobile Standard (the version you get on phones without a touch screen) has also already offered this capability, but now it’s available in Professional, too.
Little touches like that are the real strength of Windows Mobile–when it has a feature, it’s well implemented with plenty of neat ideas. But little touches aren’t enough to make this a major update. The code was finished in April and it has taken five months to get handsets and operators ready for the launch, which has given Windows Mobile another five months to look a little tired and out of date. If you have a phone you can upgrade, then it’s well worth doing it, but Windows Mobile 6.5 is more about catching up with the other smart phone platforms than improving on them.
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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.