I was just sitting here using my phone with all the cool stuff that you guys all offer. WM6.1, icontact, SPB shell, custom icons, etc. Well its all good, but it just seems very "disjointed".
This isn't a stab at anyones work, because I think you are ALL making the most of this device, but there are some limitations that just make me wonder WHY we all keep putting up with this.
For instance, why the heck must we all endure poking a tiny X in the corner of the screen for certain programs? Sure I can use touchflo, but then some programs like spb shell use the same gestures to do different things. Can't I do one complete task without busting out that annoying little stick, or cramming my finger into a corner? (disjointed).
Why does it take 3 seconds for the screen to rotate? Shouldn't that be instantaneous? How much processing power does it take to render something 90 degrees? come on. Jeez sometimes i think it should just have a square screen. Then no app resizing.
Or why do I have to go from using my finger on the touchscreen (icontact and htc home, htc cube) to poking tiny one line text in stylus mode? (disjointed).
Or how about waiting for the phone to do things. Like when you make a call, or END IT? Why doesn't it END when you press END. Theres like a 3 second delay, so I always have to watch it to make sure that the other person doesn't end up listening to me banter on in some other conversation with someone else. Why can't it go "doodly doot" like a motorola, or make some other "its hung up" sound? The screen has no tactility so a sound would be nice so I don't have to make sure something happened. (disjointed)
How about WM 6.1. I mean why isn't it faster? I know it should be slowing down with newer releases (like every windows OS) but if I could trade out 10 MB of space for some more speed, I'm all for it.
Why are phones slow anyway? Good grief. This comes from a programmer who prides himself on trying to optimize code for efficiency as well as low overhead. I've seen XP run on a PII 400 at a somewhat bearable pace. AND THATS XP! Not tiny little WM.
Go ahead and post about things you don't like about the hermes or software in this thread. Don't bother telling me how to fix this stuff cause i'll probably just flash a new rom tomarrow and start the frustration all over again This is probably why I enjoy this phone so much, but for once I'd like to just win the battle before I start again. I KNOW that each and every one of you have been frustrated with these phones AT LEAST one time.
Oh, and sorry if i've upset anyone. I'm not making any personal jabs here (on purpose at least). I know you are all working hard to do your best to provide software for a common interface (the hermes). I respect and appreciate that. I know its hard to accomodate everyone.
/me throws out the idea that maybe he should start doing custom programming for WM instead of XP...
Do tell
What ROMs you have tried?
I feel your pain
For instance, why the heck must we all endure poking a tiny X in the corner of the screen for certain programs?
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you obviously havent heard of ALT + F4 + Map to HW button, also pressing OK allows you to multitask. maybe the iphone would be better suited for you
Why does it take 3 seconds for the screen to rotate?
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its near instant on mine, maybe you should try a new rom...?? you know how to flash right? (btw no phone is immediate, all phones have to redraw the screen), the stupid iphone takes even longer because of its retarded animation that you CANT TURN OFF
Or why do I have to go from using my finger on the touchscreen (icontact and htc home, htc cube) to poking tiny one line text in stylus mode?
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you know WMPro OS's have about 50 diffrent KB's to choose from, alot of them free, and alot of them even cooked in to roms. dont like the stylus? use a full screen KB like SPB, personally i can type nearly as quick with the stylus using large keys + gestures.
you should also know the hermes has a slide out KB....
Or how about waiting for the phone to do things. Like when you make a call, or END IT? Why doesn't it END when you press END.
are you using a cingular/official rom or something? if so thats your own dumb fault
Why can't it go "doodly doot" like a motorola, or make some other "its hung up" sound? The screen has no tactility so a sound would be nice so I don't have to make sure something happened.
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the hermes actually has an END CALL button. try pressing it, also for call disconnects windows automatically has a 3 tone/beep sound
How about WM 6.1. I mean why isn't it faster? I know it should be slowing down with newer releases (like every windows OS) but if I could trade out 10 MB of space for some more speed, I'm all for it.
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FFS try something other than a cingular rom, i sware, your specific phone is only slow becuase your using some POS offical rom. try the super storage rom, its blazing fast, still dont like it? COOK YOUR OWN
Why are phones slow anyway? Good grief. This comes from a programmer who prides himself on trying to optimize code for efficiency as well as low overhead. I've seen XP run on a PII 400 at a somewhat bearable pace. AND THATS XP! Not tiny little WM.
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im starting to think you havent flashed a phone in your life... YOU KNOW that you can UPGRADE YOUR OS RIGHT?
Don't bother telling me how to fix this stuff cause i'll probably just flash a new rom tomarrow and start the frustration all over again This is probably why I enjoy this phone so much, but for once I'd like to just win the battle before I start again.
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i doubt that you have flashed a phone or else you would not have said any of the above comments.
please just go back to an iphone....
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Didn't read your entire message. As for the first point, why don't you hit the hardware close button to close an application. The fact that WM phone supports touch screen and gesture doesn't mean you need or should use it in all cases. For a phone without hardware button, yes everything has to be done on the screen. But for Hermes, there are plenty of buttons for for specific tasks. Use that.
Indeed I have tried the Slither Cube (in C++). It was fast in spinning the Cube with finger. Yet it also supports spinning the Cube by the D-Pad which I prefer as it saves me from having to swipe the finger which there is not way would be quicker than a click of the button.
So my point is use finger, stylus and buttons where it suits most. Right tool for the right job.
Lord_BlackAdder said:
But for Hermes, there are plenty of buttons for for specific tasks. Use that.
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yes the hermes is button plentiful, which is why i dont like the kaiser... they took out the comm manager button!!!!!!!! WHY!!!
Hi Carcomp,
I don't have any problems, issues or dislikes with my device.
I simply took time out to customise it to the way I like to operate and voila, consistent performance every time. By customisation I mean choosing the right rom then sifting through and choosing the most appropriate applications for my needs.
Keeping it simple is a rule of thumb that tends to work.
Cheers
WB
PS - For all you guys who hate your Hermes so much, I'm happy to consider taking the devices off you if you don't need them.
i also think like you mate. i hate my hermes, too.
i'm using ultimate launch with up to 7 today plugins and then wm stucks like hell -.-"
i hope htc raphael is going to be our dream-device.
girls - nokia 3310 the best device for you.
no function - no bugs.
if you cant use your hermes - it is mean you don`t need it.
mine works greate.
Most ROMs use a 4 or 6MB PP. I've seen posts where people have gone to larger PPs (12MB) to get better performance. Comments? Optimal PP size?
schwert said:
i also think like you mate. i hate my hermes, too.
i'm using ultimate launch with up to 7 today plugins and then wm stucks like hell -.-"
i hope htc raphael is going to be our dream-device.
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since the Raphael is built on the same OS i doubt it will improve your experience much.
I and probably the majority of users here have found the Hermes great and would never go back to a standard cellular device ever again.
On some points I agree, on some I don't.
I agree on the end-call button thing. I also watch and wait and it usually takes 3 seconds before it really says "Call Ended".
I also agree on the turn-screen thing. Portrait or landscape shouldn't really matter that much. I also have another irritation here. When in landscape mode, the "unlock phone"-screen has such tiny buttons that you have to be a bloody sharpshooter to hit them. On most dialpad-skins it's the same. You can hardly hit the right number with your finger. Zero problems in portrait mode, nice big buttons, easy to hit.
The overall speed is indeed disappointing, as is the graphics performance. I recently played around with an iPhone and the interfacing was ALOT faster. No, I don't like the iPhone but I did like the performance of it. I also use my Hermes for Navigation using TomTom and sometimes it's a fricking slideshow instead of proper navigation. My old Qtek Himalaya even did better here.
Another grief I have which you didn't mention is batterytime. I went to Greece on holiday for 8 days. I packed my Hermes and my Nokia 6021. After 2 days, the Hermes starts beeping with an empty battery and it needed a refill 3 times in total during the 8 days(did 3 phonecalls, rest was standby time). The Nokia didn't need need a refill at all and I also made a couple of phonecalls as well as sent some textmessages. Yes I know I can purchase high-performance batteries but then I can't use my carholder any longer or fit it into the standard beltcase. Why can't the device be more economical with it's powerconsumption? Nokia does it out of the box. (yes I know you can't compare a 6021 to the Hermes but other phones of Nokia also have better battery-usage while having simular functionality). It was better in the past. I owned a Himalaya, it did about 4 days on a battery, I still own a Wizard and it almost does 5 days on a full load.
And yet.. I do like the WM interface, the multifunctionality, the integrated keyboard (whoever invented the 9-key-type-function to enter text-messages like on my Nokia 6021, should be shot) the fact that I carry only 1 device for phone, calendar, memo's, navigation and even more (mobile internet, phonebook, citymap, yellowpages etc etc). Actually, I especially LOVE that last fact because that is the exact reason I bought the Hermes in the first place.
My Hermes now is about 2 years old and I'm starting to look around for a replacement. I still want the keyboard feature, the Windows Mobile and all the things I love but I am looking for better graphical performance, more speed and better battery endurance. I would also like a higher screen-resolution while maintaining the compact format of the device. The Kaiser is definately not the solution for this so I am eagerly waiting for a new release from either HTC or any other competition (E-Ten, Asus, whatever).
mrvanx said:
since the Raphael is built on the same OS i doubt it will improve your experience much.
I and probably the majority of users here have found the Hermes great and would never go back to a standard cellular device ever again.
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I think that the Raphael will be my next one, if it does what it promises. We'll see how it goes but I am not sure if this is the phone they want to place in the same line of business as it's called Touch Pro (or that is what I found out about it) and I always thought that the touch series where for non-professional users.
carcomp said:
I was just sitting here using my phone .....but it just seems very "disjointed".
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no offence bro, but by the sound of the things you've mentioned, it's obvious that somehow/somewhere you've radically messed up with your phone. God knows what rom you've used and in what process you did the upgrade.
"3 seconds for the screen to rotate" ?? you must be joking. my phone/rom does it in less than a sec.
"I know it should be slowing down with newer releases" - another amusing joke. Only this single baseless generalization is enough for me to consider all your other claims with too much hesitation.
Who on earth would claim that Windows Vista is slower than WIN XP or WIN 95?
I recommend that you read the forum a bit more closely and change/upgrade roms more carefully and properly. Then you will not be this much annoyed with ur device and its OS.
Good luck
Great job everyone! Just what I was looking for! A 50/50 split between "I totally agree" and "you are a moron for thinking that".! Haha. Some good points were raised. I would like you all to know that I have flashed my phone with Schaps Lite / Full, some TNT releases and am currently running the new CRC 6.1.
Oh, my grief with the end button isn't that it doesn't exist, lord no. I know I can hit the end call button to get out of things, but WHY does it act like the "Show Desktop" icon. I usually just want to go back to the last task I was using (such as spb shell).
one point i also doesn't like is to add new appointments in your calendar or manage them. i need the calendar so much.
there is this finger-friendly actionscreen where you can select new appointment. but then, you need your stylus to set the time and rotate the screen because you want to write a subject and so on.
i also used other calendars, but they are the same.
i have tested an iphone, too. it has the best performance i have ever seen. typing sms was no problem. i dislike only one thing. you can't sync it with your pc -.-"
My Opinion
I grabbed my Hermes about a year ago and just jumped in man.. totally new to the wm scene.. and this phone rocks... love it! Totally customizable! I have learned (self taught) with the help of all xda peeps how to tweak my phone to the max...Seriously this phone can do almost anything (if you take the time to customize and tweak it) a friend of mine ownes a kaiser and beotches all the time.. it's hilarious cuz if he just took the time to learn and tweak his phone he probably could be as happy as me!
lata guys!
-josh
I just think that we should be able to do the most basic things without busting out the stylus. Like adding a contact, sending a txt message etc. All windows functions *may* be used with a stylus. But when "phoning", just a finger should suffice.
I agree with every single point you made and have a few of my own. You can use apps like Mobile Shell and it makes everything mobile shell uses better but anytime it has to use a built in app instead of whats in the shell you run back into the same problems. I used to do a lot of work with Samsung phones and it always seemed like I could flash them into something WAY better than it started by making it faster and giving it more features. With this Hermes I have now it feels like Im just trying to make it do what it should have done when I bought it. Like Im trying to fix the mistakes someone else was too lazy to solve. I too agree that the only reason I still own this phone is because of that challenge but I too am becoming sick of it. I just hope we will be able to use Android or Linux or anything else on our phones soon because if not I dont know how much longer I can tolerate WM. True there are some designers like Binkys and MRH that are making strides but it doesnt feel like they can change enough to really turn it into what I want.
This probably should be moved to the General forum, since it isn't really Hermes specific.
With that said, I've been a Windows Mobile user for close to 4 years now. (Starting with the Audiovox SMT 5600 on AT&T Wireless.) I've also carried a BlackBerry for almost two years, and an iPhone for just under 6 months. (No Symbian OS experience)
With access to these three platforms, I can see the strengths and weaknesses of each. I think many/most of the Windows Mobile weaknesses stem from the fact that it is based on a general purpose OS (Windows CE), where it wasn't really designed to do any one thing very well. The BlackBerry OS was designed first and foremost to sync email, etc and the experience is better than Microsoft's ActiveSync (which I do use). Yet, the third-party app and browser are fairly poor. The iPhone is game-changing because the user interface and web browser set new standards. The unofficial third-party apps also show potential.
There is no perfect phone, but the competition does drive improvements. I'm a Microsoft fan, but unless they make drastic changes in WM7, I think it will be an incremental update just like WM6.1, WM6, and even WM5. (Seriously, things haven't improved much since WM2003SE.)
I do appreciate all the work that the cooks do improving what we do have; keep up the good work!
Related
I am over all of the things it CAN do.
All of it's stupid retarded quirks, bugs, and glitches have worn me thin in the patience department for this stupid phone.
The final straw that broke the camels back:
Now for absolutely NO reason on every reboot the WiFi is switched on. Yet it doesn't do anything. The WiFi light blinks and the icon appears but that is it. After around 3 minutes of the phone being on, it switches off by itself.
I have NEVER had this problem before and I haven't changed ANYTHING on my phone for a solid few months.
This is the type of **** I'm talking about. Windows Mobile just breaks itself for no friggin reason other than it is poorly written.
If they had a "Trade your Windows Mobile device for an iPhone" promotion, I would be the first damn person in line.
I am over Windows Mobile and Microsoft in general.
</rant>
You are not Alone
GldRush98 said:
I am over all of the things it CAN do.
All of it's stupid retarded quirks, bugs, and glitches have worn me thin in the patience department for this stupid phone.
The final straw that broke the camels back:
Now for absolutely NO reason on every reboot the WiFi is switched on. Yet it doesn't do anything. The WiFi light blinks and the icon appears but that is it. After around 3 minutes of the phone being on, it switches off by itself.
I have NEVER had this problem before and I haven't changed ANYTHING on my phone for a solid few months.
This is the type of **** I'm talking about. Windows Mobile just breaks itself for no friggin reason other than it is poorly written.
If they had a "Trade your Windows Mobile device for an iPhone" promotion, I would be the first damn person in line.
I am over Windows Mobile and Microsoft in general.
</rant>
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I've been looking into getting a blackberry probably a curve. as long as I can find a device that let me ssh and telnet into the servers I support I'm good.
I have gotten over all the things you can do with it...I actually did a hardreset and really do not have plans on putting too many custom apps onit ...I just want the device to work as intended...the hell with the pizazz
try a symbian based phone. i use one as my second phone. i never reflashed it just works all the time.
Chris
I believe the 3G iPhone is coming out this year. They need one like the touch slide or something. I text too much to consider the iPhone's keyboard.
LOL @ Symbian based phone... A few of us have tried it with "smart" phones - I, for example, tried it with a Nokia E61. All I can say is - good luck... The software you can get for the symbian pretty much all sucks and looks like it was written for Windows 3.1 (and as a software developer I know why - the way software is written for Symbian OS couldn't possibly be more quirky); the menu system looks and feels like win 3.1, and the OS itself has EVERY BIT as many quirks. Oh - and outlook push? Good luck - they'll say it can do it - have fun with that (haha). Blackberry push? Same there. Office documents? Sure - open them... Have fun editing and then trying to re-open desktop side. The *only* thing symbian does better, in my opinion, is allow syncing with more than one PC - but since I have outlook push to my 8525, that's not an issue for me anyway
I tried and tried to love my symbian. In the end, I unloaded that turd for less than $100 US on eBay and bought my 8525 - which SMOKES the symbian based E61.
Thats my 2.5 cents worth -
mybikegoes200 said:
LOL @ Symbian based phone... A few of us have tried it with "smart" phones - I, for example, tried it with a Nokia E61. All I can say is - good luck... The software you can get for the symbian pretty much all sucks and looks like it was written for Windows 3.1 (and as a software developer I know why - the way software is written for Symbian OS couldn't possibly be more quirky); the menu system looks and feels like win 3.1, and the OS itself has EVERY BIT as many quirks. Oh - and outlook push? Good luck - they'll say it can do it - have fun with that (haha). Blackberry push? Same there. Office documents? Sure - open them... Have fun editing and then trying to re-open desktop side. The *only* thing symbian does better, in my opinion, is allow syncing with more than one PC - but since I have outlook push to my 8525, that's not an issue for me anyway
I tried and tried to love my symbian. In the end, I unloaded that turd for less than $100 US on eBay and bought my 8525 - which SMOKES the symbian based E61.
Thats my 2.5 cents worth -
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Like I said it's a second phone (actually my wife's) it takes good pictures and can do more than the average phone. I actually like the camera better, when you click the button it actually takes the picture. MP3 ringtones actually work flawlessly from the sd card. I wish MS and HTC could get those 2 issues right. Otherwise, I really enjoy tweaking my phone and installing ton's of useless stuff to waste my time....LOL... I started with my MPX200 and after my backlight broke for the 10th time I grabbed the symbian phone, only to end up back with a MS based phone. MS is just too big to avoid. Could be better, but I still like the fact that I can customize till my heart is content....even with the bugs..keeps my adrenaline flowing....lol
Chris
Gotta agree.... symbian no way. Lived with it for ages on my SE P900 and it did rock but the support was garbage!
Moved on to the TyTN as a gamble and it was totally worth it.
Funny you guys mention that, I'm looking to get a Nokia E51 as my going out phone. I need something "smart" and small. Despite what you say, I love the navigation compared to Windows Mobile Smartphone (WM 6 Standard). You're telling me 5 different "more" pushes to get through settings? Screw that.
irockash said:
Funny you guys mention that, I'm looking to get a Nokia E51 as my going out phone. I need something "smart" and small. Despite what you say, I love the navigation compared to Windows Mobile Smartphone (WM 6 Standard). You're telling me 5 different "more" pushes to get through settings? Screw that.
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Quick question...what do you expect from a forum dedicated to WM devices??
mrvanx said:
Quick question...what do you expect from a forum dedicated to WM devices??
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=) There are different followings. I love Windows Mobile... as long as it has a touch screen. I've played with many of the WM Standard (and by standard, I mean non-touchscreen devices) devices released in the states, and they all seem cumbersome as hell. Recently played with a Blackjack II and it had literally 7 pages in settings. In my opinion, Symbian (S60) and BlackBerry have the non touchscreen OS market on lock. Whats the point of functionality if it takes too long to find it?
irockash I just bought an E51. It is one of the best and most capable phones I have ever had - for it's size especially. I am originally a Symbian fan, but once I was introduced to Windows Mobile 2 and a half years ago I bought little else but HTCs. I have to say, that every once in a while I go back to Symbian for a try - namely the latest Nokias - N82, E51 etc, and they are really trouble-free compared to WM. They don't freeze up, they work flawlessly, and generally run faster than MW phones. Unfortunately there's no Skype for Symbian - you have to use 3rd party apps like Fring, and they work alright. I have to say however that at the end of the day I would have to choose WM over Symbian if I want to have a SERIOUS phone with loads of functionality - the Nokias like the N82 are super because of the 5mega-pixel camera and very good video recording, but give me my WM anyday - and I mean HTC ONLY! I guess each of us has our preferences.
I have both a symbian (SE W950i) and wm phone (hermes)...
Simply put, Symbian is no where near WM as far as customization, flexibility, and support is concerned. Symbian is just too plain and bland, and the W950i freezes way more than my hermes, not to mention that occasionally I can't even pick up phone calls. What's worse....I cannot do anything about since I can't mess with the firmware.
OTOH, cooking WM is easy if you spend some time studying it. I can do almost whatever I want with it. Most "problems" people encounter has to deal with the Rom's stability + application installed.
I would never go back since using my WM touch screen phones. My wife can't figure it out though. Her 6682 runs without reboot though for about 2 weeks when the battery dies...lol. Then I find it in the car and charge it so I can call her sometimes....lol. It's simpler for her to use, but it's not near as capable as my phone. It's better than the free phones most people typically have. So if I was techno dyslexic I would go for the symbian phones.
MS squashed the competition and will keep it that way. Even the IPhone 2 is promising, but MS will squash them too. Thanks to Apple for reving up the competition though! (Bill Gates owns half of them anyway)
So if I had to give up WM, I'd be bored for awhile........ I would suggest loading a good reliable rom & don't load anything else. yeah right....
Agreed! Well said! I had an N82 for 3 days - I mean the camera IS on par with a DEDICATED digital camera - even for night photos - but the functionality and flexibility of WM phones are UNBELIEVABLE and that's what I'd go for if I had to choose only ONE of the two OSs and have it for the rest of my life. Regardless of the little idiosyncracies - Windows Mobile ROCKS!
Also, as a serious audiophile, I really really urge that people think TWICE, or TRICE, before jumping on WALKMAN phone. I bought the w950i as I only paid a little over $200 for it new, and it has 4gb built-in. I'd expected the sound quality to be at least as good as some MP3 players....boy was I wrong..my Hermes + SRS WOW with Stock earbuds beat the crap out of the walkmanphone with whatever EQ on it, even if I amped the phone and use it along with my Sennheiser HD600, there's still no match at all. I immediately felt stupid for buying that phone. Fortunately, the phone was for my GF so it didn't bother me too much and she didn't seem to care too much about Sound Quality, convenience was all that matters to her. As for me, WM, hands down. I wouldn't mind playing with an iphone after it gets matured. ATM, there's just so many things that's lacking on it...undeniably, the UI is great...Apple's always good with UI and design..a very innovative company indeed. And TBH, I thought HTC's Apps played a great deal of a role in keeping the competition up. If WM looks like WM5/Stock WM6....I wouldn't be surprised that WM would slowly get crushed by Apple in the future.
I will probably jump ship to when an 3G Iphone is available and I see that you can actually install 3d party apps on it.
I did however see the new Samsung I780 and it looks very nice, small formfactgor, localised proper keyboard, 3G, Wifi, bt, GPS and touchpad like on a notebook to control stuff..
I've been a WM user for a long time. I used to lurk on the forums waiting for all of the new roms waiting to install them all. I also used to try out EVERY new 3rd party app that hit the market. I've been a long time member here, in fact my registration here is the longest standing for any website I'm actually active on.
It pains me to leave it all though. I'm buying an iPhone in the next couple of weeks. When it first came out, I still had my "Well who cares, I've got my good old HTC" mindset but have seen it perform better for the purposes I have reduced to using my phone for.
I want to be clear on what those purposes are, I listen to alot of podcasts and audio books. I also do alot of email and text messaging. Thats pretty much it. I don't need a great camera or fast Internet. with that said, the iPhone handles the audio that has become such a big part of my phone usage over the past year better than any WM device ever built.
How can you go wrong with a 160dpi 3.5" multi-touch screen anyways?
ljinsane said:
I've been looking into getting a blackberry probably a curve. as long as I can find a device that let me ssh and telnet into the servers I support I'm good.
I have gotten over all the things you can do with it...I actually did a hardreset and really do not have plans on putting too many custom apps onit ...I just want the device to work as intended...the hell with the pizazz
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My girlfriend got a blackberry curve a few months ago and I am amazed by how FAST and how WELL it works. Makes me jealous I'm stuck with this bloated troll known as Windows Mobile.
I definetly sympathize with you on this topic - many of times lately I've scoured the AT&T website debating to get a phone that I CAN'T flash 30 frigging times a day - just so I can lead a normal life again.
I think it boils down to what you want it to do. I like to have the flexibility to shape it any and every way I can, and try to find a way around something that doesn't work well. Some people prefer simple and reliable.
'Tis a rough blade edge to manuver, but here we dance on it every day
mattk_r said:
I definetly sympathize with you on this topic - many of times lately I've scoured the AT&T website debating to get a phone that I CAN'T flash 30 frigging times a day - just so I can lead a normal life again.
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I live in Japan, home of some really slick phones that never make it to Europe or the states. Most people look at my Tytn and say things like, "its so clunky!" and "what?! it doesn't have a TV tuner?!"
But recently I sent my Tytn away for servicing (HTC refused me by the way, caught me out with a different bootloader) and it was away for a week. They gave me one of those slick phones as a replacement and I totally went into withdrawal. It felt like when I was quitting smoking and the replacement phone was like that nicorette gum - necessary and yet sooo unsatisfying. For me Matt, there is no more "normal life" to go back to.
Iphone is really, really nice. But in the end it is going to be just like Mac computers. With WM and with Windows, I can do what I want, how I want, when I want (and usually for free). Iphone and OSX trade these freedoms for a smoother, cleaner and more stable system. It is a fair trade-off and may fit some people's needs, but I'll take the former any day.
This is my first WinMo phone. Regrettably, I jumped on a phone not knowing anything about WinMo at all. Other than the flashy overlay provided by HTC along with nice apps they made (like youtube), there is nothing nice for this phone, and it really.. sucks.
Every single app I've downloaded so far either lacks polish or just flat out doesn't work. I regret not getting an android phone soo much, where I could just go to one centralized place, download an app and have it work perfectly. Instead, I troll the internet looking for nice apps. Some, like Palringo, work pretty well, but still aren't really "made" for this phone. After 10 minutes of talking, the scrolling stops working on messages and I wind up having to drag my hand along the bar along the side that is near impossible to touch. Or I'll download a game/app and have it just spazz out when I run it. So god damn frustrating!
I guess I'm just upset that I have a phone with more potential than I've ever seen. Amazing keyboard, awesome screen, but WinMo just ruins it. I've yet to find an app that works perfectly AND looks nice other than what is provided by HTC with the phone. Why?!
vin5cent0 said:
This is my first WinMo phone. Regrettably, I jumped on a phone not knowing anything about WinMo at all. Other than the flashy overlay provided by HTC along with nice apps they made (like youtube), there is nothing nice for this phone, and it really.. sucks.
Every single app I've downloaded so far either lacks polish or just flat out doesn't work. I regret not getting an android phone soo much, where I could just go to one centralized place, download an app and have it work perfectly. Instead, I troll the internet looking for nice apps. Some, like Palringo, work pretty well, but still aren't really "made" for this phone. After 10 minutes of talking, the scrolling stops working on messages and I wind up having to drag my hand along the bar along the side that is near impossible to touch. Or I'll download a game/app and have it just spazz out when I run it. So god damn frustrating!
I guess I'm just upset that I have a phone with more potential than I've ever seen. Amazing keyboard, awesome screen, but WinMo just ruins it. I've yet to find an app that works perfectly AND looks nice other than what is provided by HTC with the phone. Why?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry you're not happy but there is so much more for Win Mobile and that you can do to win mobile than any other phone. Look around a little bit in the Development & Hacking section here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=260
BTW the Marketplace for WinMo is a joke. It's still pretty new and needs MUCH improvements. I usually download my cab files online then either bluetooth them to my phone or stick them on my microsd card.
Best of luck.
I played around with one in the store, and I generally like it just fine. If I paid $349 (T-Mobile) for this thing I'd have to say, NO! But if I can tether through 3G just like I plan to, it'll be worth it. The keyboard is big and nice for typing and I already have an iPhone and I use barely use the apps on it, so I won't be missing much, I'm keeping it though.
Here is to hoping ANDROID gets ported over..
This is my 3rd windows mobile phone, and in my personal opinion, I think Windows mobile 6.1 is an improvement, along with 6.5, but Windows Mobile and windows mobile applications is just a fail, a pure epic fail.
My list of Windows Mobile devices are, T-Mobile MDA, T-Mobile WING and now T-Mobile Touch Pro 2.
My next phone will more than likely be a Windows Mobile phone too Even though it sucks, it is what I'm used to in my mobile devices.
I used to use Psion machines which had excellent built-in applications and, out of misguided loyalty, I stuck to Symbian-based mobiles. After a year and a half with UIQ-3 with its lack of applications I jumped ship to WM/Kaiser and haven't looked back since. The integration with my desktop PC is so much easier and there is plenty of very high quality software around. There is a lot of lesser quality software as well, but that is partly due to the fact that it is easier for people to start out developing software for WM than some of the other platforms.
the thing about winmo phones is that you gotta customize it to make it perfect.. sucks that it doesn't come that way out of the box.. but yea... i have the tilt 2 and i absoultely love it.. but i've been flashing roms on my fuze so i'm not a newb.. but actually the stock rom is very decent compared to other stock winmo phone interfaces.
glcK23 said:
My next phone will more than likely be a Windows Mobile phone too Even though it sucks, it is what I'm used to in my mobile devices.
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Click to collapse
LOL!!! This is how i feel. Winmo has ruined cell phones for me! Ones you learn how to use one of these things, youll never be satisfied with not tweaking every thing about your cell ever again!
I really wanted to jump to another type of device, but that tasty freedom winmo gives me is just too good
gobmonster said:
LOL!!! This is how i feel. Winmo has ruined cell phones for me! Ones you learn how to use one of these things, youll never be satisfied with not tweaking every thing about your cell ever again!
I really wanted to jump to another type of device, but that tasty freedom winmo gives me is just too good
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yup, I've had all three sliding keyboard phones from T-Mobile, I really like them, the MDA was the best, it was like a rock, dropped it so many times and it never broke.
The Touch Pro 2 fell twice already and doesn't even have a scuff mark, I'm impressed.
Overall, the OS is addicting, kind of like using Windows 7 but asked to use MacOS or a linux distro, just don't want to take the time to switch over to a new OS.
I can only hope Windows Mobile 7 will be better.
I agree, it is fun customizing. I'm just upset that there simply seems to lack "nice" apps. Nothing is completely polished or utilizes the phone since there are so many different kinds of winmo phones out there. Argh, if only I could develop my own apps.. or somehow get android on here
I'm happy with WM, never had a WM device before. Sure it has its limitations (Which are well documented) but for what it is, I find it useful and generally, enjoyable.
I just received my VZW TP2 two days ago and have already gotten to where I can use most of its features, or at least the ones I will be using. This is the fourth WMO device I've had, including two Ipaq PDA's (no phone) and my last a TMO MDA. Like Glck23 said it is a rock, and still works fine after 3½ years of use. I still don't like the cases available for the TP2 and would like to stick with Krusell since I have quite a bit of Multi-Adapt accessories for it, but they don't have a case available that allows plugging in a set of earphones while in the case--or if they do I'm not aware of it. Having two types of TP2's makes this choice more confusing, and although some other cases use the knob-and-clip type of belt-clip system it is never clear if any of them are compatible with Krusell accessories. Piel Frama cases are generally compatible but I'm not paying $100 or more for a phone case.
I build and maintain several computers including my own and am accustomed to M$ Win, so I feel at home with WMO even though it does seem clunky at times. I do think the TP2 is a big improvement, and what rough edges it has, like no camera flash, these don't bother me much.
I haven't gotten into much tweaking yet, but have downloaded a registry editor, a necessity IMO, and am ready to make some meaningful changes. I didn't try any custom ROM's in the MDA and probably won't here unless 6.1 becomes unstable or slow, which it hasn't yet. I would like to find out how to make the TP2 a GPS without GPS software, but I already have iGuidance v3 that I bought for the MDA and iNav says it should work in the TP2. I have a BT GPS that has always worked well to use with iGuidance. Does anyone have any advise on this, as I would like to get GPS functionality working here.
For those that think the WM phone(s) are junk, I'm on my 3rd HTC phone.
Tilt, Touch Pro, Tilt2. I've been using either windows mobile or the windows PPC since the first Dell Axium X5 PDA. If I were to switch to say an iPhone, I would probably have the same reaction to it, as say someone new to a WM phone.
I wouldn't go to another OS on a phone, just for the simple reason that I have spent so much time on them, I know how to tweak, hack & adjust my phone the way I want it.
I think it is a personal thing. If you want to turn on a phone, and have it do what you want, without any input from you, to customize or personalize it to your needs, then get an iphone or something similar. But, when I buy something, I consider it MINE to do with as I please.
I don't understand these people. Don't they realize it isn't what they want BEFORE 30 days is up so that they can return it and get something else?
so after 3 weeks of hangin on this forum and spending all my free time learning the phone to do the tricks i want it to.
or even to work straight for more than 3 days without reset i returned my phone and got a blackberry bold 9700
since it suits my needs more.
ill wait till the HD2 comes out here in US
it was a great phone (in theory) but in practice it was kinda bulky, unresponsive,umm kinda useless for me personally.
i felt like i was using windows 95 again.
program errors every day at least one
freezing constantly
setting up email every week because it stops receiving mail
then hardware wise:
no camera flash, and quality is not so great for being 3.2mp(ive had much better)
no headphone jack mmkay
forget about one hand use nless you got girl fingers, nut then it wil be too heavy to hold.
the mein reason is actually what alot of you guys should consider is how much time u spend tweaking, modding,FIXING, your phone VS. how much time you spend actually using your phone
with this phone it was 80/20 ratio which is not what i bough the phone for.
blackberry it was about 30/80 which was pretty satisfying for me.
I guess windows mobile isn't for everyone, nor is the tp2. Enjoy your new device.
fuzzysig said:
so after 3 weeks of hangin on this forum and spending all my free time learning the phone to do the tricks i want it to.
or even to work straight for more than 3 days without reset i returned my phone and got a blackberry bold 9700
since it suits my needs more.
ill wait till the HD2 comes out here in US
it was a great phone (in theory) but in practice it was kinda bulky, unresponsive,umm kinda useless for me personally.
i felt like i was using windows 95 again.
program errors every day at least one
freezing constantly
setting up email every week because it stops receiving mail
then hardware wise:
no camera flash, and quality is not so great for being 3.2mp(ive had much better)
no headphone jack mmkay
forget about one hand use nless you got girl fingers, nut then it wil be too heavy to hold.
the mein reason is actually what alot of you guys should consider is how much time u spend tweaking, modding,FIXING, your phone VS. how much time you spend actually using your phone
with this phone it was 80/20 ratio which is not what i bough the phone for.
blackberry it was about 30/80 which was pretty satisfying for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shame to hear your bad experience
For me, spending my time here customizing and learning it´s pleassure!
You must really like modding your device, otherwise you always con go for iphoney, crackberry or any other "ready to use" brand
Rhodium is a great device for me
Its all about taste i guess
Its all about taste i guess, .. i used to have a Motorola RAZR V8, Linux-Based, ... and i used to MOD the shi*t out of it, i really liked that, even though that the battery life was really bad, but i liked it cuz it was mood-able. after that i bought nokia E75, not much i could do with it but adding themes and apps, .. its really reliable, and fast, but its kindda boring when you cant do anything but the original functions
anyway, . .wish you good luck with your BB mate!
orb3000 said:
Shame to hear your bad experience
For me, spending my time here customizing and learning it´s pleassure!
You must really like modding your device, otherwise you always con go for iphoney, crackberry or any other "ready to use" brand
Rhodium is a great device for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Couldnt Agree More. I Mod My Phone Everyday. Its Only So Much To DO With A iPhone/Blackberry. Im Bout To Get The HD2 Though.
well it was mostly because of speed of the device.
im probably the most ADD pc user i know. most of the time people have no idea what im doing on the PC because i have so many windows open and i go thru them very quickly when im doing something. and they sit there like wtf.
so blackberry OS is a lil snappier. out of the box it has most features that i need without tweaking...
i do want the HD2 when it comes out but its probably gonna be expeeeensive.
and like i said i bought the phone so i can use it not spend all time modding it. i did that with my sony ericsson and once i was done. the new one came out that had all the features so. i could spend my 6 months just saving up some money for new one and do something else.
Some people go buy a new toyota and some people go find old chevys to restore
it is kinda like a muscle car to tweak.
I still miss my wizard. made that thing run faster than a Kaiser... or this tp2.
I kept coming back to windows because the OS and OEM are so tweakble. I dont have problems teathering internet to my laptop... in fact it is like having a mini laptop.
I think that as soon as the new rom comes out for T-mo I will do everything I did on my wizard to make it run as fast as I want it to, even if it takes a month. (which it did) I keep hearing people complain about their Blackberries and IPhones.. "I cant do this; I cant do that" and meanwhile I raise my IQ just problem solving.
Exactly. Some peoples phone are also their hobby, others just want a phone.
Basically my assumption is that ALL windows smart phones will be slow no matter how many new versions and faster cpus there are. It's just windows...lol.
I do agree that other phones such as the iPhone or Blackberry is extremely fast, but when it comes down to modding, you really can't do much...
You're basically stuck with what your phone came with and nothing else.
fuzzysig said:
...with this phone it was 80/20 ratio which is not what i bough the phone for. blackberry it was about 30/80 which was pretty satisfying for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
30/80 on the BB, huh? Wow, you are getting 110% from your Blackberry? If so, where do I get one of those? Now we all can see why a windows "smartphone" was so difficult for you to use.
ChasDun said:
30/80 on the BB, huh? Wow, you are getting 110% from your Blackberry? If so, where do I get one of those? Now we all can see why a windows "smartphone" was so difficult for you to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He he he he......
I can understand why some people like windows mobile and the flexibility to mod and tweak etc., but i'm so tired of windows mobile and their crap OS full of bugs. Yes you can install cooked ROMS and the chefs around here do a great job but when the core code (OS) is crap it brings you back to the same bugs no matter what ROM you're running. For example, SMS on every windows mobile phone i have owned (treo, mogul, touch pro and now tilt 2) has been crap. It's actually worse on my tilt 2 than any of the previous winmo phones I owned. I actually just installed a "hotfix" which is supposed to fix the sluggish/freezing SMS application and either the update didn't install (looked like the install went fine) or the update did absolutely nothing to fix the sms app because my sms app is just as slow as it was before and still freezes. If SMS wasn't such crap on winmo I would stay with a winmo phone but since it's getting worse I'm either going to the Iphone or an android as soon as the androids are released for AT&T.
I absolutely love the TP2 hardware. I love Manilla/Sense when it works. I just want to get my phone set up with the programs I want with the theme/backgrounds I want and leave it alone and let it get my emails, make phone calls, and browse the occasional web page. But simple things that shouldn't cause the phone to lock up, does. Any time I change the Theme on my phone, Sense locks up and I have to soft reset. Winmo has been out for quite a while simple tasks like that should not be an issue. Sometimes after I softreset Sense won't launch and it locks up my phone. Nothing to do but softreset again and hope for the best. I tried installing SPB Shell. Progress bar stuck at 100% for like 30 minutes. Guess something went wrong so I soft reset. Tried uninstalling and the uninstall sticks at 100%. No way for me to get rid of it so I had to hard reset and re-set up my phone. This was after spending an hour researching trying to find a way to get rid of it.
But I finally have my phone looking the way I want it too. All the programs I want installed. We'll see how stable it is now.
Comming from an original TYTN II then moving to an iPhone and then a Blackberry and then an Android phone I really do love the possibilities of the ecosystem of Windows Mobile but with my iPhone, Blackberry, and Android they were so much more stable and easier to live with day to day. One of the things I miss most about the Blackberry platform is the ability to plug it in, and backup the entire device and create a sort of snapshot of that time and day of your config. So if I need to wipe my device I can go back to a point where everything was installed and working the way I wanted it too. This software came with the phone and wasn't something you had to spend 5 hours researching on XDA Developers to see if it's even possible.
I love this web page, it's an invaluable resource with TONS of information. But for those of us who don't quite know all the nomenclature, or know what things will work with what version of Sense/Manilla, or your build of Windows, or that maybe items from the Blackstone will work on your Rhodium, etc it's pretty tough sledding reading and researching trying to figure out what you want to know to do what you want to do. It's almost like there is too much information at times. And the information is presented in a way that only experienced Windows Mobile users know what the heck the information means. And if a new user posts a question they will be told by 3-4 different people that the information is out there if only they would do a search. But as a new user it's hard to search for something when you aren't quite sure what it's called or if it's even possible in the WinMo eco system.
lol thats why i choose a toyota over some beat up chevy.
BECAUSE IT DRIVES and i dont have to spend hours making it work...
had the blackberry for a qwwk not and havent had a single complaint yet.
no freezing up. no need to constantly update it.
no need to go thru registry
blackberry browser is not the best one but it is better because IT WORKS when i need it to, it doesnt frreeze up every time i open it.
sorry guys but you can make all the excuses the fact is, winmo is SLOOOW and buggy.
i didnt pay 600 dollars for a phone that i constantly have to "maintain"
its like buying a 70,000$ mercedes and spending your whole evening trying to work out all the bugs and engine codes instead of driving it... yes the phone is great, lots of potential but what good does it do if it doesnt perform the functions it supposed to?
Why are you still here?
And it isn't Windows Mobile that is slow, it is the crap processor HTC has been using for the past 3 years and has just now finally started using a decent one with the HD2.
Though I do agree it has more bugs than any of its competitors.
Well said!
petard said:
It isn't Windows Mobile that is slow, it is the crap processor HTC has been using for the past 3 years and has just now finally started using a decent one with the HD2.
Though I do agree it has more bugs than any of its competitors.
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Click to collapse
I couldn´t be more agree!!
Rhodium is a great device.
I decided to wait till all 1ghz processor bugs are fixed, then hope a Touch Pro 3 arrives and will upgrade!
But sure this won´t happen till 2011/2012
Meantime I´m enjoying my Rhodium a lot
petard said:
Why are you still here?
And it isn't Windows Mobile that is slow, it is the crap processor HTC has been using for the past 3 years and has just now finally started using a decent one with the HD2.
Though I do agree it has more bugs than any of its competitors.
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Click to collapse
I certainly agree that the proc is a bit outdated, but not quite that much...the first HTC handset with the Qualcomm 528Mhz chip was the Diamond, released in June '08.
But I have to say, I think the TP2 is a shining example of how much usability can be milked out of even processors that aren't much more than 50% of the speed of what's currently available. I know we're all having secret dreams about a qwerty-slider "TP3/HD3/Nexus2", but until such a beast is announced, you can pry my beloved Rhodium from my cold dead fingers.
I totally agree. You have said a mouth full. I am what you call a begginner. I've had an Excalibur,ATT Fuze and now a Tilt 2. I've modded every single phone more than twice and I knew nothing when I first started. Thanks to Xda-developers. I love my Tilt 2. I wouldn't trated for anything else until something new comes out with a keyboard.
Blackberrys are so borring and Iphones has had its big share of issues. I had the 1st gen and 3G version. Modded that too but nothing comes close to my Tilt 2. Best part of my Tilt 2 is the tilt feature. Set it down and enjoy a movie.
Up to now I have not seen a cell phone with out an issue. Thats why there are people like Xda that come to the rescue. You may see your self in a crackbeery site in need of help.
My point is move on and theres no need for sorrow or goodbyes.
....I´m reading here of slowlyness, hat the phone freezes, and so on....
I have my TP2 now for 3 month....it is my first winmob device.
Have flashed a german custom ROM, and made some tweaks....have installed a lot of apps...
BUT: I think, the phone isnt THAT slow....also my phone doesnt freeze very often.
And, by the way: SMS works very well....!!!
So, are there any ports yet for the Kaiser that have ALL of the following working?
Bluetooth
Camera
GPS
WiFi
It's either find a ROM with everything working (as this is my only device and everything needs to work out of the gate), or jump ship with T-Mobile, move to Verizon, and snag the Incredible.
Thanx.
yes.......
Okay, which one(s)? I've looked through all the posts (I think...lost track), but haven't found one yet that isn't missing at least one of those prereqs. Thanx.
Myn's Warm Donut.
Of course, this depends on your definition of working, I know that camera works, gps, wifi, and bluetooth, however all still have some issues, so if you require these to work with the same efficiency and stability as winmo, we simply are not completely there yet.
No eclair builds have working camera yet.
However not everyone is fortunate enough to always have all of the above working reasonably well in any single build, not without a little hacking and patching at any rate.
To be honest, if your kaiser is your only phone, test drive with a haret install, and decide if you can live with android, personally I can't live without it now
That's just what I needed to hear. I'm off to port my account to VZW and pick up that incredible Incredible! Thanx.
If I had the option, I'd do the same, lol, I love my Kaiser, but sooner or later I will have to upgrade, and now only Android will do
zenity said:
If I had the option, I'd do the same, lol, I love my Kaiser, but sooner or later I will have to upgrade, and now only Android will do
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
haha quite right. Once you try android, theres no turning back, not to winmo atleast. Its amazing how stupid ms has been and lost all their power users, and most normal users too, even with the release of wp7.
And of course M$ has shot themselves in the foot (again), saying that 'older' devices will not be supported in WM7 so no upgrades. Someone needs to tell M$ we're in a resession! as not all of us can afford a new phone, so with no support and our phones now out of warranty we can do what we like, so bye bye M$ !
I actually like my phone, paid a lot for it, so if I can breathe new life into it with better software then that's good news, its certainly up to the job, just have to be patient and wait for the ports to mature and bugs to be fixed, but that's the great thing about open source, we can fix it without having to wait for M$ to do it, fantastic, just wish I was clever enough to develop/tinker with, the code.
Funny thing is, I have a Diamond and a Blackstone, both are obviously newer and more advanced than my kaiser, but neither can run Android in Nand yet, so they usually sit in a drawer, until the day that someone figures out how to do what has only been done on older hardware so far, namely a bootable Android that does not depend on M$, or HTC for that matter.
My kaiser is the envy of a number of my colleagues, two of whom have Android phones, but having used mine they say that it may be a little slower, but it looks and feels much nicer, and I have had more than one request to swap my kaiser for a Dream, which tempted me for about 15 seconds.....
xPreSiDenT said:
haha quite right. Once you try android, theres no turning back, not to winmo atleast. Its amazing how stupid ms has been and lost all their power users, and most normal users too, even with the release of wp7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wait a second. I just tried Android(Warm Donut) on my Tilt and I am about to go back to WinMo(AthineOS) which has everything working great and seems to be much cooler to use. I wonder what is so great about Android such that there is no turning back for you? Is it the apps cause I have WinMo stacked with some apps that can do much of what im seeing with Android if not better. The TouchFlo in WinMo is much more fluid than in what I experienced with Android. The interface looks better.
Hopefully, some of you can elaborate more on why Android on the Kaiser is considered better (or even worth it) considering what WinMo can do.
Maybe I am missing something cause I thought Android OS would be something special.
Not sure quite what it is, yes, Android may be slower than winmo, however unless you stick with Stock 6.1 you are always walking that fine line between stability and instability, on either OS.
I tried various custom roms, 6.1 and 6.5, and all of them suffered from small niggling annoyances, ( personal opinion, my use of my phone differs from that of the chef, and consequently what may be a great rom for some, may not be for others), Android has been the same really, however what I get from it is 'look and feel', I know thats a bit of a cop out, but thats what the difference is to me, winmo, with any ui, just felt awkward to use for some things, for me Android is smoother and more intuitive, and thats after a lot of years using windows pda/phone devices, from my ipaq 3660 to date almost everything else I have used has been windows based.
I know others will perhaps disagree, or see things differently, but for me windows on mobile devices will never seem the same, thats why I chose Android, with all the bugs and problems we have on devices it was not designed for, over an old, and dare I say, obsolete, OS.
And having been around since the early days of porting Android to kaiser, it's been damn exciting too, something I never felt with Windows Mobile for a long time.
zenity said:
Funny thing is, I have a Diamond and a Blackstone, both are obviously newer and more advanced than my kaiser, but neither can run Android in Nand yet, so they usually sit in a drawer, until the day that someone figures out how to do what has only been done on older hardware so far, namely a bootable Android that does not depend on M$, or HTC for that matter.
My kaiser is the envy of a number of my colleagues, two of whom have Android phones, but having used mine they say that it may be a little slower, but it looks and feels much nicer, and I have had more than one request to swap my kaiser for a Dream, which tempted me for about 15 seconds.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Despite that XDA seems to be more about newer phones then outdated models like ours, more people own those older phones then HD2 or Nexus One's. Simply because even with the discount from carriers, it still costs too much to upgrade.
Plus, a lot of these phones do end up as hand me downs. So they don't go away that easily. Plus, my Kaiser is built like a brick. Despite it's crazy flip up screen (which I love), it didn't break.
Despite being old, it's hardly outdated. The hardware is more then capable of doing 99% of the things I wanna do on my smart phone. About 25% surfing the web, 25% playing games, 10% as GPS, and 40% as a music or movie player.
My only complaint is the battery life sucks, and the camera sucks. More concerned about battery life then camera though.
Battery life is a bigger problem in Android, however as with everything android, new habits are good, like putting it on charge every night, always sees me though the day, which usually consists of music playing, facebook, news, texting and occasional gps use, never been below 40% battery at night, apart from once or twice when i forgot to switch the music player off and drained it completely.
I completely agree with zenity, its mostly about the look and feel of android, somehow it just seems much more better and actually like an OS for a phone, instead of a stripped down version of windows 95 or something. Ive been using winmo for a very long time too, going through wm 2003 to wm5, wm6 and wm6.x, and it was my firm belief that it was the most advanced, if not the most user friendly mobile OS out there. And if you look at the direction winmo is headed to now, youd steer clear of it for precisely the same reason.
But android is much more finger friendly, and even though it may not have equivalents of the most advanced software that winmo had(although I admit I havent looked around that much, android is based on linux and well it certainly doesnt lack the capability), I've found equivalents of all of the software I used in winmo. And the apps are free and nicer, with better UIs. Plus android seems to be well thought out, both in functionality and design. Ofcourse there are problems, but those are mostly due to the porting part of the process. I also had to go through minor changes in habits, but everythings settled down now.
I would like to add my 10p's worth to this debate, I got my Kaiser 2nd hand in 2008, I updated the ROM from O2 when it became available but after that there were no more updates, certainly O2 where not going to release a 6.5 Rom for it, I am not confident enough to put an Unofficial Rom on my device but I wanted to update it. I could not afford a new phone, yes sure I'd like one, but I'm not prepared to pay out £450+ for a phone, I just don't have that kind of money. Anyway I have been looking for ways to update my phone, a while back I found a program called Mobile Shell, by SBP, now this is pretty good, it gives you multiple desktops, cool widgets, but its really only a skin over WM6.1, it is cool though, but left me wanting more. I have friends with Android and WM6.5 devices which I've tried and this did make me want to do something about mine. Also last year, I suffered a detached retina, which left me blind in one eye, (very long story), I was already visually impaired, and now I have lost the sight in, what was, my best eye, which left me struggling to see my phone. Many of my friends, (who are blind) use Iphones, as they have speech output, but I didn't want an Iphone (I like my hardware keyboard, and I am not a 'Follower'). Windows left me lacking again, no speech output, text was tiny, even on largest settings, etc etc. When I was doing some research on accessibility on mobile, Iphone came top, but I noticed an article on Android, about it having accessibility features and speech, which led me (eventually), to ask if it was possible to run Android on my phone to try to get these features and allow me to use my mobile again.
With Zenity's kind guidance, I have Android running from my SD card while I test it out, sadly the Accessibility options will not enable for some reason, but I'm having a look at the market place to see what aps are available. I hear that 2.1 has better features, but as yet, that port isn't fully working on the Kaiser, so as soon as it is ready, I'd like to try it.
The end game is to replace WM with Android and have all the accessibility options in place so I can finally use my phone (normally) again. This must seem crazy to you guys, you are probably saying, "why don't you just get the Iphone and be done with it", well if you knew me, you'd know why, I don't like taking the easy road, if I can get this to work, I can say that I've done it (beaten my disability), just a sense of achievement, just the way I am
leona said:
The end game is to replace WM with Android and have all the accessibility options in place so I can finally use my phone (normally) again. This must seem crazy to you guys, you are probably saying, "why don't you just get the Iphone and be done with it", well if you knew me, you'd know why, I don't like taking the easy road, if I can get this to work, I can say that I've done it (beaten my disability), just a sense of achievement, just the way I am
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is perfectly understandable, and iphones nowhere near android in terms of functionality and user control. Hope you get it done and find a config that works for you. I dont know if it would be possible to add accessibility into our roms due to our limited memory, but hopefully some devs can look into that. myns warm donut has speech synthesis built in. It is used in many accessibilty apps like these. dont know which of these work on Kaiser though...
leona said:
The end game is to replace WM with Android and have all the accessibility options in place so I can finally use my phone (normally) again. This must seem crazy to you guys, you are probably saying, "why don't you just get the Iphone and be done with it", well if you knew me, you'd know why, I don't like taking the easy road, if I can get this to work, I can say that I've done it (beaten my disability), just a sense of achievement, just the way I am
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I totally understand, my mother suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, and is probably the most stubbornly independent woman I have even known, at 70+ she's still more active than half a dozen 30 year olds put together, and when she decides how things will be, then that is how they will be.
I'm happy to have helped, and hope this inspires someone to take a look at the accessibility options
xPreSiDenT said:
That is perfectly understandable, and iphones nowhere near android in terms of functionality and user control. Hope you get it done and find a config that works for you. I dont know if it would be possible to add accessibility into our roms due to our limited memory, but hopefully some devs can look into that. myns warm donut has speech synthesis built in. It is used in many accessibilty apps like these. dont know which of these work on Kaiser though...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
zenity said:
Actually I totally understand, my mother suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, and is probably the most stubbornly independent woman I have even known, at 70+ she's still more active than half a dozen 30 year olds put together, and when she decides how things will be, then that is how they will be.
I'm happy to have helped, and hope this inspires someone to take a look at the accessibility options
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you guys, yes we can be a suborn bunch
I am happy to run the OS off the SD card if memory is limited, from my use so far, it seems fast enough, so is it possible to create a fully operational version, even if its SD only?
I had not thought about how much space is needed for the roms, I just assumed that the kaisers had enough room as they have a 256Mb Flash.
This thread is really helpful to me. My T-Mobile Wing's screen just broke, and I'm now wondering what kind of phone to get.
I'm looking at used ones: I could get an old Wing (not great hardware wise), a Kaiser or an Android. I'm not sure if I'm ready to jump ship quite yet, so the possibility of running both Android and Winmo is quite appealing to me. Can you switch easily between the two? I understand certain things are not working in Android (mainly keyboard and camera), but it can be used on a daily basis as a phone? Also how's the battery life when running Winmo?
Having had a pocket pc running first mobile 2002, then 2003, and then 6.1 and 6.5 on my phone, I'm quite invested in the Windows mobile platform (however, Mobile 7 doesn't appeal to me from what I've seen).
Because I have several programs I've developed myself in use on a daily basis (some not published), I'm not sure about the Android platform. Any of you have experience developing for apps for Android?
ajige said:
Can you switch easily between the two?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are running from SD, switching from winmo to Android is as simple as running haret.exe, from Android back to winmo requires a soft reboot however.
ajige said:
I understand certain things are not working in Android (mainly keyboard and camera), but it can be used on a daily basis as a phone? Also how's the battery life when running Winmo?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keyboard works fine, no issues apart from having to be careful how you set up haret's default.txt file to avoid using the wrong keyboard type. Camera works if you use a Donut build, it's not working on Eclair builds yet.
I have used Android ( both donut and eclair, various builds), since early this year, and for the last 4 months it's been my only OS on my kaiser, it's completely useable as a phone, battery life in winmo is good, in android, not as good, however it will last through the day unless you use it for high power demand functions such as wifi or gps for extended periods, but the same can be said for winmo.
The main issues with running from SD are speed and stability, it is slower and less stable running from SD, installed to nand is better, but not as flexible if you need winmo functionality.
All in all, if it is your only phone, don't flash android, unless you are fully committed to it.
This has been going on for awhile now but it keeps getting worse and worse. My Tilt2 is extremely unstable. Usually after I flash it it will be fine for awhile, a couple of weeks maybe. After that it gets progressively more and more unstable. It gets less and less responsive, especially when waking, programs close without warning, I sometimes get graphical glitches. Hard locks are not uncommon. There have been days that I have had to soft reset my phone 3 or 4 times during the day.
Sense seems to be at least part of the culprit. Restarting it when things aren't responding seems to help sometimes. I sometimes have had some luck with deleting all of my text messages but that is only temporary at best.
I have been running Energy ROMs for the most part. Other ROMS I have tried have behaved similarly. XDAndroid is also abnormally unstable.
Could a bad SD card be causing the problems? I was trying to record a video with my phone a few days ago and it just suddenly stopped without warning. Trying to start the recording again resulted in it recording maybe a half second and then stopping again. Changing the storage to internal memory allowed recording normally. The camera app has also popped up a message about a new sd card being detected a couple of times recently.
May I add, that I have had enough with this phone. It's absolutely unreliable for any business worker who really needs a phone that can do simple tasks such as check emails, use bluetooth and of course, make a damn phone call - and it sucks at doing so.
I have flashed it with energy, and I must point out the dev has done a good job in appearance, other than that windows 6.1 - 6.5 is a TERRIBLE OS. I don't care what others have to say; if you can prove me wrong, then show a video that the phone is great.
I have numerous occasions where the phone just starts playing up. One huge annoyance is making calls. If someone calls you, who then later hangs up, the first thing you do is check who it is and then unlock the phone. But once you unlock it sometimes it doesn't allow you to press anything on the screen. You are then forced to reset the phone and wait for the boot screen and after that you are taken to the damn TIME REGION setting which takes an eternity to get to (like i already INPUT the place from before, why the hell must I remind the effin phone again?), afterwards even when you make a call, the call connects but you cannot hear ANYONE on the other line - thus you have to RESET the phone AGAIN!
Even once you are on a call, there are times that the phone decides to END IT. One may ask, "well your ear probably touched something" - great, nice to know my ear can act as a small stylus that SOMEHOW it can go slide all the way to the connectivity area and just by chance HIT the 'airplane' mode making the phone unavailable thus ending your call - this has co-incidentally happened to me already about 25 times!
I can keep going on, but check out my rant review on the got mine section here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=521271&page=173 - and read till the end.
While it has tons of nice eye candy, Energy is not the best in terms of speed and stability. Try a more lightweight ROM, like Jackos. Simplicity is also excellent, although it hasn't been updated in a while. Both of these ROMs are more lightweight, and manage memory better than Energy.
Got room for a "me too"? I've said it before. I don't know if the problem is HTC, Windows, or AT&T...or a combination of the three, but I have: Unreliable, painfully slow 3G; frequent dropped phone calls; Internet browser DNS failures; Wi-fi that seems to be just for show; and finally, a phone that is so slow to respond to any screen taps or button pushses that it tests my patience daily. Oh yes, I almost forgot, I have to reset the phone at least every other day and sometimes as often as twice in one day.
I still have ten months on my contract, and then it is goodbye to HTC, ATT, and Windows Mobile. I know you die hards here on the forum say iPhone is for kids and Windows is for business, but for my business, a working phone is what is important, and this ain't it!
redpoint73 said:
While it has tons of nice eye candy, Energy is not the best in terms of speed and stability. Try a more lightweight ROM, like Jackos. Simplicity is also excellent, although it hasn't been updated in a while. Both of these ROMs are more lightweight, and manage memory better than Energy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you must go Energy though, stick with the "Reference" builds. It does't have all the apps you never use on it, just the important ones. Runs much better on speed and battery life for me.
Although I will probably go with an android phone next contract cycle, windows mobile 7 (or whatever it's called) is actually quite nice.
slapshot30 said:
If you must go Energy though, stick with the "Reference" builds. It does't have all the apps you never use on it, just the important ones. Runs much better on speed and battery life for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep. I am using that. And I am still very annoyed with this phone.
dirty_johnny said:
Although I will probably go with an android phone next contract cycle, windows mobile 7 (or whatever it's called) is actually quite nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, WM7 might indeed be nice. However, in spite of the typical Microsoft promises, there are still few apps for WM 7...just like prior versions of WM. iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. If you don't have one of those, you are SOL.
BTW, avatar28, I just had to do my fifth hard reset since installing ROM 2.nnnn, so I took this opportunity to go back to the original 1.5nnn ROM. I had almost forgotten how much I lost with the "upgrade", not the least of which is the task manager icon on the home screen and the ability to select from All Programs without having to install each one on a button. Yeah, I no longer have a video recorder, but I'll deal with it (LOL)!
dirty_johnny said:
Although I will probably go with an android phone next contract cycle, windows mobile 7 (or whatever it's called) is actually quite nice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You do realize WP7 is closed-source... right? That means not NEARLY as much development and such that you got on the Tilt2/TP2. Get Android and you will be able to customize even more than you did in winmo, and have a stable overclock.
slapshot30 said:
You do realize WP7 is closed-source... right? That means not NEARLY as much development and such that you got on the Tilt2/TP2. Get Android and you will be able to customize even more than you did in winmo, and have a stable overclock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeh but i rather get a WP7 than deal with the **** Wm6+ has to offer even if it does have more development. Even if it does, that doesn't entirely mean the phone is going to be very stable in performing.
sharkfinrazor said:
Yeh but i rather get a WP7 than deal with the **** Wm6+ has to offer even if it does have more development. Even if it does, that doesn't entirely mean the phone is going to be very stable in performing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is very stable and is much more aesthetically pleasing in my opinion than WP7. The possibilities with android are so much more vast than WP7. The whole windows phone as a whole is slowly deteriorating and I feel sorry that you don't understand that. It still has hardly any apps compared to Android or even iPhone. You seem like you want a stock operating system though, so I guess if you really want to stay away from modding and customizing your phone, get that 'soon to be dead' WP7.
Modding (open source) = Android
Stock (closed source) = WP7
slapshot30 said:
You do realize WP7 is closed-source... right? That means not NEARLY as much development and such that you got on the Tilt2/TP2. Get Android and you will be able to customize even more than you did in winmo, and have a stable overclock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Like I said, I will most likely go with an android phone next go around - specifically because of the open vs closed source. However - I know of some upcoming things that might also make the win 7 mobile even more of a nice package (for the right consumer). Or maybe it will lead to another release of a new mobile operating platform (ala win 7 trumping 6.5). Time will tell.
To be perfectly honest, I only have the win 6.5 phone because it was free with a 2 year. Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint are currently running a similar deal on win 7 phones. Free is a pretty compelling argument.
dirty_johnny said:
Like I said, I will most likely go with an android phone next go around - specifically because of the open vs closed source. However - I know of some upcoming things that might also make the win 7 mobile even more of a nice package (for the right consumer). Or maybe it will lead to another release of a new mobile operating platform (ala win 7 trumping 6.5). Time will tell.
To be perfectly honest, I only have the win 6.5 phone because it was free with a 2 year. Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint are currently running a similar deal on win 7 phones. Free is a pretty compelling argument.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on how you order your priorities. In my opinion, my phone is something I use many many times every single day. I want to be able to constantly change it and be excited about it all the time (I got bored with winmo after a while). I just bought a non-contract android phone for around $400 and to me that is worth it, to others who don't care as much about modding and such, it probably wouldn't be worth it.
slapshot30 said:
It depends on how you order your priorities. In my opinion, my phone is something I use many many times every single day. I want to be able to constantly change it and be excited about it all the time (I got bored with winmo after a while). I just bought a non-contract android phone for around $400 and to me that is worth it, to others who don't care as much about modding and such, it probably wouldn't be worth it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, I can buy one whole tire for that amount
Hehe. I've been so busy lately I almost forgot about this thread. I haven't even been on the boards.
bowserb said:
Yes, WM7 might indeed be nice. However, in spite of the typical Microsoft promises, there are still few apps for WM 7...just like prior versions of WM. iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. If you don't have one of those, you are SOL.
BTW, avatar28, I just had to do my fifth hard reset since installing ROM 2.nnnn, so I took this opportunity to go back to the original 1.5nnn ROM. I had almost forgotten how much I lost with the "upgrade", not the least of which is the task manager icon on the home screen and the ability to select from All Programs without having to install each one on a button. Yeah, I no longer have a video recorder, but I'll deal with it (LOL)!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know that I would say there are very few apps. They just announced the 20k mark at the end of May (doubled in about a month). It's not a lot compared to the 300k or whatever on iOS but a lot of those are basically clones of each other anyways. A lot of iOS and 'Droid apps are just packaged HTML5 anyways and will be easy to port if/when WP7 gets some traction.
I think I may give a different ROM a shot. Something without CHT2 since I think that's some of the problem and I've gotten to where I don't even bother customizing it anymore because of hard resets/reflashes.
slapshot30 said:
You do realize WP7 is closed-source... right? That means not NEARLY as much development and such that you got on the Tilt2/TP2. Get Android and you will be able to customize even more than you did in winmo, and have a stable overclock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think there is a lot more application development on WP7. But you're right about there being a lot less development of customizations and the like. Maybe with Mango we'll get more adoption and that will help things.
Honestly, I really want a new phone but I'm trying to hold off. I really want to see what Mango and the new version of Android bring to the table and I want some better hardware than the current crop of WP7 offerings. Something with specs similar to the T-Mo G2 maybe.
I have to agree this phone is a disappointment. Part of the problem is that it is underpowered for the software it runs i.e. WinMo/Sense 2.5. I find that a process called GWES keeps expanding over time since last soft reset and consumes a large slab of runtime memory. The effect of this is to make things like the camera really slow to load. I don't know if it is a memory leak but it seems rediculous having a process that doesn't have some restrictions on its memory consumption.
I was having massive problems with Standby Of Death but replacing the SIM card seems to have fixed that much to my surprise.
I have to say that I look enviously at iPhone users who press something on the screen and the response is practically instantaneous compared to the sluggish performance of WM6.5. The WP7 phones are supposed to perform well but I guess the generous minimum specs mandated by MS have a lot to do with that.
Ashley
slapshot30 said:
Android is very stable and is much more aesthetically pleasing in my opinion than WP7. The possibilities with android are so much more vast than WP7. The whole windows phone as a whole is slowly deteriorating and I feel sorry that you don't understand that. It still has hardly any apps compared to Android or even iPhone. You seem like you want a stock operating system though, so I guess if you really want to stay away from modding and customizing your phone, get that 'soon to be dead' WP7.
Modding (open source) = Android
Stock (closed source) = WP7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure i made it clear that I prefer a WP7 phone over a WM6, not WP7 over android. I know how android works and that they are an open source, that is not new news. I'm just saying that the tp2 with wimo6 is a joke of a full time business phone. I'm not a full coding developer so I'm not interested in tricking the tp2 that it can perform something when it really can't - or it can't do whatever it's suppose to do well.
Open source is good, but sometimes it sucks that u can come across terrible, buggy apps. Sure they are free and can be fixed but that's where it fails for the consumer. These buggy apps could potentially destroy your phone. And this is the biggest flaw that winmo6 has to offer. it makes sense to just get rid of the whole entire os altogether; the most important fact of what a consumer needs in a phone is one that WORKS as a phone, NOT a developing tool.
I'm sure Microsoft understood this, which is why they are not open source. That's like if nintendo had anyone building their games without any consent from nintendo in doing so. We'd get a lot of crappy buggy games. Plus Microsoft isn't a small company. Having xbox integrated with wm7 plus buying out Skype and working together with nokia for some of their phones is a huge thing for
WP7 - so saying that they will die sometime soon is by far from happening.
Don't think that WP7 will die due to the lack of open source. The most that anyone needs on a phone is to make calls, txt/email msgs, make notes, watch movies, play music and or internet browsing - do we really need many developers to make something that's already integrated on the phone? Plus they have ms office - as a full business worker that's a big plus.