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Review of Windows Mobile 6-Based "Wing"

Posted by kdawson on from the waitin'-for-june-29 dept.

opeeeerah sends us to Gundeep Hora's review of the Wing, the first Windows Mobile 6 OS-based smartphone from T-Mobile. He concludes: "Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 is a disappointment. Working with a number of applications or 'heavy' documents was painful. The delay was too much, especially in Word and PowerPoint... All in all, the T-Mobile Wing is... a decent smartphone. If nothing else, it's an interesting gadget for the young and hip crowd, though we wouldn't recommend it for productivity hounds that are looking to do reports and presentations... Not to mention, the sexy and strange appeal of the device can't be pleasing to serious professionals. For $299.99 from T-Mobile, it's a worthy Sidekick replacement."

123 comments

  1. iPhone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Great. I won't be distracted by this from the iPhone at the end of the month.

    But, the vibe seems to be that the iPhone could be a letdown.

    1. Re:iPhone... by ringfinger · · Score: 1

      Now that it's Jobs is saying that iphone will support 3rd party apps, they'll be setting the bar for phone OS's. I d bet the market for phones gets stratified just like the MP3-player market is now -- there's IPods, and then the rest are all followers. http://30days.itious.com/

      --
      21st-Century-Citizen
    2. Re:iPhone... by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 1

      You do realize that he basically said that the iPhone is too unstable for third party development? What bar, exactly, will they be setting?

    3. Re:iPhone... by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Well, Jobs hasn't said anything of any great depth. If the iPhone is as beholden to the powers-that-be as iTunes is, functionality will be an issue when it possibly curtails money-making activities of other parties involved in the iPhone. iTunes used to have lots of functionality in its SDK that has since been taken away because of the possibility of piracy, even though the functionality was massively useful for legal purposes. I won't hold my breath for its release, but I hope it's not as much of a cluster-fuck of conflicts of interest as other Apple SDKs. Let's just wait until the thing hits the shelves before proclaiming it the bar-setter of the smartphone world, ok? Lest we look like fanboys, which I'm not saying we are.

    4. Re:iPhone... by toleraen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What does the iPhone add to the mobile phone market that isn't already there? Symbian, Linux, and Windows Mobile already have SDKs out there, and have for quite some time. As far as I can tell the iPhone is the follower.

    5. Re:iPhone... by stang · · Score: 0

      What does the iPhone add to the mobile phone market that isn't already there?

      Usability.

      --
      "200 Quatloos on the newcomer!" "300 Quatloos against!"
    6. Re:iPhone... by toleraen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm pretty sure I just used my phone 5 minutes ago. I plan on using it again pretty shortly. Wanna go in depth, even just a smidgen?

    7. Re:iPhone... by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 1

      And you know this because you've been using the iPhone without a usability complaint for, what, how long now? Weeks? Months?

    8. Re:iPhone... by mrbooze · · Score: 1

      There were hard-drive mp3 players on the market before the iPod too, I used to own one of them long before the iPod came out. Who's the follower now?

      Not that I'm predicting the iPhone will sweep the cell phone market. I think that's going to be a much harder market to dominate. But just because there are competitors out there now doesn't mean a new company can't come in and take the lead.

    9. Re:iPhone... by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Each has its problems. With Symbian it's cost (don't know about the available developer resources). At a few dollars a seat, the licensing fees add up quickly. With Linux its standardization. There is no one Linux OS out there with a ubiquitous platform SDK; but that will all change if/when LiMo pans out. As for Windows, its, cost and end-user usability. Windows has a great suite of developer tools and resources, but for a mobile OS it really sucks. Win CE is essentially stripped-down Windows with a different shell. Plus, the costs are astronomical. I think its current $3/seat for the Smartphone build and $16/seat for Pocket PCs. Now, that's a kick it your CFO's gut. If iPhones can hit the market with all the bells and whistles that users want, lower cost, and Mac's reputation for usability, they can take over the market. Symbian is still king, but the mobile OS market is wide open with the collapse of Palm and Microsoft's failure to step up to the plate.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    10. Re:iPhone... by cornface · · Score: 1

      Similarly sized and priced phones, with comparable features, are already on the market and include full keyboards. Removing the keyboard without reducing the size of the unit is a giant step backwards in usability for something billing itself as a "breakthrough internet device."

    11. Re:iPhone... by Silas+is+back · · Score: 1

      Usability != Usability

      Come on, have you ever seen an ad for a cellphone which _only_ shows the UI and nevertheless blows you away? I haven't.

      --
      this sig is useless
    12. Re:iPhone... by dedazo · · Score: 1
      Not really, because if I'm going to plop down $500 for a device, I don't expect that it will do more than just sit there and look uber kewl.

      Since no one outside of Steve Jobs and the dude in the ad (which might very well be Steve Jobs) have ever used an iPhone, your claims of superb usability simply cannot be taken seriously. Just wait until it's released and some random non-Apple-fanboy techie can write a real review based on facts instead of optimistic expectations.

      --
      Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    13. Re:iPhone... by Silas+is+back · · Score: 1

      Oh, yes, that's true for sure, but you can't deny that what you see in the ad is already standards-rising. Sure, I want to hold one in my own hands to see how it works, especially the on-screen keyboard. But hell, I loved my Palm until I saw what actually can be done with todays technology.

      As for the 500$, don't forget that you get a video-iPod with it, too.

      --
      this sig is useless
    14. Re:iPhone... by toleraen · · Score: 1

      If it's the ad I'm thinking of (at work, can't check it), I remember thinking "Great, all things I can do with the d-pad on my 8525." I don't particularly care about flash, I just want functionality. Are there videos yet of someone typing an email or text message? That's the part of the UI I want to see. The forced on screen keyboard (and the lack of 3G) are generally the only things that are keeping me from having any interest in this thing. The ultra-hype isn't helping either, but objectively it's just those two.

    15. Re:iPhone... by Silas+is+back · · Score: 1

      Those ads are mainly about "fun" things, sure. On this one you see the mail client, but not composing a message. You can see a demo with the mail client here, though. As for typing a message, me too, I want to try it myself.

      I think people who say "Great, I can do that with my XY, too" still didn't get the idea. It's all about the UI, a coherent UI. It's not so much about WHAT you can do, it's about HOW you do it. Simple example: On my phone, I need to press two buttons to read the latest text message. Same on the iPhone. But if I want to read that new text message later and first view some sent messages, I have to dismiss the alert telling me that a new message has arrived, open the menu, navigate to messages, choose "text messages" (3rd entry!! how stupid), choose "Sent" (again, 3rd entry in the menu) and look for the message. On the iPhone, it's still two taps. The same two taps.

      --
      this sig is useless
  2. disapointment comes from expectation by bombastinator · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You'd think after 6 revisions each of which was as bad as the last that one would stop expecting them to com out with something decent. With what appears to be the possible future demise of Palm though it may stop being thought o as awful simply because there is little to compare it to. As the old joke goes Q: how many microsoft engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: None, they just change the standard to darkness.

    1. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by bombastinator · · Score: 0

      yeah I'll take that. It does come out over forceful on a re read. I plead 4 am syndrome

    2. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by ClarionCall · · Score: 5, Informative

      Blaming the Operating System for the speed on this is off base. The specs on this 200MHz TI processor, 2-megapixel camera, 64MB of internal RAM, 128MB of ROM Show that this is a step back down from other HTC machines, the Old HTC Blue Angel had a nominal clock speed of 400 MHz. The other things is all of the junk that T-Mobile loads up on the machine, with a 200 MHz Clock, and a limited 64 MB of ram, you really don't want to fill up the available RAM with all sorts of junk like all of the standard carrier roms do. But heck, blame WM6. I know that WM5 was slower in some ways than WM2003SE, but it had data persistence that was missing in WM2003 & WM2003SE. WM6 is faster in my experience than WM5 on the same hardware, other than that I don't see a big difference. The Bluetooth stack is said to be more stable, but I still use wired headsets, so I can't comment on that.

    3. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is the operators. They subsidize the phones, so they force the manufacturers into lowering the costs by underspecing the components. 200MHz 64Mb RAM is where PDAs were at 5 years ago.

    4. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by toleraen · · Score: 4, Informative

      Exactly. I'm running WM6 on an HTC Hermes, and it's extremely fast and responsive. There are several improvements 'under the hood' such as Office Mobile 2007, updated Pocket Internet Explorer, HTML email, improved internet sharing, Windows Live integration, better bluetooth, better battery life, windows update, etc. There aren't any blazingly new features over WM5, just a lot of tweaks to the software. I'm guessing that's why MS has offered free WM6 upgrades to the carriers.

      Of course the carriers will load down their roms with a ton of crap, so to get the most out of it you'll have to cook your own rom to get rid of it...but they should be blaming their carriers for that one.

    5. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by Stocktonian · · Score: 1

      I'm no Microsoft fan but of all the Windows operating systems, I like the Mobile edition best.

      If you knew me you'd realise that was almost high praise for an MS product. I've used a couple of earlier versions on mobile phones and found them to actually be stable and productive. I always tell people when I'm bashing MS that at least they can make a mobile OS.

      ---
      http://www.linuxlaptops.eu/

      --
      XePhi Computers sell really cheap Linux CDs! http://www.xephi.co.uk
    6. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by bryan1945 · · Score: 1

      "You'd think after 6 revisions"

      95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista........

      --
      Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
    7. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by bombastinator · · Score: 1

      Windows mobile not windows. Different animal entirely. Though it might be noted that each of the systems you mention is actually slower than the one before. (with the possible exception of 95' - 98')

    8. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by tjensor · · Score: 1

      It also ignores T-Mobiles bizzare incompetance at configuring Windows mobile devices. I have an MDA and it took a switch to the I-Mate configuration to get any kind of performance out of it.

      --
      <fnord>OBEY</fnord>
    9. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by mgblst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Blaming the Operating System for the speed on this is off base.
       
      Sure, this sort of makes sense, until we think about hardware from the past. When I think about what we used to do on the original Palm 33mhz machines, or even back to the old Amigas. The fact is that Microsoft is not trying at all to produce a better operating system, they are just shoe-horning the PC version of windows onto these things. That is why it is so slow, and there is no excuse for it.

    10. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by everphilski · · Score: 3, Informative

      If a companies embedded OS cant work on that speed of a processor then they need to simply give up and stop.

      Yeah, at the speeds processors were running nine years ago. I had a Phillips Nino with over 200mHz processing speed in 1998. Seriously, the hardware is gimp, that's the problem.

    11. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by MickDownUnder · · Score: 1

      *Cough*

      http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo70 0w/

      Palm?

      Even palm are using Windows Mobile in preference to their own OS.

      The Palm OS is history.

    12. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by bombastinator · · Score: 1

      they sell treos with both OS's on them.

      The only statement about relative sales I could find show the palm os version outselling it's windows based sibling pretty soundly even though the palm version was significantly older and had fewer features.

      http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9165/npd-report s-smartphone-growth-spurt/

      Some better numbers could help here but I can't find any.

    13. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by iocat · · Score: 1

      I assume the lame processors these days are due to power consumption. I'd happy go back to a monochrome screen in return for a wicked fast processor. Or a really efficiently written OS. I have a Cingular 8525 abd while it's nice in some respects, it chugs terribly at times.

      --

      Dude, I think I can see my house from here.

    14. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by hxnwix · · Score: 1

      Remember that in terms of IPC, xscale : arm :: p4 : athlon. The old HTC wizard also sports a 200MHz OMAP (a TI ARM + goodies processor) & performs quite well in comparison to 416MHz PXA270 products - if you overclock it ;)

      There's no reason to be squeamish about overclocking your phone.

    15. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by jandrese · · Score: 1

      It matters a lot though. Comparing my old 7100t Blackberry with the new Blackberry Pearl the most noticable difference is that the processor in the Pearl is way faster than on the 7100. You can really tell when the browser is open, but even the menus are snappier. The second thing you notice is that while the 7100t would easily get a week on a single charge, the Pearl is dying after two days. Both phones have big bright screens and use similar (identical?) batteries. Granted the Pearl has a bunch of other features (like EDGE support instead of just GPRS), but I'm suspecting the processor is the primary culprit in the dramatically shortened battery life.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    16. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by erko · · Score: 1

      After seeing that Skype could run on smart phones/pdas with a 400Mhz clock, it's suspicious that cell phone manufacturers have shipped fewer 400Mhz phones/pdas and more phones with processors around 200Mhz. Well, maybe it just seems that way to me (I don't follow cell phone releases that closely). If everybody could use wifi for phone calls, would the cell phone service providers lose a lot of money?

      That being said, they could just be minimizing physical battery size and maximizing the time between recharges.

    17. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by Arterion · · Score: 1

      Actually, the windows update is "blazingly new" feature. Have you tried to "update" a WM5 phone? The only way to do it is flash in a new ROM. And usually, the cell carriers won't provide such a thing unless they absolutely must. Sure, the "community" puts some roms together with the updates, but it's a huge pain to figure out. Mostly pouring over forums for hours and hours, and understanding the technology. Not for joe user at all.

      --
      "That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
    18. Re:disapointment comes from expectation by toleraen · · Score: 1

      Yeah, actually I flash the rom on my phone every few weeks. Radio updates, custom booloaders, unlocked extrom, etc. I've generally hacked my phone in every way possible, but that's just my thing. These days on the 8525 it's honestly as easy as connecting active sync, and running a few automatically installing files. No, not for joe user at all, but it's possible if you want to spend an hour or two figuring out the device you spent $500 on.

  3. Over it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Typical Slashdot FUD. I've been using WM6 with my Dash for a few months now and think it is great. I can do pretty much anything including monitoring my house through wireless cameras while I'm away and play a ton of bittorrent content I've downloaded. The Voice commander is just awesome as well.

    1. Re:Over it by bombastinator · · Score: 1

      You monitor your house with wireless cameras while you are away?! How.. um... obsessive.. btw anything with a full web browser can do that. Assuming of course you have your house festooned with web capable security cameras.

    2. Re:Over it by sussane · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      T-Mobile sucks, i used T-mobile and was cursing my self after using. ....

      --
      Best Regards, Eliena Andrews
    3. Re:Over it by darinp · · Score: 0

      I monitor my house the same way. I can hit various webcams from my phone. But I've got a Ducati in the downstairs bedroom. I think that makes it a sexual thing and thus OK.

    4. Re:Over it by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1

      I can do pretty much anything including monitoring my house through wireless cameras while I'm away and play a ton of bittorrent content I've downloaded.

      What do you use to play videos, and are they h.264? I've been having a devil of a time getting videos to reliably play in Windows mobile.
      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:Over it by martin_b1sh0p · · Score: 1

      I just got a T-Mobile Dash (HTC Excalibur) with WM6 on it this weekend. First thing I did was install TCPMP (http://picard.exceed.hu/tcpmp/test/). Trust me, WAY better video player than Windows Media. Although I still use Windows Media to play music since TCPMP removed the m4a codec (non-DRM iTunes music).

    6. Re:Over it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As another poster already stated, I use TCPMP, The Core Media Player. I use Linksys wireless cameras and what this combo gives me is the ability to view live video streams directly without having to load any webpages or funky Java,flash, or activex clients. I think you'll find TCPMP chocked full of features and has a huge support library for even the weirdest codecs.

    7. Re:Over it by wikinerd · · Score: 1

      I run Windows Mobile 5 on HTC Universal and it makes my life difficult. The perfect hardware combined with the most stupid software. It sucks big time.

  4. WM5 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows Mobile 5 was a pretty crappy OS too. The operating system would still crash after a fresh hard reset (like formatting for PDAs). Even Windows 98SE didn't do that. It had plenty of bugs (SD card would randomly disappear), although most are fixed now. Easily the worst of all Windows OS systems.

    Once Familiar Linux works decently on the Axim x51v, I'll be switching to that.

    1. Re:WM5 by Bertie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I think you're being overly charitable there. It's absolutely dire. I got a Windows Mobile 5 phone because it had loads of seemingly useful features, and I have cursed the day ever since. Really, I should have known better. What kind of a phone crashes regularly when you go to answer a call? And what genius came up with the idea of keeping programs in memory even though you've closed them, so that eventually the phone slows to a crawl, forcing you to kill all running applications?

      And as for the UI - oh my. The simplest, most common operations are incredibly complicated. The other day, someone asked me for a friend's phone number, and I went to send it as a text message, like you can with every other phone in existence, and generally with ease. It won't do it. It'll try to send it as a picture message, even though the contact didn't actually have a picture attached, and you don't get any alternative. In the end I gave up and cut and pasted it into an SMS myself. I could quote similar examples all day long.

      It's windows 3.1 reincarnated, I'm convinced of it. Avoid at all costs.

    2. Re:WM5 by ozmanjusri · · Score: 1
      The other day, someone asked me for a friend's phone number, and I went to send it as a text message, like you can with every other phone in existence, and generally with ease. It won't do it.

      Just to clarify that "cut and paste" part, if your friend's number is in Contacts, you have to open their contact page, tap "Edit" from the bottom menu, select the number from the correct field on the edit page, then tap "Edit" from the bottom menu again. Don't worry, it's a different "Edit"...
      Then you start a new text message, tap "Edit" from the bottom menu yet again, select "Paste" from the pop-up, add any explanations and/or apologies for the delay, then tap "Send".

      If your OS hasn't crashed in the mean time, you'll have sent your friend's number. Congratulations!

      I'm just amazed that after six iterations, it's still as clumsy, unintuitive and unrefined as ever.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    3. Re:WM5 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Contacts --> Press and hold on contact --> Select Send Contact --> Text message from the context menu.

      Tick the items of contact info you want to send.

      Select recipient of text message in the usual way.

      No editing or pasting.

      But I suppose it is more fun to hate on Microsoft.

    4. Re:WM5 by jimicus · · Score: 1

      And what genius came up with the idea of keeping programs in memory even though you've closed them, so that eventually the phone slows to a crawl, forcing you to kill all running applications?

      Makes a lot of sense on a desktop PC when disk is orders of magnitude slower than RAM and you've got the room to implement a proper memory manager to handle such behaviour.

      Actually, a similar explanation works for almost any piece of poor design in Windows - ask yourself the question "does this feature make more sense on a single, probably not networked desktop PC which is used by one person?" and 9 times out of 10 the answer's "Yes".

    5. Re:WM5 by RMH101 · · Score: 1

      to be perfectly accurate, this feature was added in WM5 AKU3.2 I believe - hence not all of them have it. There are downloadable tools to add this feature if your ROM doesn't have it, and of course there are zillions of alternate ROMS available for most of the WM devices at places like www.xda-developers.com.
      The thing I love about my HTC Wizard is the sheer customisability of it. You can tinker with *everything* - OK, it's not open source but there's so much free stuff out there for it that's really great.

    6. Re:WM5 by ozmanjusri · · Score: 1
      Contacts --> Press and hold on contact --> Select Send Contact --> Text message from the context menu.

      Not on my version, it doesn't.

      But I suppose it is more fun to hate on Microsoft.

      It'd be MUCH more fun to have a decent phone/pda operating system.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    7. Re:WM5 by ozmanjusri · · Score: 3, Informative
      of course there are zillions of alternate ROMS available for most of the WM devices at places like www.xda-developers.com

      Not any more, there aren't.

      Microsoft insisted that all ROMs be removed as of February this year. They're all gone now.

      Offering these ROMs has been an invaluable resource to many developers and enthusiasts. Every once in a while someone uploaded an image that was not supposed to be released yet, but when Microsoft or someone else complained we immediately took it down. Recently Microsoft has begun to complain on a different level, asking us to remove _all_ the ROM images.
      http://www.xda-developers.com/modules.php?name=New s&file=showarticle&threadid=294142
      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    8. Re:WM5 by lorddarthpaul · · Score: 1

      > What kind of a phone crashes regularly when you go to answer a call?
      I had a SONY-Ericsson T616 from Cingular (OK, the old AT&T Wireless) and it would restart/reboot about 1 in 20 times when I would try to answer a call. I cannot remember the Motorola L7 that I have now ever doing that. Motorola also understands direct shortcuts, and I can even carry a handful of favorite songs along with the L7's (rather limited) iTunes. The T616 had a case of "really bad UI", often unable to do the obvious thing (i.e. your text message example).

    9. Re:WM5 by RMH101 · · Score: 1

      OK, what I should have said is something like:
      "There used to be loads of ROMS at www.xda-developers.com - these are no longer hosted on their FTP server but can be found via rapidshare links in their forums. There are tons and tons of reg hacks, applications etc available if you register with their forums though."

      My HTC Wizard was sold as a T-Mobile Vario when I bought it 2nd hand off ebay. It came with a load of horrible pink T-Mobile branding and a very, very slow ROM. I flashed it with the "Mr Clean" ROM and not only was it about 40% faster, it had a nicer interface, added A2DP stereo bluetooth, push email and the AKU2.3 update. It's twice the phone it was before, and I've even got it to dynamically under and overclock the CPU for better battery life and performance.
      I've even just got the threaded Treo-style SMS working...

    10. Re:WM5 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      See comment somewhere above about AKU 3.2

      Ask your phone provider for an upgrade.

      You can also get EMVC++ for free or some incarnation of Visual Studio and develop your own contact list program. I find it quite nice to be able to write my own stuff for my phone, which is something of an advantage over normal phones.

      If you have specific ideas about what you want in a PDA/phone operating system, why not go join OpenMoko or something? Failing that, let us know what they are ;-)

      I would never presume to speak for anyone else but Windows Mobile works for me, both in the version that was on my PDA and the version I upgraded to have been perfectly stable, and certainly better than the "we made it up as we went along" crap that has been on the various phones I had before a PDA.

      Disclaimer: I write PDA applications for a living. None of our customers have problems with their devices either (well apart from our software, haha).

    11. Re:WM5 by ozmanjusri · · Score: 1
      Disclaimer: I write PDA applications for a living.

      Funny thing is, I used to do that too - I wrote an auditing tool and an explosives management app that we used to load onto ruggedised Palms and sell to mining companies. It was simple enough that you could hand it to a field assistant and expect they'd be able to use it.

      I still believe that's what the design brief for PDA phones should be - not this mess of arcane menus and half-arsed apps that you can't even be confident will sound it's alarms when you need it to.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    12. Re:WM5 by zhenya00 · · Score: 1

      Not on mine either, and I'm on v3.5. I only have the option to 'beam' it. That might have been helpful in 1999.

    13. Re:WM5 by Arterion · · Score: 1

      I have AKU 3.5, and that feature isn't there. It's the Hemi_C ROM. Are you sure it's standard 3.5, or something that most people making 3.5 ROMs add in?

      --
      "That which does not kill us makes us stranger." -Trevor Goodchild
    14. Re:WM5 by RMH101 · · Score: 1

      I'm running the AKU 2.3 "Mr Clean" ROM - it's not standard, but it's not too wacky. I've got it in mine. Some standard ROMS *definitely* contain it though. Have an ask at xda devs? In their forums you'll also find a cab file that adds this functionality if you dig around... Ric

  5. Consistency? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Why this is a bad review:

    We were impressed with the crisp, bright display, and we had absolutely no problem working with documents, emails and multimedia files.

    Interestingly and rather usefully, we must add, there are two tiny LED lights (along with two additional soft keys), similar to the ones on full sized keyboards, that will enable you to get an actual visual of Alt and Caps status. Now only if Palm and BlackBerry could add such an alert...

    From a features standpoint, perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Wing is Microsoft's new Windows Mobile 6 OS. It doesn't bring a lot of substantial additions to the table, but it improves a lot of minute things that make a noteworthy difference. For instance, the Calendar view is more revealing with an updated user interface. Now, you can have access to information, for instance where you are holding the meeting, right on the display without the need to open each entry. The email functionality is more streamlined with automatic syncing between Wing and Outlook on your PC. Call History is another feature that sees an update. It's more organized based on specific contact information.

    According to T-Mobile, the call time is rated at 4.5 hours with 3 days of standby time. We managed to score a whopping 8 hours with a little bit of web browsing, gaming, video/audio playback and photo taking mixed in. Talk about under promising and over delivering.

    It's poorly written and disagrees with itself. Two clues that the conclusions are probably more noise than signal.
  6. So many reviews.. by consonant · · Score: 2, Informative

    ..from "decent" sources, and still the submission with a CoolTechZone review makes it to the front page. CoolTechZone sucks, leave it out of here, even if the occasional Microsoft-bashing does go on there..

    --
    [Slashdot Comments We Liked]
    1. Re:So many reviews.. by Churla · · Score: 1

      I've got to agree on this.

      On top of that Those three articles and even the majority of TFA here all say it's a decently good smartphone. Heck PCmag gave it something like 4.5 out of 5. OTOH towards the end of ONE of the reviews is a disparaging comment about Windows Mobile 6, so what becomes the quote in the story lead in? Well that of course!

      I've got Karma to burn and a full desire to call out the level to which this site is becoming more about hating the right things to hate and loving the right things to love rather than the actual technology involved.

      --
      I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
  7. World's most vapid review by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Funny

    T-Mobile has always gone after the young and hip crowd, and the Wing is no different in that regard.
    The vibrant exterior of the Wing is bluish in color, an ideal color choice for teens and 20-somethings. We get the feeling that T-Mobile may be going after the professional crowd, but we doubt too many professionals would go after such a trendy looking device.

    I will never get back the 30 seconds of my life wasted reading those two sentences. Could they not have said 'it is blue'?
    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    1. Re:World's most vapid review by WaZiX · · Score: 1

      Well, at least it's not brown...

    2. Re:World's most vapid review by jimicus · · Score: 1

      If they carried on down that path, ultimately the review would read "It is blue and it sucks".

      But it's pretty hard to justify your pay if that's your idea of a review.

    3. Re:World's most vapid review by jollyreaper · · Score: 1

      quote> T-Mobile has always gone after the young and hip crowd, and the Wing is no different in that regard.
              The vibrant exterior of the Wing is bluish in color, an ideal color choice for teens and 20-somethings. We get the feeling that T-Mobile may be going after the professional crowd, but we doubt too many professionals would go after such a trendy looking device. I will never get back the 30 seconds of my life wasted reading those two sentences. Could they not have said 'it is blue'? My initial reaction is that anyone who selects a mobile device based on colors rather than features is a total yutz. But then I considered, would I want to use a Slashdot-branded OMG! PONIEZ!!! phone, complete with hot pink exterior and "drag queen purple" pinstriping? We're all susceptible to appearances, just to differing degrees.
      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  8. Worst Review Ever by Stevecrox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have no idea if this particular phone is good or not that review was quite pants. For starters yes its larger and heavier than most smartphones most Windows Mobile phones are, is it substantially heavier than those? Mentioning outlook synching and the fact location appears with the appointment makes me question if they even used a Windows Mobile 5 phone (hint a WM5 does just that.) What is a 'heavy' document and how does WM6 compare to WM5? I want to know if the word functionality is better I already know trying to open a 2MB document in Word Mobile takes ages (10 seconds or so.)

    That review was awfull to read, they didn't compare it with other offerings or even talk about its features my computer iliterate sister could have done a better job.

    1. Re:Worst Review Ever by thebdj · · Score: 3, Informative

      I have one, so let me give you an idea. First, it is about on par with most smartphones I have used. I am talking real ones that have full touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard. None of these lame ripoff phones like the Q (from Motorola) or Blackjack (from Samsung). Features wise it is pretty complete, except for 3G, but then again, T-Mobile doesn't have a 3G network yet, so you have to live with EDGE. But you can get T-mobile hotspot plans and it does have 802.11 support. The one problem I have is the program memory is bordering on insufficient. Unlike a normal PDA (and maybe some smartphones), I cannot find away to adjust more storage to program memory, since I can always gain more storage using the microSD.

      If you want to know about large documents, you'll have to give me time to hunt one down to load onto here. I believe it handles it pretty well. Overall, the device is a pretty well built HTC device. I hardly consider the "blue" exterior something "hip". I actually prefer it to all the fake metal colored plastic. BTW, the slide mechanism on this is the smoothest I've ever had in a phone. The battery life is also rather impressive. I spent nearly two days without charging it. Two days that including heavy talk time (probably close to 2 hrs) and large amounts of data usage with both EDGE and 802.11. I would give it a pretty good ranking overall and have to say it is a good replacement for an MDA. The Sidekick is not in the same league, since the Sidekick was obviously made for texting, this is designed to be a heck of a lot more.

      For a fair comparison of WM5 to WM6, I would really need to review both systems on the SAME device. It seems to me you would have a hard time comparing WM5 to WM6 in terms of performance across two different platforms.

      --
      "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
    2. Re:Worst Review Ever by The+Evil+Couch · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The article's Slashdotted, but that it calls the Wing a Sidekick replacement tells me about all I need to know about it. It's not a Sidekick replacement. It's an MDA replacement. Piss poor attention to detail. That T-Mobile's still offering SEVERAL Sidekicks, but that the MDA vanished from their stores and sites the same day the Wing came out *should* give a clue to that.

      The review itself is pretty worthless and looks basically like they're just regurgitating the features sheet instead of actually trying it out. I'd really like to know how it stacks up against the MDA.

      --
      The World's Worst Webcomic!
  9. Where's the hardware spec? by simong · · Score: 4, Informative

    My guess is that it's just underpowered for Windows Mobile 6. Hmm, it takes a while to find information - HTC Atlas:

    Microprocessor
    CPU: 32bit Texas Instruments OMAP 850
    CPU Clock: 201 MHz
    Memory, Storage capacity
    ROM capacity: 128 MB (accessible: 41.42MB)
    RAM capacity: 64 MB (accessible: 43.8MB)
    Hard Disk capacity: Not supported
    Display
    Display Type: color transflective TFT , 65536 scales
    Display Resolution: 240 x 320
    Display Diagonal: 2.8 "

    That doesn't seem particularily powerful or have a great memory capacity. In fact I had a HTC Blue Angel (in its Orange MPV2000 guise) that was more powerful than that two years ago. I'm sure Windows Mobile adheres to Moore's Law in the same way as every other version of Windows does so it is going to be disappointing.

    1. Re:Where's the hardware spec? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Moore's law:

      "the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months"

      How does that apply to a operating system software, you fucktard?

    2. Re:Where's the hardware spec? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does that apply to a operating system software, you fucktard?

      Corollary: Software expects the number of transistors on an integrated circuit to double every 24 months.

  10. Dissenting view by mcbridematt · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Being a former Palm user, I'm quite happy with WM6, and theres no way in hell I'm going back.

    Unfortunately better quality control is needed from all manufacturers. There seems to be a habit from all sides of sending devices to the shelves with woefully crap software.

    1. Re:Dissenting view by PetoskeyGuy · · Score: 1

      I used to be a palm user too. I've developed for handheld devices since Palm III and CE 2. Windows Mobile 5 was a big slow down compared to 2003. This was a design choice by microsoft to preserve data in the event of power loss instead of performance. I'm not saying it was a bad choice but it is why WM5 devices are slow to startup from sleep mode. Also WM5 power management shuts down the whole OS so there is a good chance your programs will wake up before the OS remounts the storage cards so you can never assume your previously opened file is still open.

      In the end I deal the startup delay because I don't use the PIM functions much. I really just want a usable computer I can carry around with me. I would happily buy an iPhone full price if they removed the contract requirement and you could write your own software.

  11. Not Surprised by segedunum · · Score: 1

    With that said, Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 is a disappointment. Working with a number of applications or "heavy" documents was painful. The delay was too much, especially in Word and PowerPoint files that it wasn't possible for us to work with the device without messing up somewhere and not realizing it in the end. This lag is present across a number of other scenarios as well.
    No shock there. I really don't know why Microsoft persists in believing that Windows is the fountain of all knowledge, and that everyone who owns a mobile device actually really wants their PC on their mobile device. When I went from a Windows Mobile phone to a Symbian based one the difference was like night and day, simply because it was clear that the Symbian phone was actually designed for the purpose and device.

    If nothing else, it's an interesting gadget for the young and hip crowd, though we wouldn't recommend it for productivity hounds that are looking to do reports and presentations on the Wing.
    Considering that this is yet another Windows Mobile device that tries to go way beyond a normal mobile device giving you a PC on a phone, and presumably why it has a QWERTY keyboard and you can work with Office documents, then it's a bit of a failure really.
    1. Re:Not Surprised by ThirdPrize · · Score: 0

      If your company uses Office and Exchange then its a no-brainer when it comes to what phone to give your workforce. Sync your e-mails, make the odd change to a word doc i=on the road. Perfect. Ok, so even i have heard of peoples phones crashing mid call.

      --
      I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
    2. Re:Not Surprised by schlichte · · Score: 1

      "I really don't know why Microsoft persists in believing that Windows is the fountain of all knowledge..."

      There was a group of guys at work bragging about their latest version of Windows with 100s of GB HDs, 2gb+ of Ram, dual core processors, raid, nic, modems, just spewing technical jargon left and right like they were at a hardware symposium or whatever... Anyway... in the middle of all of this at a key quiet moment after everyone in the circle had their turn at bragging rights, the next guy in the circle, with his hands in his pocket, as everyone looked at him in wonder of what amazing rig he could posses, simply shrugged his shoulders and stated, "I got Donkey Kong."

  12. Windows XP Embedded will kill WMobile by cheekyboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As mini cpus get better and low power, such as .9W 600mhz style x86 based CPUs, with ram over 100mhz and 128meg being cheap, its no
    sweat to have XP EMbedded, which actually still runs quite nicely on 333mhz Geode CPUs using 128meg ram at 33mhz on 1998 style busses.

    This style setup would work well on a phone, and give better results. As creating your own XP embedded allows you to choose which
    services/apps to include to make it as small as possible.

    Windows Mobile RIP 2007, XPE to the future.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
    1. Re:Windows XP Embedded will kill WMobile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will get shorter battery life. Windows Mobile needs less DRAM to run than XPE or Linux. Less memory = longer battery life.

    2. Re:Windows XP Embedded will kill WMobile by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      XPe is just a highly OS configurable version of Windows XP in terms of components and drivers. The flexibility comes in tuning the OS build in terms of size and security and lower license costs (which still approach $100 per license.. tack that onto a smartphone.) In reality, if configured properly, it is almost identical to Windows XP.

      What XPe is NOT is optimized for smartphone applications. It doesn't even have the architecture or driver support to support these OMAP processors, much less the components required to support all of their peripherals (EDGE, GPRS, cellular calls, etc.)

      Most importantly, it is nowhere near as optimized for low power usage as Windows Mobile.

    3. Re:Windows XP Embedded will kill WMobile by TSDMK · · Score: 1

      Actually I think the parent has a point. I've used (and still use) Windows Mobile devices, and while they work fine for the most part, they do look and feel more like Windows 9x than Vista in terms of stability and UI prettiness. I'm still waiting for Microsoft to throw out the old CE codebase and come up with something more akin to Windows XP than ME.

      One can only hope.

    4. Re:Windows XP Embedded will kill WMobile by bonknasty · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's not going to happen as long as XPe only runs on x86-based platforms. Any phone running on an OMAP or Qualcomm chipset needs an OS that runs on ARM. XP was designed as a series of components and XPe is one product of that.

      --
      www.arkhambrewingcompany.com For all your Lovecraftian T-Shirt needs
    5. Re:Windows XP Embedded will kill WMobile by wikinerd · · Score: 1

      Both Windows Mobile and XP are not user-friendly and make the life of the users difficult. The future is Linux. The advantage of Linux is that is is open and users's wishes make it into the codebase very quickly. In fact, I find a GNOME or KDE desktop easier to use than Windows XP in many respects. The only problem that makes Linux difficult for new users is the non-cooperation of hardware makers, thus causing unavailability of drivers. Had we had drivers for every device, we could very easily create superior OSes based on Linux. Try getting your favourite feature coded in Windows... you can't, unless you are a multi-billion customer. If your OS is Linux and you need a specific feature, the only thing you need to do in order to implement it is to send an e-mail to the developers, gain support in their mailing lists, and sometimes provide a patch yourself if you are a programmer. If your requested feature is unpopular, that's no problem for you, you can just code it yourself or pay someone do it for you on your machine. The fact that a platform is open guarantees that the users will find a way to make it look and function exactly as they want.

  13. 64MB Is crap by cheekyboy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    is ram that expensive?

    Surely even 128m or 256 would only be $10 more. We had 400mhz ARM cpus in 2002 for gods sake, after FOUR YEARS, all we can do is 200mhz?
    Have a 400mhz arm , that throttles down to 200mhz when used just for menus.

    Or, star writing better code/apis for visual GUIs on embedded devices, none of this 18 stack layer apis, even a 16mzh 286 did FAST GUIS in DOS
    320x240 in pascal in 1990.

    If todays engineers/programmers cannot do a fast GUI/system in 16mhz/4megram in pascal code, then they are hopeless stupid idiots!!, get some old school
    hackers to make $99 phone that shits on the iphone with 1/10th the specs.

    Layers upon layers of apis/virtual machines is stupid, stupid ass!!!!

    What did the N64 have? 64meg ram, 200mhz, it was good, hell, ask nintendo for rights, and shrink the N64 into ONE CHIP, then code everything
    using the game APIs. What you gota reweite/make new code for mp3 players and TCPIP, big deal, four weeks worth of effort, and another 8 in testing/debugging.

    Doesnt any one remember (especially todays young engineers who never probably experiences computers below 1ghz) computers running at 133mhz or even 66mhz? Todays engineers are lazy and they dont remember because they were probably 9 years old at the time of what computers running at 133mhz could do.

    Hell, even the amiga at 7mhz achieved better results than anything today at 200mhz. Im sure the amiga purely cut/pasted into 65micron design from CMOS could be converted to one 5million transisitor chip using less than 500mw (btw if the amiga consortium gave up their useless desktop dreams and just make an amiga mobile phone that could run ALL amiga software it would just blow everything out of the water, especially if it had 64meg ram in it which is like running windows with 8gig ram).

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
    1. Re:64MB Is crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like it when things are put into perspective.

    2. Re:64MB Is crap by westyx · · Score: 1

      Damn young engineers should get off my lawn! *shakes fist at 'em*

    3. Re:64MB Is crap by Dance_Dance_Karnov · · Score: 1

      fyi, the 64's main cpu was 93.75mhz VR4300. audio and graphics were handled by the 62.5mhz SGI RCP.

    4. Re:64MB Is crap by Threni · · Score: 1

      And the Amiga was full of hardware too. And it had f*** all ram (by todays standards).

    5. Re:64MB Is crap by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      is ram that expensive?
      Only if you're foolish enough to want more than 640K.
      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    6. Re:64MB Is crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Amiga also didn't run a TCP stack, Wireless connectivity drivers and software or a whole raft of other features that are expected to be standard nowadays. Just because the Amiga could live up to low low expectations of the past don't mean shit.

    7. Re:64MB Is crap by Vo1t · · Score: 1

      Well, remember that MS is promoting use of Compact .NET. Garbage collecting and stuff. Slooow. I think that the flaw is with OS design from start. Skip the .NET, enforce C/C++ - as in Symbian, which runs on slower processors with similar performance and a bit smaller feature set and there you go.
      Programmers just use the tools and guidelines provided.
      My first "computer" was ATARI 800XL. We used it at home for some engineering calculations, drawing/plotting, etc. Yes, I agree that today, most of available computing power seems to be wasted.

    8. Re:64MB Is crap by ergo98 · · Score: 1

      Hell, even the amiga at 7mhz achieved better results than anything today at 200mhz

      I share the sentiment.

      I have a Moto Q, based upon Windows Mobile 5, running on a 312 MHz Intel XScale PXA270: This thing is a dream supercomputer compared to the Atari ST (8Mhz, 512KB RAM, no storage beyond the 360KB floppy disk drive) that I used and abused back in the late 80s. Yet somehow basic operations often have extraordinary delays, and the general set of functionality is just...unimpressive. I try to keep things in proper context -- on my Atari ST I had to run a command line program, taking upwards of a minute, to decompress a single small JPG -- however it just seems like it was so much more capable, and certainly never left me with seconds before it responded to a single input. Smartphones aren't alone, though, and I experience the same bullshit with the PVR, where on occasion it'll go off to do whatever, queueing up remote control commands for second and then completing them as a batch.

      And Windows Mobile really is a shoddy piece of software given the criticality of the use, and the age and progression of the software (it isn't a new beta -- they've been at this since the turn of the century) -- I have come across a number of ridiculous faults, and the usability is...questionable.
    9. Re:64MB Is crap by Anaerin · · Score: 1

      The Amiga also didn't run a TCP stack AmiTCP, TermiteTCP, MiamiTCP, GENESiS...

      Wireless connectivity drivers Like prism2.device?

      and software or a whole raft of other features that are expected to be standard nowadays. Like VoIP (Not SIP, but considering it was made back in '96 that's hardly surprising), Fax/Voice/Voicemail, Photography, Games (Where to start with links there), Applications...

      Just because the Amiga could live up to low low expectations of the past don't mean shit. Live up to? At the time, the Amiga exceeded all expectations.In it's day, the Amiga was the finest machine, for the price, bar none. It's just that Commodore couldn't market their way out of a paper bag, and "killed" the Amiga through neglect. Being passed from pillar to post afterwards really didn't help matters, either.

      I believe that if you got the team who made the original Amiga, got them together today and gave them the kind of funding and creative freedom they needed, along with the current level of technology available, I'm sure they'd blow the market away, again.
  14. Trustworthy? by youthoftoday · · Score: 1

    This certainly isn't a large organisation -- http://www.cooltechzone.com/contact/Authors/

    Could easily be `run from a bedroom'...

    --
    -1 not first post
  15. Productivity by thetagger · · Score: 1
    though we wouldn't recommend it for productivity hounds that are looking to do reports and presentations

    Since when is doing reports and presentations "productive"? These are bureaucracy-feeding tasks, not productivity tasks.

    1. Re:Productivity by e2d2 · · Score: 1

      And who the fuck writes reports and presentations on their phone? Please point them out and I will slap them.

  16. Amen by Yonzie · · Score: 1

    CoolTechZone are all trolls, all the time. I have no idea why they keep getting linked here. Even with this review, it's so obvious they completely and totally subscribe to the Microsoft line when they review something that didn't come from Microsoft.

    Whith articles such as there, who can take them seriously?
    "Report: Mac OS X Market Share Declines"
    "iPhone and Mobile OS X: Doomed to Fail!"
    "Amazon Unbox: iTunes Movie Store In Jeopardy"
    "Apple: Mac OS X Doomed?"
    "Column: Apple Tries Hard to Wake Up to Consumerism"

  17. Seriously? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you seriously think Palm OS is better than Windows Mobile? Can you tell us why?

    1. Re:Seriously? by bombastinator · · Score: 1

      Well from a personal perspective, I still find it easier to deal with. Most windows mobiles I find viable come without touch sensitive screens which I have always found annoying. I do take your point about palmOS being long in the tooth.

      If one compares palmOS 5 to the versions of WinM available at the time it came out it was really much better. The problem is that palm has been unable to successfully update it.

      Even compared with the modern versions though the main disadvantage is merely that palm is unable to incorporate drivers for such things as wifi and native (rather than 3rd party) solutions for such things as flash. The actual GUI itself is IMHO still superior. If Palm can ever get a meaningful OS update together it could get real interesting. I have limited hope however.

  18. Gundeep confirms it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... 'professionals' don't like blue.

    WTF?

  19. Ive got to say... by schlichte · · Score: 2, Informative

    from TFA, right out of the gate "After the success of T-Mobile's Sidekick series..."

    I owned a sidekick3, 2 of them to be exact, and both of them met a violent demise. One took a trip off the 4th floor into a concrete wash, the other, stomped into oblivion in the parking lot after work.

    Before the upgrade (which it nagged you ever 5 mins of the day to do with no option to opt out) I had ZERO problems... first day into the upgrade, that son of a bitch would freeze up in the middle of summer on the equator(A Christmas Story quote...)

    The sales might have been a success, but after that bastard locking to the point of pulling the battery and it wiping ALL of my saved emails, pics, texts contacts, etc(like wtf is the goddamn miniSD and SIM card for!?!)... Id call the product itself a total failure.

    Other than that, when it did work, it was a kickass device

    I dont know if this post would be considered a rant or informative?

  20. *Great* review.. by Lisandro · · Score: 1

    With that said, Microsofts Windows Mobile 6 is a disappointment. Working with a number of applications or "heavy" documents was painful. The delay was too much, especially in Word and PowerPoint files that it wasnt possible for us to work with the device without messing up somewhere and not realizing it in the end. This lag is present across a number of other scenarios as well.
     
    ...followed by...

    If nothing else, its an interesting gadget for the young and hip crowd, though we wouldnt recommend it for productivity hounds that are looking to do reports and presentations on the Wing. Not to mention, the sexy and strange appeal of the device can't be pleasing to serious professionals. For $299.99 from T-Mobile, its a worthy Sidekick replacement.

    Yeah, 300 bucks for a 'trippy' smartphone that is painful to use as a smartphone. Make up your mind.

    BTW: Kudos for the 8 hours of real-life battery time (in use). For a smartphone, that's kinda impressive.

  21. Finding the holy grail of mobile phones by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The ultimate phone:

    Execelent phone capabilites, that is good bi-directional sound and good coverage. You want it to be fancy, slick, small and weigh next to nothing. Besides being a phone you want it be your mp3 player, your mp4 video viewer... And ofcourse you need it to have GPS and wifi. And run windows so you can easily sync with your desktop. And a keyboard for text input now that we have word onboard the phone? And the screen should be really big now that we have made the phone our office on the run.

    And the battery lifetime should be exceptional both in-use and in standby.

    Impossible? IMHO it is. But lots of companies are trying to achive exactly that.

  22. "it's going to be awkward making phone calls" by dpbsmith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From the article: "Basically, it's going to be awkward making phone calls with the Wing."

    Might as well end the review right there.

    I don't know whether the iPhone will be any better, but Steve Jobs was dead on when he said "The killer app is... making calls."

    I have a Swiss Army knife, and while I find the magnifying glass, scissors, and Phillips screwdrivers to be very useful, I use it mostly as a knife. If the knife blades weren't sturdy, sharp, and easy to open, I wouldn't carry one... not even if it included a microscope, pinking shears, and a full set of Torx bits.

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!

  23. yet another phone on the market by hansoloaf · · Score: 1

    How many is Tmobile offering? 50? 100?

    When will these phone companies start to think about simplfying their phone product line. Make it at most 5 phones
    That way they can focus on support, better quality phones, etc.

  24. buhhhhhhhh by dreemkill · · Score: 1

    what do you expect? its the hardware at fault, not just the software. the wing is nothing more than a glorified MDA (that they released 2-3 years ago)
    same CPU, same RAM, same display, different keyboard/housing.
    they install a full, bloated WM6 install with all the applications running on the desktop.

    i have an MDA (overclocked to a whopping 273MHz) running WM6 that runs perfectly fine, and fast enough for daily use.

    its like a bad review of Vista.........running on a Pentium Pro 200 box. duh.

    --
    dreemkill.
  25. im a sucker for punishment by yodleboy · · Score: 1

    after 3 buggy windows mobile phones, locked to the point of uselessness by att/cingular i just got a blackberry pearl a couple of weeks ago. the only other phone that just worked this well was a sony-ericsson i had a couple of years back. the difference between my 6 month old WM5.0 phone and the blackberry is night and day. the blackberry is just more responsive, the interface is easier to use. i cant put my finger on it, or maybe i can, but i had this phone figured out in 10 minutes, it just makes SENSE.

    Windows mobile just gets more bloated and i've found i keep the windows mobile phones for less and less time. I'm moderately willing to put up with flakyness, crashes, incompatibilites on my desktop, but damn it i just want my phone to WORK.

  26. wait! by chelanfarsight · · Score: 1

    "Not to mention, the sexy and strange appeal"...but, but i like sexy and strange.

  27. Low Microsoft Expectations by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    How many companies can compete by introducing so many products that are so disappointing for so long? Is there even a single MS product (outside the Xbox) released in the past 10 years that hasn't been disappointing? Where do these expectations of good quality come from? And how come consistently low quality doesn't lower them?

    The expectation - delivery = disappointment formula is reversed for Microsoft success. That is the surest measure of a monopoly's PR power.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Low Microsoft Expectations by Vancorps · · Score: 1

      Probably because you have things like Exchange 2003-2007, Windows Server 2003 including IIS6, MOM 2005, SQL 2005, SMS 2003 and a bunch of other products which despite what you seem to think weren't disappointments. Windows CE through Windows Mobile 5.0 have all been rather consistently high quality. Real PDAs actually work and work well unlike these smart phones which the carriers seem to screw up again and again. Why does my $400 iPaq work a lot better than my smart phone? Twice the ram you say? Twice the processor power you say? More than twice the battery life you say? Funny how well it works when you don't have the phone company doing installs for you.

      If MS products didn't work the vast majority of the time for the vast majority of people then it wouldn't still be popular given all the valid alternatives.

      MS has certainly put out failures, the Zune for one right off the top of my head. The company puts out a lot of products though, some are good and some are bad. Pretty much like any big software company. Look at Oracle, the base DBMS is rock solid, all the add-ons, not so much.

      It kills me that I have to defend MS from complete FUD such as this. Why is it that people can't just stick to facts instead of presenting opinions as fact?

    2. Re:Low Microsoft Expectations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah....

      VB

    3. Re:Low Microsoft Expectations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows CE through Windows Mobile 5.0 have all been rather consistently high quality.


      It seems your idea of 'high quality' is a bit distorted.
    4. Re:Low Microsoft Expectations by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

      I said introduced. All the examples you cited are the nth versions of those products. Released after a series of failures, including the launch, that all disappointed moderately high expectations. We're talking about the "Mobile 6-Based 'Wing'", which is an introduction of a new product, even though it's based on the 6th version of an MS platform.

      You want to talk about fact and FUD, start with debating the actual point I made, not some strawman you (and Microsoft's marketing department) would prefer to talk about.

      --

      --
      make install -not war

  28. MDA vs. WING by mr.sean.r · · Score: 1

    Let me start by saying that I have owned a Blackberry 7100 and a Pearl, the MDA, and the new Wing...

    Of all of these devices, I prefer the Wing.

    I was excited when I bought the MDA: WM5, miniSD, WMP, and a phone...

    I was quick to test all of the features, half of them I never looked at again. I'm not a huge fan of bluetooth, T-Mobile locked the MDA so bluetooth was headsets only. The WMP was garbage: I ripped a movie that I owned down onto my 2 GB miniSD card, and to my suprise - it didn't play well, slow choppy, audio was out of sync (the movie was fine on my xp box)... The camera was a 1.3, but the images weren't great, and the speed of the device wasn't great also...

    With all of that said, I loved my touch screen, slide out QWERTY keyboard, phone!

    When the wing was announced I purchsed it the next day AS A MDA REPLACEMENT.

    Again, I tested all of the NEW features, I'm still not impressed with the camera, but it's not a big deal, the bluetooth has been unlocked for syncing via activesync, I haven't tested WMP, so I can't comment, however the 2 greatest improvements were the BUILT IN TASK MANAGER, and the DIALER UPGRADE... The dialer on the MDA was slow, and I often dialed wrong numbers, because of the delay between button presses, this has been corrected in the wing and it will dial as fast as you can dial, and the built in task manager is a great plus...

    I would say that hands down this device beats out the Blackberry (7100, Pearl) and the MDA. It is faster, the spring loaded keyboard is solid, it is slimmer than the MDA and I like the rubberized blue coating on it.

    --
    Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me. - Martin Luther
    1. Re:MDA vs. WING by The+Evil+Couch · · Score: 1

      Thank you. It sounds like a fun toy. When my MDA gets a little older, I'll probably make the switch.

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      The World's Worst Webcomic!
  29. Comparison reviews... by Mondoz · · Score: 1

    I'd like to see someone make a comparison review between the Wing and HTC's TyTn.
    They look pretty similar, but the TyTn looks to be a bit more robust in the processor department.

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    /sig
  30. I saw this a few days ago... by josepha48 · · Score: 1
    ... on crave. It looked like a pretty good phone. Nice sized screen, 2mp camera ( which is only now becoming 'in fashon' in the us ), and all the other things that make a good multi-user phone. Of course if you do not like multi-use phones, then this phone is not for you. If you are like me, though it is a nice phone.

    The only issue is that it is an MS phone, so if you do not like MS mobile phones then this would not be good for you.

    In any case, crave ( http://crave.cnet.com/8300-1_105-1.html?search=htc +wing ) has more photos of this phone than the posted article. This is worth a look. They also have a link to a full review.

    I'd be curious, if anyone is hacking these phones to install Linux or BSD on them, and if so can they still using them with their phone providers. Is this even possible or does it violate some license?

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