Recent Comments:
HTC HD2 review {Engadget}
Nov 26th 2009 3:18AM "Look, we're not asking for much, but when you're using Excel, it would be nice to be able to use the accelerometer functionality to get a landscape view -- instead, that kind of natural, familiar movement isn't present at all."
There's an app for that. Seriously, there is. Zensor, changeScreen, gyrator, probably more.
"...but take a look at the file browser, or even Outlook, which is what HTC's nice (though not very functional) mail widget dives down into. It reminded us most of looking at the Palm OS at the end of its lifecycle. And that's not good."
OK, I took a LOOK. Pretty standard stuff. Text sorted into rows. Not great, but it functions just fine. So what's the problem? It reminded you of "looking" at the PalmOS. OK, so that's it? The mere look of something that reminds you of something old?
"Another issue... is that the phone itself actually can be quite unresponsive and sluggish at times, both within the Sense interface, and while using straight-up Windows Mobile apps."
Let me point you at another source, sure, an unreliable one at times, but it will have to do. From Engadget's review of the Hero (also running sense):
"We could almost feel the 528MHz processor struggling to keep us as we paged through seven homescreens of widgets -- most accessing data in the background -- and when we took at a look at the task list, it was clear that most of our memory was being sucked up with scores of little processes."
Hmm, so even on God's 2nd-favorite mobile OS, Sense caused some slowdowns?
Let me direct you back to the top of the HD2 review:
"For a WinMo device (or any device, for that matter), the HD2 is one of the most fluid and snappy that we've tested. Applications open up like whip cracks, scrolling through menus in the graphically intense Sense UI is buttery smooth, and the overall speed of the phone feels accelerated compared to its competitors."
Well, gosh, that sure sounds like the processor upgrade helped out. I mean, you can imagine something similar happening to the Hero if you gave it this processor. And by the way, my Touch Pro 2 doesn't suffer from these lagging problems. Others are already running the Leo (HD2) ROM on their TP2s and report it be be quite fast. So either HTC didn't put out a great ROM (that's happened before) or you guys are really exaggerating here.
"We got the overwhelming impression that WM 6.5 isn't perfectly optimized for data-heavy devices like the HD2 -- phones getting constant emails, IMs, Twitter updates, and pulling down robust webpages. Still, the device held up decently in our tests (it didn't strike us as terribly distinct from something like the iPhone 3GSs battery performance), and given the gigantic screen and 1GHz CPU, that's pretty heartening."
Plus the iPhone doesn't even run more than one application at a time. So why is it that you conclude WM 6.5 isn't perfectly optimized for data-heavy devices? I guess the iPhone isn't either, then, since it has a smaller screen, slower processor, doesn't multitask, and still only gets similar battery life.
"That's where HTC continues to go wrong: they've proven time and time again that they are the Pininfarina of the phone world, but they're building their masterful works of art around the technological equivalent of an '84 Caprice."
Soooo.... uh... how is it like an '84 Caprice? Doesn't look terribly modern? Occasional square buttons instead of rounded ones on rarely used settings screens? As far as I can tell, your "critique" of WM comes down to how it looks. I couldn't really find anything in the review that stated WHY WM is soooo crappy. Let me ask this, WHAT FUNCTIONALITY IS MISSING? Yes, I yelled that. No one is ever able to answer. "Well WM's default interface sucks! That's why HTC has to cover it up with their really really amazing Sense UI that I love to use a lot!" Right, moot point then since Sense is what you're gonna be using.
What's interestig to me about these HD2 reviews (Gizmodo, Engadget) is that they start out really really positive. Then at the end everything takes a nose dive and suddenly the phone is tainted by the Scarlet M($)! It's as if during the course of the review, the writers looked back and noticed that the review was gearing up to indicate a sort of iPhone killer, or at least very serious competitor, and to prevent some sort of cognitive dissonance from setting in they had to turn the ship around and dump on WM 6.5. So, in summary, the review is inconsistant, biased, and manages only (often contradictory) shallow surface critiques of the phone and OS. It wasn't as bad as Gizmodo (probably because Engadget picked up on the backlash they got from their readers), but it was still predictable (and in fact was predicted many times in the comments prior to the review) and generally lazy and biased. It took this long to come up with exactly what everyone said you were going to say? Why even publish it then? (No seriously, consider just deleting it.)
Entelligence: Got game? {Engadget}
Nov 16th 2009 2:11AM OH MY GOD! Android fans, please shut the hell up! You're about 1 step away from Apple fans right now.
Every article posted about a phone, or anything really, has this amazingly helpful comment below it now:
"PUT ANDROID ON IT LOLZ!2!@23! THEN I'D BUY IT!!! EVEN THOUGH I ALREADY HAVE AN ANDROID PHONE!!!! I'D BUY ANOTHER PHONE WITHOUT EVER ACTIVATING IT AND USING IT IF IT HAD ANDROID ON IT!!!"
Entelligence: Got game? {Engadget}
Nov 16th 2009 2:03AM You must be going off of the 2-month-old official app store for Windows Mobile. In reality, there's who knows how many apps out there. Much more than 550.
Entelligence: Got game? {Engadget}
Nov 16th 2009 1:59AM "Want to watch a Slingbox remotely? Control your Sonos? Listen to your Rhapsody subscription wherever you are? How about turning your device into a Kindle or a Nook ebook reader? There's only one platform now that let's you do all of those things, and that's the iPhone."
Windows Mobile can do all of that, except for the Rhapsody part. With WinMo7 it's assumed they'll get the Zune store integrated.
Facebook finally comes to webOS, not with a bang but a whimper {Engadget}
Nov 16th 2009 1:42AM How is this better than the WinMo version?
Palm Pixi review {Engadget}
Nov 12th 2009 11:24PM I'd agree with you, but since you know they're gonna crap all over it just because it's Windows Mobile, who cares? This Pixi thing has trouble on a 600mhz OMAP3, while my Touch Pro 2 multitasks just fine on an old MSM7600 528mhz (I think that's what it is) and they still call Windows Mobile slow and bloated (and probably complained that the processor hasn't changed in years). They say the marketplace sucks, well even if that's true there's way more Windows Mobile stuff for free out there on the internet. Certainly more in the App department there than on WebOS, but you don't see them crapping all over Palm for it.
Then again, just because of the user backlash (check out the comments on a lot of WinMo stuff) they might be contrarian and give it an overall good review. Either way, it's been reviewed positively by basically everyone already (with the exception of Gizmodo, who out of nowhere at the end say it sucks because it's Windows Mobile, without giving a single reason WHY) and in more depth than I'm sure Engadget will manage.
AMEX DIGITAL's Mac mini Blu-ray drive upgrade kit is not what it seems {Engadget}
Nov 11th 2009 4:41PM You know what else is silly? DVD drives in computers. Who needs a DVD drive when you can download DRM-restricted content from iTunes? I'm tired of all this physical media sitting around my house, ready to play on any of my devices without being limited by Apple's DRM. And video quality? Who cares, quit being a snob! Heavily compressed HD is the future.
Rupert Murdoch to remove News Corp sites from Google, institute paywall {Download Squad}
Nov 9th 2009 3:45PM Uh huh...
And Obama goes to see a play? HEADLINE NEWS!
With the Iraq war, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by Bush... meh.
Bush spends more than a third of his presidency on vacation... meh.
HTC's HD2 has landed at Engadget (hands-on) {Engadget}
Nov 4th 2009 2:18PM @iDavey
I asked the same thing weeks ago in a DROID article. NO ONE CAN ANSWER IT! Apparently no one is familiar enough with the current versions of Windows Mobile to answer it. I have a Touch Pro 2 and where do I feel limited? Nowhere. I can do pretty much anything I want on it. It's like having a mini netbook with me. And as far as interface, well I use TF3D and there's also MobileShell and PointUI.
From what I gathered, people's main gripe with Windows Mobile boils down to a few settings screens where they see square corners and unshaded white spaces. In other words, it doesn't look like an iPhone. That, and the legacy problems that people still think are there that in fact have been addressed with newer versions of the OS and newer phones.
Motorola Droid gets fully previewed, 'must-have' claims may not be far off {Engadget}
Oct 24th 2009 8:50AM Wow, you read the question and it seems you know what you're talking about. Thank you!
It really does seem to come down to aesthetics with people deciding how good a phone is, it seems. I've searched on Google for some good Android vs WinMo comparisons, and found that even on an Android fan forum there were people saying WinMo is at least as good as Android. There's even people asking how to install WinMo on their G1s.
For now, I have my TP2. I know WinMo 7 is coming out next year, but unless they're really accelerating things, the phone won't be out for a while anyways. By then I'll at least have my 1 year discount. If Android merely does the same things as WinMo 6 does presently, with the exception of little icons and widgets (which can be added to WinMo), multiple homescreens (I'm pretty sure I've seen this running on a Touch Pro somewhere on YouTube), and GPU drivers (something that could be fixed instantly if HTC forked over some money), I'm guessing WinMo 7 will be better than Android 2 or whatever version they're on at the time. But we'll see, I guess.
