Around 2-3 years back, i got myself the new Xphone, powered by the SmartPhone OS which is basically Windows CE based. The idea that the phone ran on Windows was interesting so much so that the curiosity got the better of me and i parted with RM 1,800.
(photo from gsmarena)
Thats when the nightmare began, it seems like the phone was nothing more than a plastic shell that ran Windows with no regards to phone practicality. Although the contacts smart search (it searches both letter and numbers when you press the relevant keys) was a great design, the rest of the functions just falls out of place. The phone taught me how refined a normal Nokia was and how foolish was me to think that MS new venture (back then) could possibly be better.
One of the most irritating problem i recalled was the SMS ringtone. When you are using phones like nokia, alcatel, motorola and even Sharp, the sms ringtone are discreet or a soft vibrate. On the XPhone, it just "DING-DONG!" right into your ears not realizing that you are on the phone talking and your ears are like just milimeters from the speakers. It rang right out, without detecting the current state of the phone. That shows how "basic" the phone was. I did read a review on an Australia ZDnet before buying the phone, i guess the reviewer never really used the phone. The phone was sold under O2, but if you dont know by now, its all by HTC. Couple that with frequent hangs and reboots, the phone was sold off to a guy who wanted to use it as contact backup at a fraction of the price.
The camera was chun!, the video was perfect for recording impromptu stuffs. The Outlook synch worked perfectly well and the phone comes with a sliding keyboard, something that my fingers easily adapt to.
Then comes the problem :-
I upgraded the OS to Windows Mobile 6 (official dopod838 pro patch) , yes the new menu's better but overall...the phone is still very much slacking in practicality as a phone. I find myself nagging the phone and getting impatient with its flaws and missing the good'ol Nokia 6630.
Well, thats me, on the corporate industry and IT world however ....
Windows Mobile is a very attractive choice.
(photo from gsmarena)
Thats when the nightmare began, it seems like the phone was nothing more than a plastic shell that ran Windows with no regards to phone practicality. Although the contacts smart search (it searches both letter and numbers when you press the relevant keys) was a great design, the rest of the functions just falls out of place. The phone taught me how refined a normal Nokia was and how foolish was me to think that MS new venture (back then) could possibly be better.
One of the most irritating problem i recalled was the SMS ringtone. When you are using phones like nokia, alcatel, motorola and even Sharp, the sms ringtone are discreet or a soft vibrate. On the XPhone, it just "DING-DONG!" right into your ears not realizing that you are on the phone talking and your ears are like just milimeters from the speakers. It rang right out, without detecting the current state of the phone. That shows how "basic" the phone was. I did read a review on an Australia ZDnet before buying the phone, i guess the reviewer never really used the phone. The phone was sold under O2, but if you dont know by now, its all by HTC. Couple that with frequent hangs and reboots, the phone was sold off to a guy who wanted to use it as contact backup at a fraction of the price.
Time passed, so does my grudge against Xphone. This year 2007 during the CNY, i got myself the Dopod838 pro, surely the best of Window Mobile won't go wrong was my excuse this time.
(photo from dopodasia)The camera was chun!, the video was perfect for recording impromptu stuffs. The Outlook synch worked perfectly well and the phone comes with a sliding keyboard, something that my fingers easily adapt to.
Then comes the problem :-
- Its a 3G phone, when you are surfing on the phone, all incoming calls are dropped, you won't even hear a ring. You cant make any calls out either. Yes, one can argue that 3G uses the same bandwidth as the calls thus it was technically correct to make the phone work this way...GO TRY A NOKIA, it would smartly pause the 3G while you chat and resume when you hang up.
- The sliding keyboard frequently hung, the screen was no receptive to anything you type on the keyboard, i ended up switching to the touch screen and pen.
- You will need to turn "off" the screen by pressing the side buttons or the phone can be configured to "energy saving mode" when idle for minutes. But most likely you will just press the side button like all other Windows mobile devices (ver 5 and 6). Now this poses a problem, the device comes with so many other buttons which are accidentally triggered somehow even when the phone screen is already off. Thus you find a slew of applications running when you turn on the screen and it lags the device to a crawl. Solution: Assign all the buttons (except camera) to "none".
- The front buttons have a paint that easily peels off, for a device that cost RM 3k (ouch!) this kind of quality is not expected. I wasn't expecting the VW golf 4 layer paint coat, but hey its just 3 months down the road and it peeled.
- If you are new to PDA+phone and you like to quickly reply SMSs while you are stuck in a short traffic, you would want a phone with a real keypad.
I upgraded the OS to Windows Mobile 6 (official dopod838 pro patch) , yes the new menu's better but overall...the phone is still very much slacking in practicality as a phone. I find myself nagging the phone and getting impatient with its flaws and missing the good'ol Nokia 6630.
Well, thats me, on the corporate industry and IT world however ....
Windows Mobile is a very attractive choice.
- MS Exchange comes with free push email (Direct Push). Blackberry, Visto, and Seven (Ericsson mobility) require a third party provider and expensive upfront payment. Then there is Funambol (http://www.funambol.com/) which claims to provide free push email Open Source. Funambol won't work in Malaysia, not on Maxis and other providers, it require an incoming connection directly from your Provider to your phone, which only means it can be implemented only by your provider. I did manage to make this work, by writing our own proxy clients (java for nokias, sonyerics and .net for WM) on the phone and modifying the server to provide straight push email. However, the market expectation of push email speed and funambol server polling design makes it non viable.
- Vista beautiful support for Windows Mobile via the new Window Mobility Centre.
Thus i would say, as more people demand for push email becomes apparent, some would turn the blind eye to the Windows mobile flaws and embrace the Empire's offer. (imagine the evil star wars empire soundtrack playing....teee tee teee te te te te te te)
May the mails be with You....
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