Good news - T-mobile is back on my good side. I stopped by another store this evening and spent a good 20 minutes playing with a Wing. When a sales person came over, he asked me if I had any questions. I told him I was mostly just playing - to which he asked if I wanted his opinion.
Did I every! This is what he told me: the Wing is slick, but basically painful (in his opinion) to use as a phone. Windows is simply painful to use. The switch from vertical writing mode to horizontal keyboard is accompanied by a noticeable lag of a few seconds. And, if you do leave the WiFi on, it will eat through your batteries in 4 hours.
I couldn't confirm the battery comment - but the rest of the feedback I had noticed in my 20 minutes of playing.
I so wanted to like the Windows UI. But, at the end of the day, it's a desktop UI crammed into a phone - what a mistake. There do appear to be a few keyboard shortcuts, but not as many as I had hoped for.
The only surprise was that the keyboard was nicer than I thought I was going to be. I could see learning to touch type on that sucker with a minimum of effort.
The clerk's recommendation was this: wait till late September and buy the latest Blackberry due out. It will have a GPS, 2.0 MP camera and a full keyboard.
I'm not in love with the Blackberry UI, but nothing is as bad as the Windows UI. As Shira told me - you'll adapt way easier to the Blackberry over Windows.
Someone, anyone, tell me my synopsis of the Windows Mobile User Experience is all wrong. Tell me that once I learn it I'll be flying all over the UI like I do on my Sidekick.
At the very least, my faith in T-mobile is restored.
--Ben
Well I have noticed those people I know with the HTC WinMo products doing a lot of clicking to make a call. And Lauren didn't like the 'start' button on the screen. Now I have heard a lot of good things about the Dash, but I can't imagine it being much better. I father has the Q and he likes the WinMo platform, but he said it had a steep learning curve. I've heard the same about the Blackjack. I'd have to second Shira's comment about the Blackberry, I've only played with Lauren's new Blackbery Pearl a little bit here and there, but it is easy to get use to, I really like the track ball. I hear there may be a new Pearl with WiFi soon too. Also like I comment on your previous post, the Curve should be available soon. I personally and waiting for a new better non-Win based Palm (and I may be waiting a while). That or for a really sweet Symbian phone from Nokia. Either a Palm of Nokia with a HTC Wing formfactor would make me happy (but Symbian, you've got to add a touch screen).
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I came from Palm and the Blackberry interface drove me NUTS! I had a Pearl for about 6 months before I switched to the T-Mobile Dash and really the only complaint I have is that I sometimes need to use the task manager (*shriek*) to stop processes. I'm a Mac guy, and I was very skeptical of Windows Mobile, but what I've seen so far leaves me impressed.
ReplyDeleteJohn -
ReplyDeleteThanks for the positive report on The Dash.
One of the tricky aspects of my situation is that my phone is dying between contracts. I'm not eligible for a reduced price phone for almost another year.
So if/when I buy a new phone it'll be at full price.
I suppose, even if I buy the phone at full price, I have the chance to take it back. So, really, what I need to do is take the leap and try out some phones for a week or so.