I have been a Windows mobile user for the last 5 years, i haven’t really had a choice due to the systems we use at work, which were written to run on Windows phones, i did try an iPhone and an Android phone last year, but was not impressed. When T-Mobile called me and said i was due an upgrade I ordered a new Samsung Omnia Windows 7 phone right away, and after it arrived I was initially super impressed with the look and feel of the all new windows phone, my love for the new phone was however very short lived, as there seems to be a whole load of essential features that have been removed….i can’t see why they would have done this…
The good things:
Touch interface, Facebook integration,camera, multiple Exchange account support, full Office 2010 features, all the social media features.
The not so great things:
Battery life, if you use it heavily it only just does a day, and that’s with a new battery.
Screen lock, you need a password after each screen lock, even if you last used it 10 seconds ago, it is just plain annoying!
The bad things and features removed from Win 6.5
When replying to an email, there is no option to edit the senders reply, this has always been there and is essential to the email system we use.
Schedule on Activesync removed, it Syncs all the time, even through the night! The option to only have it sync during the working week 8am-6pm for example has been removed.
The dialer doesn’t integrate with the phonebook, dialing the first few digits of a number in Windows Mobile 6.5 prompts you with a list of similar matching numbers, this feature has been removed in Windows 7 phones and yet is something that was used every time i made a call in Windows Mobile 6.5
USB Drive; you cant plug it in and have it appear as a storage device anymore!
WiFi sharing, no more sharing your phone as WiFi hotspot (wireless tethering)
Conclusion:
The phone hardware from Samsung is great, it gets an A+, as for Windows 7 Phone Edition, well, i am very confused, they seem to have added a whole load of nice interface features, and then removed all the nice finishing touch features from Windows Mobile 6.5 at the same time, the result is a very disappointed ex 6.5 user. The mobile smart phone competition is at its peak, super competitive with a whole load of truly amazing new devices coming out all the time, such as the iPhone4, Windows 7 Phone, in my opinion, in a nutshell isn’t up to much.
The press seems to be full of stories of Microsoft accepting these issues and there are rumors of a “massive” Windows 7 Phone update released in early 2011 to address many of the issues i have mentioned above. I will wait to see if this actually arrives anytime soon, watch this space!