Smartphone Round Robin: Interview Edition

First, I really…….really, really, really, want to thank Dieter, Jennifer, Mike and Kevin for their exciting and, might I say, original approach to reviewing the different smartphone operating systems that are available to us today. Even if it weren’t a contest it still would’ve been the most interesting idea that’s been thrown at all of us in a long time. It also goes a long way to show each of our respective boards that there is a world out there, that although different, is just as important to other people as ours is to us. Because of the honest and educational way each tester went about it, I think those that followed the threads are much more knowledgeable now than they were before, and I hope much more open minded.
I’ve been asked why I chose the Sprint Mogul when I could’ve picked any smartphone available in the U.S. Right now I’m glad I picked something that I’m going to use since I did have a dilemma. I signed a two-year contract with Sprint in May 14th, when the Treo 755p came out. I had known for a time that I wanted an upgrade to my 650 and luckily for me my contract with Verizon, who I had been with for over 20 years, was expiring on that same May 14th. :cool: I have been a loyal Palm lover for many years. It has worked great for me and the 755 is too good to just stop using it. I have always liked the Windows Mobile look on the Treo 700wx, but, being used to POS, it was, and still is, Greek to me. The recent posting on the treocentral board concerning more layoffs at Palm made me feel that it is time to try something else. With the main requirement being that I could use the phone on Sprint I found that I had a choice of everything but the iphone, and even if Sprint could use the iphone, I don’t think I’d pick it at this time for to many reasons. I always figured that I would end up one day with WM if the POS didn’t make some important improvements such as wifi, multi-tasking and gps. I could go into all the reasons I knew this, but I can’t say it better than the post Dieter made titled: Triumphant Return to Windows Mobile! Several of the paragraphs, I've quoted below, made me realize, that winning this contest made this the best time possible to make the switch. I picked the Mogul because it seemed to be the Cadillac of WM devices with all the features I really want in a smartphone. Dieter Bohn:
Windows Mobile will work on a wide... a crazy-wide selection of different form factors, from the ruggedized to the razor-thin. It runs on cheap phones and feature-packed phones alike; touchscreen and non-touchscreen; QWERTY keyboard, 10-key, 20-key, no-key; screen resolutions of 240x320, 240x240, 320x320, 320x480, heck, 800x600; it communicates on Edge, UMTS, HSDPA, EVDO, EVDO Rev A, GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth (including A2DP). It's available on every major wireless carrier, basically worldwide. It is available in many languages in a dizzying number of countries. It has a fairly consistent UI across the entire variety of devices just listed, had it for several years, and maintained a healthy level of backwards compatibility. It's able to do pretty much anything any other smartphone can do, and more, on nearly all of the form-factors and networks listed above. It does push email out-of-the-box with Exchange and can do the same with any other email setup with some 3rd party software. Its selection of 3rd party applications is second only to PalmOS (and possibly Symbian), but many of these apps are shockingly powerful and just as many are mission-critical to major corporations and soccer moms alike. The number and variety of these apps is on the rise. It has a vibrant community of 3rd party application developers. Coding can even be done with .net (familiar to many Windows developers), which provides an amazing set of APIs to build complex applications with rich UIs -- with relative ease. Enterprise security and support is second only to BlackBerry (and many would say second to none), yet remains approachable to many average joe consumers. It plays pictures, music, podcasts, FM Radio (on some devices), and video ...and records pictures, audio, and video too. Please let the preceding paragraphs sink in for a minute. Read them again, maybe. It's shocking, if you think about it, how ambitious Windows Mobile is and how successfully it's managed to achieve its goals. Windows Mobile shoots the moon and very nearly hits it. It is the All-Singing, All-Dancing Smartphone OS.
Dieter adds:
Yet despite these challenges, Windows Mobile is a powerful, stable (though of course not 100% perfect), dynamic, and rich Smartphone OS. Given these challenges, it's an accomplishment that doesn't usually get as much credit as it deserves.
If you're a Maximin kind of person, you care about a lot of categories but are willing to forego the “best of the best” in one or all of them. That's me - I want it all. I'm unwilling to accept bad email, or horrible multimedia, or an OS that's not powerful enough. Windows Mobile may not be the best in the categories I care about (even though it's close and could be), but it does a better job of covering all the bases than anything else out there.
So, in case everyone involved in the Smartphone Round Robin haven't gotten the point to this thread, THANK YOU for letting me be part of it, and for all you've done here. :thumbsup: I look forward to getting my phone and becoming an active member of the WM Experts site, cause I'm going to need the help. ;)

Make sure that you've updated the firmware on your N95-3; update came out last week that addresses a few issues.
/* just to add to the fun */
there is no way that a symbian device is slower than anything else; its fast, its got a slew of programs; it even makes popcorn; ain't no phone better than that N95 folks :P

Yeah, I put on the latest firmware.
The thing that makes it feel slow is the camera and the fact that i haven't figured out how to close programs yet. Even moreso than the blackberry, this s60 stuff makes me feel like a smartphone n00b.
I guess the best thing about the n95 for me is the media player and the camera. If I'm going to use it as my main/only camera, it has to be able to compete with my canon elph on the metric that is MOST important to me on a point 'n shoot: time from power on to picture taken must be as short as possible.
Ah the camera; yea, its slow. Really slow. One of the two reasons I dropped it in favor of a Treo 680 :eek:
It wasn't fixed until firmware v20 on the N95-1. The N95-3 is on a different firmware schedule though, and so should see that sooner. That being said, when I reviewed the N95 earlier this year it was on V11, now its on 20. Updates have been a little close to monthly.
To close programs, hit menu exit. Press and hold the multimedia button to see a list of your running programs. Download handytaskman for the complete shabang of file and app manangement.
I hear you on much of the S60 stuff. You'd be surprised how much of why you feel like a n00b is related to the UI. Its built by an engineer, not a UI person. Which is great on a low end phone, horrible on a high end one. FP2 will fix that, but will not come for the N95 (lest the 30% of N95 owners in the US yell like they did for an N95-3 version that finally came).
Now make sure that you use that TV-Out and a BT keyboard on your nice plasma to tell us how that Tilt is better :p
Seriously though, I hope you enjoy the N95, its a tough one to get running with if you aren't familiar wtih S60, but a really good look at what mobile computing should be doing. The N95 was my first long-term play with S60, I'm convinced that it will work for US audiences with a little bit of tuning.
EDIT: as for replacing your digi cam; I would say that this is some proof that given patience with the hardware that many things are possible.

I could pick any smartphone available up in the moment I am happy that I found something, I intend to use, because I had a problem. I signed a two-year contract with Sprint, May 14, when he came the Treo 755p.