Interesting new (for the US) Windows Mobile smart phones

Nice lipstick.

I can't stand TouchFlo 3D anymore. Beyond it's glitzy look, it's horrible from a productivity standpoint. I still prefer the Today screen, since you get a single screen access to all PDA information - as soon as you turn on the device. Related applications launch from their respective info fields on the Today screen. It's just all there. After using TouchFlo 3D for over a month, I turned it off. I find it takes nearly 3 clicks, and 2 swipes to get from the TouchFlo Home screen to email, and several additional motions to get to Opera or Youtube. From the native Today screen, it takes 2 clicks to launch any program that doesn't have info on that screen - 1 for "Start", 1 for the program icon. I use RSS Hub and email more than either web browser, but I find mobile websites are more easily readable in IE Mobile, than full sites are in Opera. RSS Hub has it's own info bar for the Today screen too, so it's a nice program to use. I don't know who thought that taking a website rendered as it would be on a desktop browser, and putting it on a miniscule screen, just to have the user zooming and scrolling like crazy, as "intuitive" or "innovative", but they are just dead wrong. It's just an awful experience. Mobile websites have their uses. I don't think Paul gets that. The panel interface on the X1 looks like a mangled app-switcher. The keyboard looks pretty svelte though. Does the Xperia have the rumoured NVIDIA GPU in it?

Waethorn Yeah I don't use the touchflo 3d, I actually use the home screen that came with the HTC Touch. I think you are right about website for mobile devices. All websites should have one. Some of my banks do and it is better in both the iPhone screen and the Diamond. I think Opera is only good for sites that don't have a good mobile experience. I have not been on to the the X1 so I don't know much about it.

This will have the same impact as the Zune. Windows Mobile is a second rate OS. The iPhone killed Windows Mobile. Showed them how to do it right. What's the bet that the Windows Mobile team reference iPhones every day and copy? Yeah, I win the bet.

@maati I think that HTC made it clear that they had no plans on having the TouchHD in the US but they did promise that future "better" headsets would. At the rate that HTC is making devices one after the other I think they are the best smartphone maker around. They just announce this one: http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/12/htc-max-4g-officially-announced-world... This is may make it to the US but I think that they have something under their sleeve. They are a very closed partner with Microsoft and I can just see them make the next big one.

It's sad that the Touch HD and the MAX 4G will not come to the US, but there will probably another device for that market. I got the HD and i had an iPhone and lots of WM devices in the past and the Touch HD is the first one to "kill" the iPhone in EVERY aspect. HTC should really hurry up to bring this one to the US because it's great - probably the best phone ever.

how much does the htc and he cost?

HTC Touch Diamond Sprint New Phone & Plan Pricing Regular price $549.99 Instant savings -$200.00 Mail-in Rebate -$100.00 New price $249.99 Requires 2-yr Agreement HTC Touch Pro Sprint New Phone & Plan Pricing Regular price $579.99 Instant savings -$180.00 Mail-in Rebate -$100.00 New price $299.99 Requires 2-yr Agreement Go to HTC site: http://www.htc.com/us/us_product_operator.aspx or Windows mobile: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/default.mspx To look up more about the phone/s and carriers

There's the other one too. I can't remember the name (it's a model number like "S640", or something). It has the screen of the HD, but with a keyboard like the Touch Pro, and a numeric dial-pad unlike any other model that currently ships. That is likely going to be the one that ships in North America. BTW: The dial-zoom thing on the Diamond is somewhat of a joke since you can double-tap the screen to zoom. @mike: Glamourous UI's don't improve productivity. That's where Windows Mobile gets the job done where the iPhone just decorates your icons with numbers of notifications per program. That's just a bad design, and I doubt Apple even considered that these were ever going to be used in a business when they designed it that way. Do they even do user interface studies? When you take a "pocket computing device" and glam it up with multimedia support and a stupified UI, you end up with a device that is a glorified PMP with widgets. Voila: the iPod Touch and iPhone. PS: I like how the previous commercials for the iPhone talk about all the multimedia crap, and then say "oh, and it's a phone too"....That makes it sound like the phone functionality was just duct taped on. So Paul, how's that workin' for you?

Darksages Yeah. It's been a race between PointUI and SPB. When PointUI does there 2.0 (rumored to be in beta in the next week or two) I'll probably try them both again.

@maati: iPhone comes out. New version of Windows Mobile is coming. Results in plenty of copying. It's in Microsoft's DNA. We all know it.

Paul, Windows Mobile != exciting!

"Wasting a life on mediocre products from a also-ran company." Exactly. Go away, boy. You'd be better off hanging outside Apple stores.

One of the ads at the top of the page is for Ascentive SpeedScan. They make a fake antispyware program called Spyware Striker. SpeedScan will install it too. Paul, these ads need to go.

....and another (tested in a VM - it installed a browser hijacker): "Vista Repair Download Fix Vista Problems Instantly! Free Download (Recommended) PCTuneUpTips.com"

Um....I suppose a bit back on topic. One of the great things I enjoy about Windows Mobile is that I can easily alter the home screen to best fit my taste, although I have tried and abandoned almost all of the "shell changers" because they drained the battery on my PDA a bit faster than I would like, although Im hoping that the guys at XDA can create a good port of Touch-Flo 3D that doesn't require me to install 13 CAB files so I can give that a whirl.

"*cough* Zune *cough*" Try again. Toshiba and Creative approached Microsoft for platform software for Portable Media Centers because they liked what they saw in Windows Mobile as a base CE OS. Toshiba made 2 generations of them. Then they made the Zune 1 for Microsoft because they didn't want to support end-users with the hardware anymore. You should really do your homework on the subject.

@waethorn: "That, coming from a fan of a company that decided to get into a market that was already well-established." You mean the way that Microsoft got in to the OS game after Apple? Always coming 2nd in the OS game to Apple, since day one. "Get rid of Google. They don't filter search results or ad carriers. That's why they dominate in advertising - it's not quality, it's quantity." Exactly the Microsoft tag-line right there. "it's not quality, it's quantity." Flood the market with a cheap and nasty OS like Windows.

"40 years later, and the only thing innovative for the Unix pig is that it now has Aqua-coloured lipstick" -Steve Jobs

Waethorn Sounds like my "supermodel just waking up with no makeup" (Windows Vista) versus "supermodel with makeup" (Windows 7) versus Joan Rivers (OS X) analogy from the other thread today. But, hey, Apple has done their own Operating System work and some of the simple ones even worked: AppleDOS for the Apple ][ (Featuring Microsoft BASIC) Lisa System Macintosh Systems 1-7 (8 and 9 were just renames of versions of System 7 to get out of contracts) And some including the complex, modern ones, not so much: ProDOS for the Apple /// "Gershwin" "Copland" Taligent "Pink" (with the help of that other disaster at modern OS work, IBM) So, hey, for 14 years back from 1977 through 1991 they were still mostly competent at system software and it's only been 17 years since they did one on their own that worked... (Seriously, I wish Apple would do their own modern OS rather than rely on that ancient kludge Unix)

@waethorn: Some very apt things on that site. "Steve Ballmer belongs to a rare breed of monkey that feeds on human genital wart." "Bill Gates is a fascist, Satanist mechanophile geek who created Microsoft's Windows operating system for the sole purpose of crashing every computer that ever used it. He also claimed to have Pwned Steve Jobs for the lulz, but this was later found to be just another marketing ploy." And the Windows link is very apt. BSOD baby (tm Microsoft). http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Windows Windows described in a nutshell: "Insecure, chafing, bug-ridden filth."

@mikegalos: Microsoft has had some OS success too: - MSDOS. Crap. - Windows 3.1. Built on the crap that is MSDOS. - Windows 95. Prettier crap. - Windows XP. Candy like crap. - Vista. A dog of an OS. - Vista 2. Crap built on crap, on crap, on crap, on crap with still the dog's guts of MSDOS.

@runtimeerror (btw, very appropriate nick...) You mention the Zune (vs. iPod). But you *forgot* that that iPod copyed BOTH the interface (Creative Labs) AND the actual hardware (http://www.kanekramer.com/html/development.htm). It's MacOS vs. Xerox Alto all over again... Anyway: how does a Microsoft-oriented blog like this one gets so much Apple Trolls...? How come don't you go play outside and find your Apple-oriented blogs?

"Anyway: how does a Microsoft-oriented blog like this one gets so much Apple Trolls...? How come don't you go play outside and find your Apple-oriented blogs?" Not many blogs churn as many postings on Apple out each day as this. That's why there are almost as many Apple trolls as there are MS trolls.

ROBERTSJOE is the iCabal (or whatever its called) that Paul speaks of. He is the the Mike Galos of Apple fangirlism. To much of one thing is never good. Now we just need a poll.... Which total logic-less fangirl is more annoying. 1. Microsoft Mikey 2. Roberts-I want Steve's man gravy-Joe You decide. Poll results to be posted tomorrow.