Windows Mobile

There are two things that ruined my Windows Mobile experience. I use the HTC Mogul phone with Sprint. Say what you want about Sprint, but they have the best coverage in Hillsdale, the town where I reside. Their EVDO data network isn't all that bad either. I was given the phone to use for work and was quite excited to start using it. The Mogul is a HUGE upgrade from the RAZR that I used before. The Mogul has a touch screen, a slide-out keyboard, wifi capability, and great access to downloadable software. It syncs up easily with exchange and gmail. It even has a 2MP camera with a white LED bulb to use as a flash which, in a pinch, conveniently doubles as a flashlight. Needless to say, the first couple days using this phone were fantastic.

So what ruined it? First, the memory management. On Windows XP or Vista, when the little red 'x' in the top corner is clicked, the program closes and almost all the memory it used frees up for other programs to use. Not so much with Windows Mobile. If I open up my work email to check it, and then exit the email program, Windows Mobile keeps it running. The longer I use my phone, the more programs keep running. Because of this, every time I try to turn the camera on, the phone reports that there is not enough memory available. My RSS reader, a program called Viigo that was a "featured download" on Microsoft's website constantly crashes due to memory issues. So every time it does this, I have to pull up the memory manager program in order to manually stop each program from running. This is the equivalent of hitting ctrl-alt-del and clicking "end task" every time a program is to be closed in XP or Vista.

Second, let's talk about the user interface. Let's just say that unless you want to pull out a stylus every time you use the phone, the touch screen interface is impossible to use. Here are a few examples. In order to scroll, you really have to mash your finger in to the very bottom right hand corner of the screen to hit the down arrow or do the same thing to grab the scroll bar and drag it down. Each of the items on the startup page is very small. If I want to use my finger at all, I have to be very precise about exactly how much pressure to put on the screen and be extremely careful with placement. How about making a phone call? After all, the primary use of this device is to make and receive calls. Let's say I want to call my friend, Charles. Seems like a pretty simple task. Not so much. I press the phone button to bring up the dial pad. The contacts button on the screen is very small, so I have to be careful to push it exactly right. Ok, so I got that part done. Now all I have to do is find Charles in my contacts. Easy enough, right? Again, not so much. I have two options. First, I can scroll down to Charles' name. Scrolling sucks, though, so we don't want to do that. My other option is to press the button on the screen that corresponds with the first letter of his last name. Of course, this is a tiny button that is next to other tiny buttons, so I have to take great care to make sure I press the right one. After using the phone for over a month, I'd say I still only have a 70% success rate doing this. There are a number of other issues I can bring up, but what's the point? You've probably stopped reading this post by now anyway.

Normal evaluations have three points, but I assure you, after dealing with these two issues (and I assure you, there are PLENTY more aspects of the UI that are asinine) you will want to throw the phone into the wall. Instead of spending the time to create a carefully crafted gourmet meal topped off with a nice scotch and cigar, Microsoft went to GFS, grabbed the essentials and threw it all on a plate followed up with a 45 degree plastic cup of Natty Ice. No thanks!