The Glade 4.0

Microsoft held the official launch event today. Europe/Asia on Nov 22nd, Stateside by Oct. 8th. Tons of handsets shown and the Dell one is looking pretty great. I love portrait sliders. Looking like I'm probably going to be dropping AT&T for T-Mobile come Nov.

Engadget Tech Specs & Information



Anyone else taking the plunge?

I've been fairly pleased with TMO, if that's the plunge you're talking..

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Well, the plunge would be switching to a first-generation operating system.

I'll pass, aside from Xbox integration the The Windows Phone 7 OS is technically inferior to the old WM6.5 OS it was replacing is basically every way.

I dislike the lack of home screen customization and the home screen is awful IMO, it's such a huge waste of space, it's 2010, we don't need 1/5-1/4 screen taken up by a small arrow and a huge black bar telling us we can flick over and the icons seem to be optimized for a small < 3" screen even though I believe every WP7 phone announced has a 3.5"+ screen meaning is should be setup for a 3-4 row wide layout, not only 2.

Please elaborate without referencing custom ROMs, proprietary UI overlays or third party programs that don't exist yet but are likely to.

Thank you in advance.

well first off you can't say you can't take into account third party programs, aka apps, because those are what make the phone, the iPhone would be a shiny paper weight without third party apps, and Microsoft is not allowing WP7 customization at all, that is a limitation, but without taking into account any sort of ROM flashing...

Ability to use custom UI's:
WM6.5 yes
WP7 no

Flash support:
WM6.5 yes (flash lite thru Opera 10, full flash thru Skyfire)
WP7 no

Silverlight support:
WM6.5 yes (Skyfire browser)
WP7
no

HTML5:
WM6.5 yes (Skyfire browser)
WP7 no

Ability to install any apps:
WP6.5 yes
WP7 no, app store only

Ability to tweak customize the OS at the core level :
WP6.5 yes via registy
WP7 no (aside from custom roms, rooting/jailbreaking)

Multitasking:
WM6.5 yes, true full multitasking
WP7 yes, limited multitasking

organizable program list:
WM6.5 yes
WP7 no

Custom wallpaper:
WM6.5 yes
WP7 no

Ability to change default programs:
WM6.5 yes
WP7 no (you're stuck with the Microsoft app as default)

Copy/paste:
WM6.5 yes
WP7 no

Phone hardware form factor:
WM6.5 open, any allowed, only requirement is the windows key
WP7 very restricted

Expandable memory support via microsd:
WM6.5 yes
WP7 no

Oh, and funny too in that video the guy is saying how you can have a live tile on WP7 for the weather but WM6.5 you have to slide over to the weather tab to see it, mean while right there on the home page he has the WM6.5 phone on is the current weather and temp, not to mention the full screen weather animation that's part of the the HTC sense interface, something that's not going to be possible on WP7.

WP7 is for all intents is a 2006 smartphone OS capabilities wise with a modern pretty UI (very objective) and has adopted the Apple idea of it's the perfect OS for you, provided you think the same was as we do, otherwise tough ****, you're stuck with it anyways.

Many of their choices are inexcusable in this day and age for smartphone OS's, like lack of copy and paste, no support for either flash or html5, no real multitasking, and no custom wallpaper (seriously, even my Motorola RAZR from 2005 could do that).

I would like to preface my post with the statement that if you honestly think the new handsets wont be rooted and hacked (and customized) like the iPhone or Android counterparts, you're fooling yourself.

Regarding Flash, Silverlight, HTML5:
Edit - MS has already said flash/html5 will be in W7P, but not at launch.
Microsoft is putting a lot of money, development time and marketing into IE9. IE9 is the fastest-rendering HTML5 browser in existence right now. Once again, it seems foolish if you think this browser (once finished) wont make its way to Microsoft's brand new phone platform that they're also putting a lot of money behind.

Cut and Paste is going to be added before handsets are even available on all carriers; a non-issue.

Multitasking:
This is something I don't think a mobile phone should even have in a true sense. Apple has actually done an AMAZING job with app sleep states and quick switching. The very developers that broke open the iPhone have repeatedly said that they can't do a better job. I do count the lack of quick-switching as a minus to the W7P platform, but I would absolutely hate to see a task manager as well.

Installing apps, customizing OS, organizing apps, etc:
This falls under the 'hacking the phone' category. Please don't say that you shouldn't have to hack the phone to get this functionality, because that's exactly what you're doing when you flash a custom ROM onto a WinMo6+ device. I have no doubt in my mind that all of this will be added by the phone community, just as it was with the iPhone.

Hardware:
As far as I know, MS only requires a few things. A touchscreen and three (back, start, search) dedicated buttons on the bottom. Everything else seems like it's up to the manufacturer. I imagine memory card expandability is up to the maker as well.

I hate to sound confrontational, but almost everything you love about WinMo didn't exist when it launched. This is a first-generation operating system. WinMo 6.5 is where it is because of years of manpower from both developers and hobbyists. While W7P may not address all of your concerns out of its first-generation box, I have no doubt that it will shortly address all of your issues.

At the end of the day, these phones are about the user experience. With everything that is automatically tied into the platform, I can't help but think that these handsets are going to provide me with a more enjoyable experience out of the box than any other OS and that's what my decision is based on.

I'm not saying it won't be hacked to be able to do most/all of those things I mentioned, the point is it shouldn't have to be and it should have those features from the start, and WM6.5 doesn't require hacking to get any of those. Sure they will add a lot as time goes on, but IMO it's inexcusable to release a new OS version when it's only 75% complete with promises to finish it in the future which is what they are doing, oh, and Microsoft has always sucked at follow thru with their mobile platforms. How would you feel if you went to buy a new model car and it didn't have a speedometer, a radio and heat? or airbags, 99% of people don't ever actually use them, so they go right, that was Microsoft's reasoning on no copy and paste. without those the car still functions completely as a car, but you would tell them to piss off if they tried to sell you it.

Sure, Apple has done a good job with their limited multitasking, but it still sucks next to Android or WM6.5's multitasking abilities, and WP7's multitasking is said to be more limited than iOS.



Installing apps is not hacking the phone, unless you actually have to hack the phone to do so. installing your own non-app store apps was an intrigal part of the WM6.5 platform, Android has this same ability too, no rooting or anything required, it's part of the OS.

Customizing the OS also requires no hacking into the phone, rooting, flashing, etc, Microsoft left the OS fully open and allowed and encouraged it. Customizing the UI was as simple as installing the app, going into the today screen settings, turning off the current UI skin and turning on your new one, the ability to switch them is simply part of the OS, no hacking required.

I think you are simply not fully away of all the capabilities the old Windows Mobile platform has that were standard allowed things with no hacking or flashing custom ROMs. I've owned two Windows Mobile phones, the HTC Fuze with WM6.1 and the HTC HD2 with WM6.5 so i'm well aware of everything you could do, and even being on Android 2.2 now which is a pretty open OS platform I miss some of the modifications I could do on Windows Mobile out of the box with an app install that would require rooting and flashing a new ROM to do the same on Android

I'm bound by contract for 18 months yet, I'll have to evaluate what's available then.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

First handset review just published by Engadget for the Samsung Omnia 7. They gave it an 8/10 and it's not even considered one of the best handsets announced, hardware-wise.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/sams ... -7-review/

Can't wait to see how the Dell Venue Pro does.

Griping about the windows phone not having flash on release is kind of silly when Android just got it a couple months ago with version 2.2 (unless you count support via 3rd party browsers, which I don't).

And when iOS still doesn't have it...

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Well for the longest times iOS also didn't have cut and paste, iOS is not always the leader in smartphone technology despite what fanboys seem to think. And just because apparently Adobe ate Steve Job's baby with the grudge he seems to hold against them and flash doesn't mean no other phone needs it. Admittedly flash sucks and is slow compared to html5, but almost all sites use flash and hardly any use html5 and to have true full web experience you need flash.


And 3rd party browsers count imo because a smartphone now a days is practically defined by it's apps and app support, and in that regard WP7's predecessors have had flash for years, and Android has had it for quite a while too. Yeah, WP7 will i'm sure get the Skyfire browser, but even if it does you still can't change your default browser on it so you're stuck waiting for Microsoft to get a non-clunky flash support on WP7, and Microsoft is notoriously slow on follow thru on new features like that, they always have been and I don't see that changing.

HTML5 is pretty prominent, actually. At least among video websites, which Flash is really only good for anyway.

Android has had it for 2 months - that's not a while. If you're going to count 3rd party apps, then you're not making apples to apples comparisons and therefore your gripes about WP7 are ridiculous.

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The Dude abides.