And the best Smartphone in the world is…

Almost 2 weeks ago I created a poll under the title “What is the best Smartphone in the world?“.

My idea was to see what is the most desirable device according to the readers of the MobileSpoon and much bigger blogs such as MobilitySite, TiltMobility and other friends.

After all, the “best smartphone” is a subjective term - so what’s better than just asking the power users?

The question was:

If price and operator were not part of your considerations:

Which Smartphone would you purchase?

Under the list of answers I included Palm, Asus, iPhone, HTC, Samsung, BlackBerry, Sony Ericsson - all the latest and greatest - and remember - price was not to be considered.

The results are pretty amazing. A total knock-out. A defeat! [Read more]

HTC Touch HD - The Manliest Phone!

Just saw that HTC Touch HD - probably one of the most fascinating Windows Mobile devices today - is one of the 3 manliest gadgets of 2008.

What’s a manliest gadget? I guess it has to be big, fast, great looking, probably not something that looks like HTC Touch Diamond… but according to my special sources (Google) the Polish TV channel TVN Turbo is running this kind of contest every year, in order to find the most masculine products of the year.

144 products have already been whittled down to just 12, and the HD is one of the 3 finalists in the gadget section. Cewooool.

The other two products are the Pentax Optio W60 and Sony Vaio series laptops.

I heard that T-Mobile G1 (HTC’s Android phone) was also a candidate but the voters thought it looks too old to really exist in 2008…

The Best Smartphone in the World!

Hi all. I would like to invite you to a poll I’m conducting with a clear purpose to find out, once and for all - what is the best smartphone in the world!

Since it’s not an accurate science, and since many of the new devices have similar specifications but different reviews, I decided to let the readers decide by asking a simple question:

If price and operator were not part of your considerations:

Which Smartphone would you purchase?

I can bet the letters ‘I’, ‘H’, ‘T’, ‘C’ and ‘X’ will be very popular in the votes but since I always lose in bets - I fold.

So you are all invited to take part of the poll, and soon we will all find out - which smartphone (you think) is the best smartphone in the world!

Link to the poll

I will publish the results in MobilitySite as well in few days.

My first impression of the Android

I had a chance to put my hands on the world’s first Android-powered handset - T-Mobile G1.

I must admit I had little expectations, as it is the first version of the product and I was always taught that when it comes to technology - version 1.0 never really works.

Though I didn’t have too much time to play around with it, I have to admit that it exceeded my expectations.

Here’s my thoughts about the first Android phone:

Sticking with some good ideas:

You don’t always need to invent the wheel to be successful, and indeed, the design of this phone combines few good elements that can be found in other handheld devices: trackball (BlackBerry anyone?), full sliding QWERTY keyboard (always better than those virtual ones), and the four classic hardware buttons: home, send, end, and back (combined with one additional ‘menu’ button).

Classy.

The OS tries to follow the touch experience that exists in all the new phones. It is designed in a finger friendly way and does a good job at it even though not always consistent.

The home screen is an interesting combination of a launcher (like iPhone’s shortcuts) with summary panels (like Windows Mobile’s informative today screen) - all, with the capabilities to define multiple pages.

It seems like Google learned from other’s experience: the iPhone misses some summary information in the home screen, and on the other hand - WinMo users always add launchers to their ‘today’ screen. Google combined the two and did it well.

Other than that, there are many things that reminded me of the iPhone: especially the way that the menus are scrolling using finger gestures. I can’t blame Google for doing so, as this is now becoming an industry standard. However, even though the screen technology is the same as the iPhone - the Android does not have the same smoothness. [Read more]

What happens when a Windows Mobile Addict breaks his vow and buys an iPhone?

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The following events took place between Monday, November 10 and Wednesday, November 12.

Nov 10, 2008, 19:00:

I’m on my way to a ‘Mobile Monday’ event where the main theme is “user interface in the mobile world”. Perfect for a guy like me who loves mobile gadgets and develops user interface…

Maybe I’ll get to see some new stuff like Windows Mobile 6.5!

[Read more]

Pocket Video Poker for Windows Mobile!

Yes!

At last!

It’s here!

Video Poker for Windows Mobile!

FRRRRRREEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

You probably know the story: you go to Vegas, you visit the casino, you start loosing money, then you see this nice innocent video poker machine and think to yourself: “how bad can that be? After all - all of those old ladies seem to get along with this harmless game…”

So you start… and after few days… (twist coming through:) you realize you spent most of you vacation in front of this machine, but didn’t lose so much money!

That’s almost like winning! [Read more]

Windows Mobile 6.5 - Coming in 2009!

Wow! This is great!

Few days ago, I’ve posted about Motorola’s head of mobile division accidentally slip of the tongue about Windows Mobile 6.5.

As we learned by now, those things are always an indication that something is truly happening.

And indeed, Steve Ballmer, at the Telstra Briefing 2008 in Australia, said the following:

With releases we’ll make this year - releases we’ll make with 6.5 next year, Windows Mobile 7, I think we have a pretty interesting roadmap.

No one can tell when, or how it will look like, I personally don’t expect amazing things; probably just improvements to the current OS, and few small innovations, but nothing revolutionary.

This is also a way to buy some time, as Windows Mobile 7 is delayed.

Microsoft RIM Takeover Rumors

Rumors rumors rumors. The mobile industry is just like a big happy soap opera.

After Windows Mobile 7 was rumored to be postponed, Windows Mobile 6.5 became the hot topic of the day.

And today I found an older post in SearchMobileComputing.com about possibilities that Microsoft will take advantage of RIM’s share taking a beating (dropped from $148 to around $50) and try to takeover BlackBerry maker.

The article includes few interesting pros and cons. Will Microsoft try to merge between the two platforms? Will enterprise prefer implementing a single platform instead of 2? Does it make sense for Microsoft to buy a company that makes hardware that doesn’t run Windows Mobile? And uses… Java?

Thinking about it, if it does happen eventually, I wonder what would be better for us… Running Windows Mobile on a Blackberry device or running Blackberry OS on an HTC device…

Think about it…

ZNax - a Totally Addictive Game for Windows Mobile (Freeware)

OK, this one is freaking me out.

This game is making me sick! I don’t eat, don’t drink (enough coffee), I can’t stop playing with it!

3 Minutes, all you need to do is find the biggest rectangles from the same colors and mark them, that’s all!

So simple, so nasty!

I am finding myself playing with it every time I have the chance. (My current record [after around 30 games] is 7,500 - can you compete with that?)

BTW, the images are taken from another game I like: Shift (but it’s not the same developer).

Don’t download this game, it will just make you waste all of your good time.

Don’t try it out and don’t install it - even though it’s for free.

To [not] download ZNax - click here.

Are you a Windows Mobile Addict?

Here’s something fun I composed over at The Mobile Spoon.

A short “examine yourself” test consisting of 8 questions to see if you are addicted to Windows Mobile.

I’m sure many of you already know the answer (of course you are all addicted!), but still, I would like to invite you to make the test and fill in your score.

So go on, it’s about time you find out how bad is your addiction .

Click here and find out: Are You Addicted to your Windows Mobile?

(I will publish the results in a couple of days).

SPB Mobile Shell Panel in Sony Ericsson Xperia X1

I’m a long time user of the SPB tools. I like the way they build their user interface and the SPB Mobile Shell product is the first thing I install on each of my devices.

Recently I posted in my blog about Toshiba embedding SPB Mobile shell as the main shell UI.

Today I found that the SPB Mobile Shell will be one of the panels included in Sony Ericsson’s XPeria X1.

As part of the strategic partnership between Sony Ericsson and Spb Software, Spb has put forth a top-notch, Spb Mobile Shell-based solution that compliments the X1 in both style and speed. Taking advantage of the smartphone’s unique panel technology, impressive hardware and dynamic wide VGA touchscreen, this custom version of Spb Mobile Shell is optimized for the new Xperia, and comes with all X1 devices as a free download.

I usually post about freewares I can recommend on, because as someone who also develop them I believe it is a good thing for the Windows Mobile community. But I have to admit that when it comes to SPB tools - I am willing to pay for the pleasure.

Read the full press release in here and here.

Scroll-bar and Menus Tweaks

Yesterday I’ve posted about some concerns I have with new Windows Mobile devices which lack any hardware button.

In the post Windows Mobile Devices with no Hardware Buttons I gave two examples of UI controls that are really not finger friendly: menus and scroll-bars.

Reading the comments I realized that many Windows Mobile users actually prefer as many hardware buttons as possible, because using them is easy, does not require “looking at the screen” and faster than any other alternative. Exactly my point! [Read more]

Windows Mobile Devices with no Hardware Buttons

Have you noticed a new “minimalism” trend in Windows Mobile phones designs?

New devices (for example: HTC HD, LG Incite) come with really few hardware buttons.

No ‘OK’ button, no ‘Start’ key, and even… have mercy… no D-Pad buttons!

(hmm… is it something I said?)

   

Knowing the limitations of Windows Mobile, I wonder how good the user experience can get without having some of the traditional hard buttons.

Most of the new applications are designed in a way that does not require a stylus or d-pad: they are what we call: finger friendly.

But the problem is that up to this point - the vast majority of Windows Mobile applications is not yet finger friendly: mails, SMS, calendar, files explorer, different settings, word, excel - all of those are older applications not well designed for finger use.

Few examples:

1. Menus: I often find myself navigating through menu items using the d-pad.

Since Windows Mobile was originally designed for stylus use - the menus are too small to be clicked by a finger. The workaround to this problem is the d-pad - can you imagine using a finger or pulling the stylus each time you need to click on a menu item?

2. Lists: Let’s say I need to scroll down a bit in order to select an image when I’m using the default files explorer. Currently, the fastest way (for me) would be to use the down arrow button (leave it pressed) and this would move the selection down 1 by 1 until it will scroll the entire list down. I personally hate using the scroll-bar with my finger (or pulling the stylus out of its’ endless sleeping mode…)

I assume that if I try harder and can come up with some other examples, but I feel that those 2 are strong enough to prove that Windows Mobile is not yet ready for finger navigation only.

 

This, I hope, is something that will be solved in windows Mobile 7. I’m really anxious to see how the user interface will look like, but until that point, I would rather stick with some hard keys to ease and speed things up when I’m using my phone.

What do you think?

Should Palm Go With Google?

I read an interesting post today with the title: “Why Palm Needs Android?“.

The writer reviews Palm problematic position in the current smartphones market, and even suggests that Palm should get rid of the constantly delayed Nova project and focus on creating Android based phones.

After reading it (I recommend you do the same…) I started thinking about Palm’s unusual situation:

- It has a very old mobile OS which can hardly compete with the new ones.

- It is working on a new OS (codename: Nova) that will be based on Linux (god knows when or how it will turn out to be).

- its’ most profitable phones are manufactured by HTC and running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile…

hmm… [Read more]

Free Addictive Games for Windows Mobile

I was “cleaning” my device the other day (deleting useless freeware which I tend to install much too often) and found few nice games I wanted to recommend on (some of them are not new, but still worth mentioning…)

Shift

Short game that becomes longer as you learn how to play it better. The goal here is to move the lines and somehow match the items. Sweet!

I like the user interface of it, it’s clean, works well on both 240,240 and 240,320 screens and can be used with both finger and d-pad buttons.

Fun and addictive.

Click here to download.

[Read more]