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Microsoft's Smartphone


Tue Jan 6, 2004 - 12:44 AM EST - By Michael Ducker

Wireless Data, Smartphone Problems

I was not very impressed with the wireless data features of the device. Pocket Internet Explorer pales in comparison to Blazer, and every page that I looked at was difficult to use, and slow to load. Believe it or not, the MPx200 has MORE pixels than the Treo 600, yet the Treo 600 renders pages much better.

Thanks to Microsofts large marketshare in the desktop software markets, the enterprise email markets, and their growing expertise in the mobile markets, corporate email from an exchange server is supposedly a cinch. It also has always on email using the same technique pioneered with Palm OS software, SMS messages to the phone to alert the device that there is new email to download. I couldnt imagine typing long email messages on Microsofts smartphone because you have to use T9. And while I have used T9 extensively with my Sony Ericsson t68i, it is slow and not as efficient as graffiti or a keyboard.

I think that one of the few things that Microsoft did well is streaming media out of the box. The included version of Windows Media Player can play all sorts of nifty file types, from mp3s to streaming video off the web. They showed a movie trailer if I recall correctly streaming over Verizons CDMA network, and the quality was not that bad. Overall, Microsoft showed good use of wireless software. They showed a third party application that gave real-time traffic info on the device including maps, and another that gave weather information. It is interesting, because these applications in some sense are like the PQAs of the Palm VII days. For the Treo, these have died out because bookmarks in Blazer are as good, if not more useful. Whatever the reason for individual apps, Microsoft was able to demonstrate that they understand the power of a mobile wireless device by showcasing these real-time applications.

Problems

The biggest problem I saw with both smartphones was that they were incredibly slow. Going between any applications, or even between menus often caused a spinning wheel to appear. This became very annoying the more I used the device. The next major problem was that even with customizability, I sincerely dislike the Pocket PC interface, and the adapted smartphone interface. It is a personal question that divides PDA users into two camps, but my experience with the device wasnt, let me just say, the best that it could be.

Another major problem, which they tried to downplay, was that applications written for Pocket PC didnt run on smartphone devices. This stumbling block has made it so that at the time there were only 800 applications available. I think one of the coolest things of the Treo 600 is that it can run any of the tens of thousands of Palm OS applications, yet still be a really great smartphone. This is an even more problematic issue for enterprise, because developers of the custom software used need to learn a new set of APIs and SDKs to best make use of the device.

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