Having just read Richard Tubb’s post called Remember Windows Mobile 6.5? I felt compelled to write this. You should probably go and read Richard’s post first….go on, I’ll still be here when you’re done.

In summary, Richard has a HTC HD2 running Windows Mobile 6.5. He loves the device and HTC use their HTC Sense software to hide a lot of the Windows Mobile 6.5 side of things, so much so that when his contract runs out he has no plans to upgrade it yet.

I remember feeling very envious of Richard’s HTC HD2 when he first showed it to me. I’d only had my HTC Touch 2 a few weeks and when I spoke to my operator (T-Mobile) for my handset upgrade I was told the HTC Touch 2 was the only Windows Mobile 6.5 they had and there were no plans in the pipeline for any more in the near future…the HTC HD2 was announced by T-Mobile a few weeks later – how annoyed was I?

My contract is also coming around to upgrade time and I’ll be honest I can’t wait.

See my phone doesn’t come with HTC Sense. It has something called HTC TouchFlo which is basically a today screen plugin which is useful in some respects but lacks the integration of Facebook, Twitter, mail, texts and contacts that HTC Sense has.

This means I have to interact with Windows Mobile 6.5 a lot more which I’ve just had enough of.

6.5 was very much an upgrade from 6 meaning there are some areas of the operating system which really are still suited to a stylus and while the phone comes with one I don’t want to keep switching between that and my finger so generally end up selecting the wrong option and spending ten minutes on a text message trying to use the on screen keyboard.

If I steal copy use Richard’s list for inspiration

• My Touch2 isn’t particularly fast and it frequently will grid to a halt. Whether is down to the device or the software is probably open to debate.
• The camera is ok, but not good enough that I use it a lot.
• Battery life is one of the plus sides. I can get a day’s heavy use out of it quite easily and if i turn off wireless, bluetooth and direct push when I’m not using them I’ll get three or four days use easily.
• E-Mail works great with Exchange and GoogleMail and Hotmail (with an additional Microsoft application installed)
• GPS – The specs list an internal GPS antenna but it’s never worked when I’ve needed it.
• Social Media is only available through apps or a web browser. I’ve not found a Facebook app that works well. m.twitter.com was my default option until recently but something has changed which means my browser frequently locks up on the site so I’m now using the excellent moTweets.
• You can’t switch from portrait to landscape mode easily (that I can tell!). Sometimes when I’m reading some text it would be easier to have it in landscape.

I’ve also had some weird things going on with the phone recently.

The big one is that it’s been losing time. I noticed that it was about ten minutes slow so reset the clock. Within a couple of days it had fallen behind again and it’s been a feature ever since. This is a pain in the neck, especially since I rely on it for the time (I haven’t worn a watch on a daily basis since I started carrying a mobile phone)

Text messages have been arriving in batches. My phone will beep and I’ll notice two or three that have been sent over the last hour. I had a situation recently why Mrs P sent me a text while I was still in the office asking me to pick something up on the way home. I didn’t actually get the text until I’d arrived home. This isn’t helpful when your married to someone who relies on text messages.

When opening a text sometimes it will half open and then lock up and I end up frustratingly stabbing at screen with my finger and when i finally catches

Sometimes if I miss a call the phone doesn’t become useable for a few minutes as the caller display seems to hang.

You probably get the point….

Based on experiences with my previous Windows Mobile I probably need to reload and start from scratch.

So which handset should I go for?

I really don’t know if I’m honest.

I don’t particularly want an iPhone (the reasons for which are long enough for their own blog post). As Richard also said I’m also not that interested in a Blackberry which means the choice is either an Android or Windows Mobile 7.

The other thing is that I find it really hard to get excited about mobile phones in the same way as I would other gadgets. I remember when Windows Phone 7 was launched, one of their Facebook status updates asked who’d be queuing up to get one. Straight away I thought “not me, I’ve got another twelve months left on my contract!”

I don’t know how it works in other countries but the norm here is that your handset is subsidised by the network so we’re just not used to buying devices. This means if I sign up for a contract (which has gone up from 12 month to 18 months to 2 years now) that’s the device I’ve got work with unless I want to buy another device myself. Some people do this by selling their first device to fund the new device but I can’t be bothered with that!

This means when Apple, or Nokia or Microsoft or whoever release their latest and greatest I just can’t get excited as it’s only applicable to me for a very short period of time. It means I can only be interested in what’s available when I’m in a position to upgrade.

I mentioned on Facebook earlier about one my favourite phones from years gone by…the Nokia 7110.

I’ve still got it, maybe I should just use that instead?

Let’s get something out of the way – I don’t want an iPhone :-p

No that’s out the way back to the post…

Our mobile contract recently expired so I try to approach this in a reasonably simple manner

1) Is the price plan fitting our needs? If it is then I don’t really want to pay anymore per month, if anything I’d rather pay less

2) The less we have to pay for devices the better! Windows Mobile is our first preference.

So even after our recent “billing issues” with T-Mobile we went to them first to give them the chance to keep our business. I told them our preferences and asked to see what they could do

What was really frustrating here was the first person I spoke to didn’t really know exactly what they were selling. I was told that our price plan didn’t exist anymore and if we wanted Windows mobile we had a choice of two devices, one we could get as a free upgrade and one we’d have to pay for. The price plan choices were also confusing and it wasn’t clear how much data we’d be getting (which is important!)

Annoyed I left it and decided to come back as Windows Mobile 6.5 had just been announced so I wanted to see how quickly the devices would filter through

I then went to look at the competition and looked through their offerings on the websites first and initially I found

Three don’t appear to sell any Windows Mobile based devices

02 and Orange have price plans that are higher than what we’re paying now and it was very very unclear about data allowances

Vodafone had price plans that were slightly more than we were currently paying with less minutes, texts and data but had a greater variety of devices

I then spotted the HTC Touch 2 Pro which I liked the look of so spoke to Vodafone’s small business team. The upshot of it was that i was correct in that we’d be paying slightly more per month for less features on our package and would have to pay for each device

So I went back to T-Mobile see what they were doing on the Windows Mobile 6.5 front

I spoke to three different people and not one of them was 100% sure about the devices they sold! The good news was that our price plan does still exist and we don’t under or over use it so it’s the correct plan for us

So if we were going to stay where we are it was just a matter of trying to pick a device

There are two on the website, and like the other experiences I’ve had with the other mobile providers trying to get clear and concise information wasn’t easy

By the time I’d been backwards and forwards and tried to figure out who actually knew what they were doing I didn’t care about the version of Windows Mobile!

It then transpires that T-Mobile have recently started to stock the HTC Touch 2 (though it was no where to be found on their website) which does run Windows Mobile 6.5 (again the staff on the phone weren’t entirely sure of this!) so that is what I went with

It arrived a couple of days later (no thanks to the Royal Mail postal strike!!)

So after all that…the phone!

Image from HTC.com

Compared to my HTC TyTn II the phone weighs nothing at all! That keyboard makes all the difference.

When going for this phone my one worry was the lack of keyboard and was the reason the Touch 2 Pro caught my eye as I used it quite a lot. A week in and I’m just about getting used to it

The touch screen is nice and responsive and the few people I’ve shown it to said they liked how the device looked. It also has an FM radio built-in, I’ve never had a phone with the capability and haven’t had the chance to try it out yet. I’ve put an 8GB micro SD in though so was planning on using MP3s more than listen to the radio

The quality of the calls I’ve made have been decent and it plays nicely with my hands free kit

I’m not going to do a full blown review of Windows Mobile 6.5 (Windows phone!) as there are plenty of other people who will do a far better job but just some thoughts

• The new start menu is very nice. On my old 6.0 device using the start menu with anything other than the stylus or the device navigation buttons was a no go
• The threaded conversations for text messages is interesting. I’m still getting used to it but it’s keeping my inbox a lot neater
• The new onscreen keyboard is pretty cool, now i’m getting used to it I haven’t been anywhere near the stylus
• Internet Explorer is nice. Though I’m currently testing Opera mobile that came bundled with it as it just too many good features (tabs and password management are my current favourites)
• While it’s generally more “finger friendly” there are still some areas that very obviously are the same as in previous versions of Windows Mobile so i think this is more of an incremental upgrade.

I’ll need to read the manual for the TouchFlo stuff though. The areas on the front screen for text messages and emails have changed since the day i turned the phone on. I may be misunderstanding it’s use though

Overall I’m really pleased with the phone. At the moment I don’t have any immediate regrets for ignoring the Touch 2 Pro. I do wish we could do away with the version madness though

When you buy an iPhone that’s exactly what you get. Regardless which generation of handset you buy you always get updates so you can take advantage of the latest features. No such thing with Windows Mobile as you are at the mercy of the handset manufacturer and the mobile provider. It was immensely frustrating dealing with the sales staff who just didn’t know their products

Just a quick one so I remember this next time!

One of our clients hooked up their first mobile device last week (it was an iPhone!)

They called us to ask for the details but they were constantly prompted for the password. I was visiting site the same day so had a look myself. The settings had been entered correctly so i logged onto the server and checked the IIS logs

I could see entries for the iPhone connecting but nothing in the security log that indicated a problem with the user name and password

The next step was to use the excellent www.testexchangeconnectivity.com website to see if it could connect. It couldn’t and i got a HTTP 500 error with a link to click on which eventually led me to:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817379

Basically when using a single Exchange server there are some steps you need to take as the virtual directory ActiveSync uses needs HTTPS disabled whereas i need it enabled for OWA (the full technical details are in the KB article – your device is still connected to the server over HTTPS)

The problem doesn’t occur if you have a front-end/back-end Exchange setup or if you are running SBS 2003 as the connect to the Internet Wizard takes care of that for you (check the steps in the KB article and compare it to your SBS…they will be the same)

I also came across a great blog post by Corey Gilmore, with the full set of steps needed to configure a single Exchange 2003 server for ActiveSync (including ISA configuration) with screenshots so there is no need for me to reproduce that here

When we first started the business we paid a stupid amount of money on mobiles phones. This stung so much that when it came around to the end of the contract we got a really cheap contract with a pretty basic phone.

While this was fine it meant i was missing out on push email goodness and i was still carrying around my trusty ipaq which has served me well over the years but it’s showing it’s age a bit (it’s Windows Mobile 2003!) and has no capability for connecting to the internet while i was away from the office

The contract is up for renewal so i felt i really needed a new smartphone

After a recommendation from Richard Tubb i went with the T-Mobile MDA Vario 3 (which i believe is a HTC TyTN II)

So far i’ve been pretty impressed.

I really like the keyboard which makes typing pretty easy. Also there are about four different ways to operate it. You can use the touchscreen, the keyboard, a thumbwheel and button on the side or the buttons on the front. I’ve found myself switching between them depending on the task i’m performing

It’s not a bad size (though it feels heavier than my larger ipaq but thats ok) and the screen is big enough so that nothing gets lost

From a techie perspective it’s got all the connectivity you’d want (USB,Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G/HSDPA/GPRS/etc)

It has a built-in GPS receiver (finally i  have a excuse to get get rid of the evil sat-nav software i have), Windows Mobile 6, MicroSd expansion slot (up to 8Gb i belive but looking to get this confirmed) and 3MP camera

If i had to complain about anything it doesn’t seem as responsive as my ipaq but i’m guessing it’s doing a lot more

The contract i took out also gives me “unlimited high speed internet access” (about 1GB in reality) and allows me to hook the phone up to my laptop for when i need connectivity on the go

I’ve always felt a bit guilty talking to clients about mobile solutions while not having one myself. I’ve only had it a couple of days and i’ve already found one or two productivity benefits as well.

The downside is i’m now (even more) attached to work than i was before!

Thankfully there is an off button

I posted a while back about how i was having problems making changes to my email folder selections since making the upgrade to Vista.

Nothing helpful other than

“There is a problem with your connection. Please disconnect and reconnect
your device and try again” 

I noticed in several places last week that the Mobile Device Center had a new release so thought i’d check it out

New features are:

• Windows Mobile 6 feature support

  • Information Rights Management activation – Automatically configure the Windows Mobile 6 device to open IRM-protected documents and files

  • HTML mail – Set up your Windows Mobile 6 device to sync HTML-formatted mail

  • Certificate Enrollment – Acquire certificates through the PC the Windows Mobile 6 device is currently connected to

  • Allow data connections on the Windows Mobile 6 device when connected to the PC

  • File synchronization for smartphones – Synchronize files with your Windows Mobile 6 devices, including both touch screen and non-touch screen devices

• Automatic device authentication – Connect the Windows Mobile device to the PC without the need to enter the device-lock PIN every time upon connect
• Product Registration – Register your Windows Mobile device and get connected to information and offers available for your device

I’m pleased to report installing the latest version solved my problem!

I was able to select the email folders i wanted to sync and it saved without any fuss. The bonus for this is if i leave my Outlook 2007 open i can now get my rss feeds while i’m on the go!

I’m still not sure why it was doing this but i’m glad it’s resolved now

Download it from here 

I have a HP IPAQ hx2750 which i probably dont use as much as i should but is great for getting quick access to email and appointments when i’m away from my PC.

After installing Vista i discovered that ActiveSync is no-more so installed the “Windows Mobile Device Center” Beta

Installation seemed to go ok and email, tasks, calendar and the like were all sync’d ok

Then i had a bright idea.

Now that i’m using Outlook 2007 for my RSS feeds wouldn’t be great if these sync’d to my PDA as well so that i could read those away from my desk?

So i found the “select folders” bit, ticked all the boxes and i get this

“There is a problem with your connection. Please disconnect and reconnect
your device and try again”

Wonderful!

I had a look around and couldn’t find anything of any help so posted on one of the Vista newsgroups without any real success.

I then spotted this download yesteday

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=83d513ea-9df9-4920-af33-3a0e2e4e7beb&DisplayLang=en

The RTM version of the mobile device centre

I installed this but unfortunately this doesn’t solve my problem. I dont really want to upgrade to a Windows Mobile 5 device as the one i have is just fine at the moment but suspect that is probably the answer.