Brandon, Geoffrey and Joe recently wrote some good articles about why they’re using a specific phone as their daily drivers today. Now it’s my turn. Here’s a quick look at my daily drivers over the years. This list does not include phones that I’ve only used for a couple months.
1. 1999: Uniden UniPro PC100 (Built in modem, CF slot, folding cradle, DTMF dialing)
2. 2000: Compaq iPaq H3600 (w/ OmniSky 1G wireless internet)
3. 2002: Compaq iPaq H3600 (w/ GSM/GPRS Expansion pack for integrated phone/internet)
4. 2002: Compaq iPaq H3900 w/ GSM/GPRS Expansion pack (Phone, MP3 player, full internet, universal remote control SD card storage, Bluetooth)
5. 2003: Imate Pocket PC Phone/HTC Himalaya (1st PDA Phone with bluetooth headset support and voice command)
6. 2004: Imate JAM/HTC Magician (1st 2.8″ screen PDA phone, 1st to sync recorded TV shows automatically, fastest and most stable Windows Mobile phone ever)
7. 2005: K-Jam/HTC Wizard (1st Windows Mobile 5.0 device, 1st with side-sliding keyboard, 1st high-speed EDGE smartphone)
8. 2006: Imate JAMin/HTC Prophet (Thinner than the Wizard, supports WM5)
9. 2006: HTC P3300/Artemis (Very innovative hardware interface, and GPS built-in)
10. 2007: HTC TyTN II (To this day, the most innovative and well-designed hardware for a smartphone)
11. 2008: HTC Touch Diamond (Still the smallest most pocket-friendly smartphone, VGA screen)
12. 2009: HTC Touch Pro 2 (T-Mobile 3G support, and best keyboard on any device.)
13. 2010: HTC HD2 (Very fast, great camera)
As you can see, I’ve been a smartphone reviewer since the invention of the first smartphone. I even designed an imaginary smartphone of the future in 2003. In fact, I refused to even buy a normal cell phone until there was one that was smart enough to do all of the things I wanted it to. I never wanted to carry a PDA and a phone and an MP3 player and a GPS… that’s for suckers. So instead of a phone, I started off with the Windows CE Palm-sized PC. The Uniden PC-100 was one of the most innovative PDA’s of the time and I got it on sale for $99. It had a built in dial-up modem, CF card slot, and a folding cradle. I could sync my contacts with Outlook and use DTMF tones to dial calls at payphones. I could copy maps to Pocket Streets and sync pushpins over from Streets & Trips on the desktop. I could sync draft emails started on my desktop to the PDA, add to them while mobile, then sync the draft email back to Outlook, add to the text some more, and then send it. It was also important for my PDA to help me manage projects and tasks at work. If you have a job, you probably have things to do and a task list is good for keeping track of those things. I needed a PDA for that since at the time I was using a Mac at work without Outlook or any kind of task management software, so a mobile device was important for syncing task at home while also being able to manage them at work.
Then came Pocket PC 2000 and the real wireless internet running at 19.2Kb/s. Again, this was a first for portable devices as the Palm Pilots of the time were unable to surf the actual world wide web. I had my OmniSky CDPD service and an eVoice phone number that delivered voice mails with caller ID to my email as wave files which I could easily listen to on my PDA. Yes, that was before Gmail or Google Voice ever existed. It wasn’t until 2002 when I actually got a mobile phone and yet it was in the form of an expansion pack for the Compaq iPAQ H3600 so that I could maintain Outlook sync capabilities. There were a lot of people who wanted their phones to be separate from their PDA’s at the time… thinking that specialized devices could do their individual jobs better. I knew better since it doesn’t make sense to have to manually enter your contact phone numbers into a phone using T9 buttons when you can just select the name from a list that was synchronized from Outlook.
I signed on with Voicestream since they were the only GSM compatible provider with GPRS internet access at the time. ATT was still using TDMA and Sprint/Verizon were on CDMA of course. Voicestream was later bought by T-Mobile and 8 years later I’ve still got a nice grand-fathered rate plan from the turn of the century. Today, just about all phones sync with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook so there’s no longer a need to manually enter contacts into small-screened devices. Yet, the now ancient Windows Mobile Classic operating system I started using 10 years ago still has some unmatched capabilities.
I could go on and on about all of the devices I’ve had over the years, but this is really about why the T-Mobile HTC HD2 is my daily driver today.
First of all, T-Mobile has been upgrading their network and now has the fastest 4G-like HSPA+ network connectivity in my area. As you read before, I’m grandfathered on a rate plan from 2002, so paying more money to switch to a less capable network would be dumb.
Secondly, none of the other “modern” smartphone operating systems actually synchronize tasks or notes with Exchange Activesync. Don’t tell me the BlackBerry does ’cause I’m not interested in buying or renting a BES server to make that work. In order to keep track of things I need to do, I need Windows Mobile. Plus, I don’t like to keep all of my eggs in one basket, so instead of relying on only my Exchange server to store all of my PIM data, I can also sync my HD2 with an offline Outlook data file at home as a backup.
Thirdly, I love not having to pick up my phone in order to use it. If I’m sitting in front of a computer with a real keyboard, I should be able to use that on my phone. With Windows Mobile it’s very easy. I can keep a Pocket Controller Window open at all times and easily respond to text messages, or ignore incoming calls, or see who called with visual voicemail, or copy out eWallet passwords, or enter GPS Navigation destinations while my phone sits in its charger. Plus, I really like being able to archive my SMS messages using Jeyo Mobile Companion.
Fourth, I gotta have my eWallet. That’s my fully encrypted password storage place. It syncs with my desktop just fine, as well as any of my other Windows Phones I might use. Unfortunately the Android version is just a viewer and extremely underpowered.
Fifth is the fact that I like to use my phone as a media player. Windows Mobile (theoretically) has better media syncing capabilities than any other smartphone. It supports DRM protected content, automatic playlist syncing, video syncing, voice control, touch gestures, and even recorded TV shows. Setting up an auto-playlist of recent TV shows is very easy, and setting that to sync with my phone means I’ll always have my latest favorite TV shows on my mobile device. Android doesn’t really have a decent media syncing solution, and the iPhone’s iTunes sync certainly doesn’t support DVR recorded TV shows… you have to manually buy the TV shows you want to copy to your device or manually convert them with other software. Then I’ve got Core Player on Windows Mobile which supports many different video formats and plays them beautifully. I don’t have to worry about having to convert most AVI’s or DIVX files to some other format in order to play them on my Windows Phone.
Sixth; the HD2 is the fastest Windows Phone around. With its 1Ghz processor, everything is very responsive and just as quick as any other phone on the market. The camera launches very quickly which is important for capturing impromptu shots and screen rotations are problem free. Sure, I kind of wish it had a stylus as capacitive touch screen keyboards have very poor usability by their very nature, but the large amounts of memory and speedy processor mean I can run GPS, Voice Command, and Media Player applications all at the same time without worrying about something getting closed down.
Seventh; I love themes. As a designer, I want my phone to be personal and attractive (like my custom Touch Diamond). Windows Mobile is still the only smartphone operating system that has a system-wide theme structure. I can easily make the whole OS and all of its apps fit my mood or match the outfit I’m wearing.
Eighth is the speech UI. Since 2003, when Voice Command first appeared, Windows Mobile has had the most extensive and powerful speech UI on a mobile device. I can ask it about my schedule for the day over a Bluetooth headset, and it will tell me over the speaker. I can tell it to play music, make a call… I can ask it about my battery life or the time, and it will respond audibly not visually. There’s no need to touch the device or look at the screen in order to interact with it. This is how a speech UI should work, and being able to interact with my phone from inside of a motorcycle helmet without taking my eyes off the road is excellent.
Lastly; is how easy it is to show off to Android Fans. Sometimes I get asked if this is the EVO 4G or if it’s an Android phone. I say, “No, it’s Windows Mobile 6.5, but if you give me a minute I can boot into Android 2.2 and do everything Android does as well.” This also works when Android fans want to show off certain apps that may not have equivalents on Windows Mobile. Sure, I don’t really care about most silly Android apps/games or live wallpaper, and generally Windows Mobile takes care of my mobile needs in a better fashion… but it sure is fun to be able to run both Windows Mobile and Android on the same device. Android fans will gloat about openness and customizability, but guess what… I can stand here right now and switch between HTC Sense on Windows Mobile, The Titanium UI with a theme that matches my tie, SPB Mobile Shell, a classic Today Screen, or Android Froyo with HTC Sense without having to connect to a PC.
Why don’t I just switch to Android completely, you say? Many other Windows Mobile users have, it’s newer, and it should do most of the things I need. Well, I’ve tried to switch to Android three times. First with the G1 and most recently with the Samsung Vibrant. The whole operating system still feels like it’s in beta except there’s no indication of any plans to make it an integrated experience. Application UI designs are all over the place; sometimes there’s big colored tabs at the top, sometimes you have to bring up a blocky menu, sometimes there’s goofy looking fluorescent robots all over the place. Plus, the only really compelling reason to use Android (that I can find) is its integration with Gmail and other Google apps. As a professional who’s been using custom-domain email addresses for 15 years, obviously I’m not going to use Gmail for anything more than shopping sites that might spam me or Google sites that require it. Even my personal email has been a custom domain since the last century.
Anyway, I know a lot of our readers are using the HTC HD2 as their daily driver as well. What other features of that device are you still loving that aren’t available on other platforms?
Originally published on Pocketnow on August 19, 2010. More Smartphone News articles from the Pocketnow archive.