Why a Windows Mobile User Might Buy an iPhone 3GS?
And that user is me. It has been a year since I bought HTC Touch Diamond with Windows Mobile 6.1 installed on it. It is my first Windows phone so when I bought it with HTC’s TouchFlo 3D and Manila interface, I was impressed. Being an unofficial application tester, I tried almost all applications out there to see if an application is any good for me or not. I spent almost four months in doing this testing. I do not play games on my mobile, else, this time would have been eight or nine months instead.
I finally got fed of the default HTC ROM and started trying different ROMs available on xda on my phone. My most favorite ROM till today has been Energy ROMs. The issue have I faced for a long time has been the small storage memory and my being not able to install all the apps I wanted on my phone. But I still liked a few things about my Diamond or say any other touch screen Windows Mobile:
- Familiar Windows interface
- Integration with Windows XP (my old OS) and Windows 7 (my current OS) and Outlook
- Multiple ROMs and the fact that I can cook my own ROM using various kitchens – thanks to xda
- Lots of options to customize the UI using different apps and tweaks
- Low cost
- Excellent screen resolution
The things I did not like about my Windows Mobile are here (these may vary for other devices):
- Small storage memory which means small number of programs you can install because many programs don’t give an option to install them on storage card. There was a time when I was always cleaning up space to be able to install another program or just keep the phone running.
- No voice call recording software/mechanism. Whatever is there, it is just not good enough because of bad recording quality
- Not so cool UI (relative to iPhone) – I know this sounds contradictory to what I said earlier but what it means is that may be you can tweak almost everything and have a pretty attractive UI, it is still not what I am looking for.
- Not so many useful applications and whatever is there – it does not have the best interface it could have (relative to iPhone)
- Sound quality without using the earphones is poor and I mean really poor
- No video call support. It is there in the US released models but not in the India released models
- Only 4GB internal storage with no storage expansion possible
- Low battery backup and that means I have to charge my phone every day
Whenever I browsed the mobile forums, I could always see new iPhone apps mentioned on the forums and there were no similar apps available for my Windows Mobile device. The apps were always different and pretty useful. The best thing about the iPhone apps was there appealing UI. I really felt something missing on my mobile. Changing the mobile interface to iPhone look was just fooling myself and I chose not to do it. The only way to feel better was to buy an iPhone and that too the iPhone 3GS model. In India, and I am sure in US as well :-), it is pretty expensive without any operator contracts etc. The cost is equal to the cost of any good brand decent laptop. Compared to my Diamond, it is almost double the cost.
I could have chosen to buy another Windows Mobile device with all issues I am facing fixed in it and obviously by paying more than I did for Diamond. I do not have a good reason of keeping two Windows Mobiles. I plan to buy a new iPhone 3GS soon. The things I am looking forward to and I hope that they are there are:
- More program memory – if there is such concept as in Windows Mobile devices
- Huge storage space (16 GB or 32 GB)
- Better audio, video, graphics
- Call recording
- Attractive UI and more than 14000 applications – another 5 -6 months of unofficial software testing
- Video call support
- Bigger screen with high resolution
And I already know of the following issues that I might face while using the iPhone:
- Phone getting heat up on its own after being used for a while. In summers – it is real hot in North India in comparison to US and I am not sure if the phone will function properly or not. The maximum temp. I have seen here in 2009 was about 44 degree (in Celsius). Will my iPhone survive this much heat?
- Battery backup
That is all I know and can recall now. Do you have any comments? Please enlighten me before I get any surprises or shocks after buying the iPhone 3GS.
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The screen may be BIGGER, but the resolution is not ‘high’. It is, in fact, HVGA. HALF VGA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone#Screen_and_input The iphone has one of the worst “smartphone” resolutions actually. There are many benefits to owning an iphone. For one, you’ll have an app for damned near everything (whether you actually USE said apps is another story in itself though). Another advantage is that it’s designed to work very easily for 90% of the people that use it. The DISADVANTAGE to that is that you’re going to be limited to what you can do with it unless you jailbreak the phone, and even still you’ll have limitations on what is true multitasking (*A JAIL BROKEN IPHONE DOESN’T MULTI-TASK EITHER, ITS JUST “LIKE” MULTITASKING*).
Anyway, best of luck to you with the new phone, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I can’t wait to get my next phone, so I know the anticipation you must have.
Get a HD2 or a Touch Pro2. Much, much better phones than the Diamond. Bigger and as big of screens, higher resolution, superb audio, PHYSICAL BUTTONS and changeable batteries just to highlight a couple of hardware issues alone.
Long story… but no regrets here after a month of having an Iphone. (I am not an Apple fan BOY) Get the Iphone 3gS. I am a long time MS user. I have a Dell Axim (from way back in the day that started all of this crazy MS addiction), HTC 8125, HTC 8525, HTC 8925, and the AT&T Fuze. My long time friend Jessica of exoticjessDOTcom & exoticjess.blogspotDOTcom has had all of these phones as well. She LOVES MS stuff… That has now changed due to Bill Gates. First she waited for the Tilt 2… It has no 3.5mm headphone jack (thanks AT&T…NOT!), and then for the HD2 to arrive in the US. Well it’s not coming to AT&T (thanks again right). Then the final straw came from Microsoft XBOX LIVE when they banned her user name without any reason. When her personal assistant and legal team contacted Live they stated she was banned due to her user name??? Jessica contacted Live and 2.5 hours later still no help! She had this name for almost 2yrs: EXOTICJESS oCOM. They were totally unprofessional towards her staff and Jess too. (To make matters worse). While under the ban Live deducted Money from her acct due to a game MyFishTank being downloaded to her Xbox? How is that possible when she had no access to her account? Live Support said they AGREE with her that it was NOT possible for her to download the game, HOWEVER Bill Gates makes the rules and NO REFUNDS! WTF… So they admitted she didn’t download it but OH WELL? Well that led to her getting rid of everything Microsoft. The next day she went and purchased a new phone (I phone 3gS 32gb). I did as well. She now has a PS3 and switched to using a MAC. I am switching asap also. I have heard of this kind of service from MS before and I refuse to keep funding them. I support my friends, lol. She has been a DIE HARD Microsoft supporter until her experience with Xbox Live.
You will save sooooo much time by getting an Iphone. All these years I have been adding cabs, flashing and you know… just to make my device better. Well the Iphone just works. Everything I have been trying to add to my MS phone is already on the Iphone or can be added with a simple click of a button.
One of my favorite things about the Iphone is no more RESETS, back ups, phone locking up, HOURS of my life reinstalling cabs. My MS phone became very unstable after a while and my micro SD card would loose info or not even be recognized by the phone. Iphone has a better UI and tons easier to surf the net and the push email works great! It’s a snap to send and read emails. Video calls are awesome. I also purchased Mobile ME for the Iphone and now I don’t worry about loosing anything. Plus it can find your phone.
At first I missed having Flash content and no background running of the apps, but most apps have PUSH and so background running is not needed plus all the extras make the upgrade worth it. NO REGRETS. (16 of our friends, 8 of my coworkers(long time MS users) have Tossed MS for APPLE since this incident.
@akadragon:
Thank you all for your fcomments. That was an impressive discussion. I totally agree with you akadragon. I have heard the same things you faced but the detailed story you have shared makes me want iPhone more. It is just that Windows Mobile has its own benefits so even when I buy the iPhone, I will still keep using the Windows Mobile because I will need two numbers then anyway. I will share my review of iPhone once I have it.
@Courtney:
I agree with you Courtney. But then, iPhone still has all the major things I want except the resolution as Chris L pointed out. I was not aware of this.
I thought about carrying two phones so I can have two numbers. Cool thing is I have Google Voice now in my Iphone. This app allows me to have a second number. When somebody calls either number my phone rings. I also can send text from either number : ) I enjoy my Iph
Can’t beat FREE number by Google
@Chris L:
I am not happy to know about the resolution thing. But then, I will have to ignore this and still buy an iPhone. And rest of the reasons you have mentioned are so true. Thank you!
really, you got an iphone because your pr0n star friend didnt have a family friendly gamertag. wow…
ps. ive gotten refunds from XBL before so i call BS on you sir.
First of all. She is almost done with school. She is going to be a Physcians assistant. YOU are probably THINKING of EROTIC??? NOT EXOTIC. TOTALLY DIFFERENT MEANING. Exotic Jess is a nickname given to her for her exotic look. She is from an island (island girl) XBOX Live did all of the above. I witnessed it. If I had not been there to see & hear for myself I would be in denial as well. Good day sir.
Don’t be so quick to assume someone is a porn star if you don’t know the meaning of exotic. Thanks.
Forgot to mention if you go to XBOX live and read their policy. It’s states NO REFUNDS! in caps. They said they have “never refunded a person” that’s per policy. So I don’t know how you did it. Might of been years ago when their policy was different. At least you got your money back. Great job.
@akadragon: xbox live also knows that it is 100% illegal to charge someone for something that was not downloaded, i dont think one purchase of 5 dollars is really worth a million dollar lawsuit to them… they probably never have refunded a person who downloaded the content, but they have refunded people who didnt download the content and were charged anyway. besides, there are far more solutions to getting the charge waived, you can dispute it with your local bank teller and they will help if you really need to go that far… dont know how much porn youve seen, im not a pro or anything, but exotic, erotic, type either of those words in an unfiltered image search and see what pops up. i would have gone to the website to double check but not about to risk veiwing porn at work just to check out exoticjess… so yeah for the record i do know the meaning of exotic, and i know how people misuse the word as well and this is all going way past the point i was trying to make, why let one bad experience with a sub division of a company that was more specifically probably a bad argument with a bad apple ruin all your fun, its not very hard to hang up and call back and guess what happens when you do that… you get a different rep. usually one with a much better disposition because you havent insulted them yet…sorry if this sounds rude but its completely ludacris to jump ship on all platforms just because of a bad day, for each story of persons being pissed off thiers an untold story of someone going above and beyond to keep someone from getting pissed off BUT because everything was peachy in the end, noone knows about it. look long enough in any company’s set of customer service reps and you will find that perfect mix of conflicting personalities which will lead to an argument which leads to cancellation of service all because people dont know how to hang up and try thier luck with someone having a good day… just because you cant see the person on the other end of the phone doesnt mean they dont have the same ups and downs we do in our daily life that unfortunately sometimes cross into work…
Boy, if I swore off every company that ever pissed me off I would be living alone on a beach somewhere. Hey, that’s not such a bad idea!
A couple years ago Microsoft’s Sharepoint Services totally screwed up my account when I tried to cancel the service, inadvertently closing my Hotmail account that I have had for many years, which happens to be my full name. They told me I could not get my Hotmail address restored, but I persevered and after a few calls everything was straightened out. Was I frustrated, you betcha I was. But I got over it.
Hey, it’s not like your WM phone, which was manufactured and branded by someone other than Microsoft, fell apart and they would not honor the warrantly. I get a sense that you wre itching for an iPhone and this situation just made it easier. I have $100’s of dollars in WM software and 1,000 of hours invested in understanding how these little miracles tick, so I am not about to give all that up for a little misunderstand.
Enjoy you iPhone.