[nemoid]

Verdict

The interface improvements are welcome - and long overdue - but the changes are mere window dressing. It's simply not good enough to overthrow Android or the iPhone

Windows Mobile has been in the doldrums so long it's hard to remember a time when it was deemed a modern smartphone operating system. Apple's iPhone OS and Google's Android OS are streaking off into the distance while Winmo bumbles along regardless. With the arrival of Windows Mobile 6.5 – now rebranded Windows Phone – is Microsoft finally beginning to fight back?

We've taken a detailed look at the new operating system – preinstalled on the new HTC Touch2 smartphone – and it would seem that Microsoft, at least in part, has been listening to the critics. At long last, the fiddly, stylus-driven Today screen has been ditched to be replaced by a much more finger-friendly interface.

Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen

Surprisingly, Microsoft hasn't opted to go down the custom desktop, or iPhone-alike scrolling-grid route here. Instead, you get a list of large options arranged in a vertically scrolling carousel – and in a break from the accepted norm these aren't icons but text.

Swipe your finger or thumb up and down and the list spins smoothly while the active item appears enlarged, as if it had a magnifying glass held directly over it, complete with further details. The email, for instance, shows new emails. Swiping a finger left or right on a selected item, meanwhile, reveals further options: on the Appointments item, for instance, you get the option to see your latest appointments, or to simply add a new one.

Another key improvement is the new Start menu. Previously, when you hit the familiar Windows icon in the top-left corner, the resulting list of programs that dropped down was small, horribly fiddly, and only usable with a stylus or manicured nails. Now, the entire screen is given over to a vertically scrolling hexagonal grid of icons – think Blockbusters (minus Bob Holness and the clueless students) – used not only to launch applications, but also access previously-buried settings screens.

Windows Mobile 6.5

It's nothing particularly special but it's a huge progression on what went before, and it turns the business of launching applications and accessing your phone's various settings into a far less frustrating task.

There's no jabbing of tiny menu options to unlock a phone any more, with a new mechanism and lock screen. To unlock the phone you now slide an onscreen switch to the left or right. Oddly, the switch resides at the top of the screen, but you soon realise why: it provides space for various status alerts – missed calls, new voicemail and the like – just as it does with an iPhone.

Browsing the web

Internet Explorer Mobile has received a major overhaul too. We've seen this running on other recent Windows Mobile phones in the past, but it hasn't always been implemented very well, with fiddly controls a particular problem.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Internet Explorer Mobile

The Windows Phone implementation of Internet Explorer is much easier to use. The key here is the five shortcut buttons that are arranged along the bottom of the screen providing quick access to Back, Favorites, the on-screen keyboard, Zoom and Settings. Again it's a massive improvement on what went before. It's capable of rendering web pages in full, but in terms of speed, and ease of use it's still not a patch on the webkit browsers of the iPhone and Android, nor Opera Mobile.

In particular we found ourselves jabbing away repeatedly at links, with a lack of feedback meaning we had no clear idea as to whether we'd hit them or not. So, although this is the most usable Microsoft mobile browser to date, capable of rendering web pages with full formatting, we still think Microsoft has a long way to go.

The Marketplace

Also new – and a key to the future success of Windows Mobile – is the application Marketplace. This is Microsoft's long-overdue rival to the iPhone App Store and Google Android Marketplace, and with tens of thousands of free and paid-for applications already in circulation on the internet, it has serious potential.

Windows Mobile 6.5

Accessible via the new Start menu it's split into categories in a similar way to its rivals and you log on using your Windows Live ID. But right now it's a damp squib, with only 40 applications on its books.

Same old, same old

There are other improvements too: the messaging screens are clearer and a little more easy to operate with a finger; the tabs running along the bottom of many options screens look prettier (more like tabs, in fact); and alert boxes now have rounded corners and look a little more 3D. But once you start to get past the window dressing, the disappointments start to mount.

There are still too many key applications and tools that look like they belong in the world of the late-nineties PDA rather than on any modern smartphone. Unbelievably, adding new contacts, appointments and changing the alarm settings all remain completely unchanged – bland to look at and a serious pain to use without a stylus.

Windows Mobile 6.5 email view

The pocket Office applications have also been neglected as has the Media Player (it's still terrible), and Microsoft has made little effort to improve the whole business of setting up data connections. We still find that, far too often, either email or web browsing fails to work without a certain amount of poking and prodding of settings.

Conclusion

Microsoft has so far been keen to underplay the significance of the new operating system, stressing in a recent press briefing that Windows Phone wasn't targeted directly at potential iPhone or Android customers, but rather business users.

We've heard this sort of thing from Microsoft before, but the excuse is beginning to wear thin. Business users, as much as consumers, deserve a phone that's quick and intuitive to operate as well as one that hooks in neatly to Exchange and Outlook and is easy to manage centrally.

If this is the best it can muster in the year-and-a-half's worth of development time since Windows Mobile 6.1 appeared, we'll be dramatically lowering our hopes for Windows Mobile 7 (due in 2010).

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/softw...ows-mobile-6-5

interesting..... right, noir?