[gjhuff]

My Touch Pro 2 has water damage affecting battery life. Assurion would replace it for $ 100, but it would only cost $ 199 to upgrade. So, after much research, I went with the Samsung Galaxy S II/Epic 4G Touch. Android will allow me to use the smartphone the way WM 6.5 has. But I will miss the Touch Pro 2 which followed many years of PPC phones from the PPC 6500 upward.

I carefully considered the Arrive (which my Sprint store not only recommended against, but didn't even have a display model out anymore). But I am not a user of Zune or Xbox. I want to keep my files private and not in the cloud. Tethering is also an essential application for me. So while the Arrive is definitely a great hardware upgrade, Windows Phone 7 is a non-starter for me. Perhaps if I had never experienced the ability to customize and was starting anew, I'd feel differently.

I want to thank the Touchpro 2 community here and over at XDA who have made using this phone a great pleasure over the years. I wish that MS has chosen to upgrade WM 6.5 with new hardware so I could continue to follow what has been a great user community.