Thinking about moving on...
 

SO...
I have to say that I have absolutly loved the touch pro 2.

Its a great little phone for sure, and the keyboard is down right amazing, every phone I have had since I dont know when has had a slide out physical keyboard.

But needless to say that the days of the touch pro 2 and Windows Mobile in general are over.

I keep reading about sooooo many people have been talking about their struggles with this phone as of late and the on going struggle with sprint and their lack of costomer services

Im no stranger to that.. the towers here still arnt fixed and they have no idea whats going on.

In any case... Im looking to move on.. Ive been due for an upgrade for i dont even know how long.

I can get pretty much anything I want from sprint for 99 bucks.


Ive grown to enjoy android over time as of late.. thnks to the android port
(I used to hate android.. mainly cause my brothers phone SUX)

Anyway.. that being said.. Ive been seriously concidering going over to the dark side and getting an evo shift.

As ive mensioned... I love phones with keyboards.. and next to the tp2.. the shift is a close second in the keyboard department..

I could care less about 4g. I honestly wish I could just use it without 4g cause a sprint rep told me that if I put a piece of paper over the phone (assuming I had it) that I would not have 4g and phone would default to 3g connection.
He told me that the area Im in only supports street coverage.. In other words Id have to be in an open field holding the phone up.



In any case..... I have to upgrade my contract by 20 bucks to get this device...
so any input and opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

had a shift and HATED it but your call.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

u know what I'll say, go for the HTC arrive,the mango update is about to hit officially but the beta is already out and it is amazing. or u could wait for the Samsung Omnia 7 to come to sprint it has a 4" screen and an FFC but no keyboard. the keyboard on the arrive is similar to the one on the tp2 so u'll feel right at home.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile6.0) Sprint T7380)

Seems like the Epic Touch is where I headed. I was just to busy this weekend to make it over to the Sprint store.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

wholly shit i actually agree with eric. no bs this actually sounds perfect for op now that wp is getting strong with more updates/support/apps.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

oh then eric's idea blows cause i have touch and its the best device i ever owned and i also have a photon and touch just kills it. pm me if theres anything about it you wanna know.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

@eric

Well I knew you would say that lol.

But the truth is.. I havnt seen a single thing on from the wp7 that I find appealing..

I mean ya.. the keyboard as almost exact and I do really like the phone from physical appeal.

The issue is that I havnt found anything appealing about the device when I used it at my sprint store..
I have grown really acustomed to all the flashy apps and mods. I mean I made my keyboard and messaging skins on windows mobile.. It feels like home...

Its just that all the videos I have seen over the arrive.. well any windows 7 phone for that matter.. Theres just no appeal to me because of its simplicity.
I love the HTC sence interface.. the vedios I watched had mentioned that Microsoft said that HTC had to use the overly generalized and simplified home screen..
That and I just bought a 16gb sd card and the arrive doesnt hold card >.>

I dont like that at all
And I havnt really been able to find anything on the mango you keep talking about.
If you can give me some better insight I might reconcider.

@darren
Thanks for the input but you really havnt told me anything about the phone.
I was looking for some insight and description rather then "I hate it" lol

Could you at least tell me why?

As far as the photon and the touch, could you just run through a few things you like/hate about them?
I know I can go watch an untold amount of youtube videos, but truth is that they arnt always telling the full story or dont really go off personal experience.

Thanks


Overall to anyone else
Ive grown to like HTC, they are veeeery good quality phones in my opinion.
Samsung on the otherhand... I personally think they are reminisant of the roman empier in that they have their sights set waaaay to vastly in the electronics department. They make way too many thing so to give full attension to just phones.

Ive had alot of samsungs, and my brother still uses samsungs.
And Im fed up with them. My brothers phone is leterally garbage. it has android 2.1 and since he bought it it has been screwy.

Now im not saying all samsung phones are crap, Ive just had nothing but bad experiences with them.


And I read up on the fact that Sprint will be getting iphones. Im not to thrilled about the idea of having an iphone.. I mean it seems like everyone I know has one and I just cant really tolerate them..
But who knows.. maybe by the time It is released I'll find something about the i5 I like.

Does anyone have any info on that?

thanks

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

i was a samsung hater and i even posted my views about it in my wp7 thread but after talking with gten he made me give them a chance and that was for original epic and i loved that phone and still do but i sold mine but friday im getting another for 50$ but new touch is just amazing and is even better than "old" epic and as far as shift goes reception was great and i liked seeing sense again since its been awhile (tp2) since i used it but phone is way too small and not much development going on imo. i guess for a daily driver its fine but i like to tweak my devices and it just wasnt there for me.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

thats exactly how i feel , i need something to hack ;P i am a ppcgeek ya know :D proud of it too !

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

well as for the SD card situation the arrive can take them but it requires some surgery to be performed. a couple of members @steveo70 and @dtrush have performed this operation and have had success. as for mango it brings tons of new functionality and improvements to wp7, built in Facebook chat,built in Facebook news feed in the people hub,group mms, IE9, Bing vision,Bing audio (like shazam), improved keyboard,improved battery life, full control over which apps can run in the background and which can't,DLNA,Zune smartDJ. really can't get a feel for how a device is by just watching a video

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Ya, I know for a fact that my area wont have great reception because there are 2 3g towers down and I only have open space reception for 4g

I love sence, and your right, the looks I have given into the shift threads are dead..
There isnt much of anything going on

Good news is tho, Sharkie Is working on trying to make an EVO rom.
From what I see the EVO and the EVO shift are very similar as far as files and such

Now Im not saying that if he finishes his evo rom that id try it on my shift (assuming i get it) cause I know it wont work, but maybe he could let me in on what to do to make my own rom

But i can GAURENTEE that if I get a shift, I WILL be developing for it lol
Ive not seen any dusk style taskbars or keyboards
I actually supplied a guy with images and he was working on a taskbar.
I dont know how far he got but he told me that he would let me know as soon as he finishes it.

If he doesnt I'll just make my own
I just know that the little bit I have looking into android development (cause of my brothers android) gave me rediculus headaches.

Idk..
I'll look into the samsung again.. But ive never really liked them
thanks for your insight

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

my friend owns a sprint store and im there now and shift is like tp2/epic 4g next on sprints list of dead phones so there making room i guess but its next to die. looks like iphony is coming in oct. though. lol

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

my wife has the evo shift and she is not a fan. Of course she hates the screen keyboard and refuses to use the slide out.....woman.... jk

truthfully its not a bad device. As much as I've heard the gpu is better due to the higher processor, the evo is definitely quicker in most situations. But all in all the shift is not too shabby, but there's got to be some new stuff coming out that's better. good luck bro.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

I know that very well, thats why I ask darren to give me more info

But I dont want to do surgery on the phone lol

I just cant get past the simplicity of the device. Thats my issue..

Im not tooo interested in random programs to run in the background like that.

I pretty much just go online, text, and listen to pandora
I almost never get on facbook and I like google over bing lol

But if there would be a way to rewrite the home screen to look like sense and then re skin pretty much EVERYTHING then i might be insterested lol

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Thanks for the insight.
What would you say are the downsides to the phone istelf?
Ive seen alot of complaints about the gingerbread update.. have you seen anything buggy about the phone after the update?

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Well any good phone will eventually die.
But the shift is conciderably newer then the tp2

the tp2 was released in 09, as far as I remeber the shift in like a year old now right?

Even if its gana die it shouldnt be within the next year Id assume

But Im not 100 percent about the phone yet. It was just the first thing to relly catch my interest, I just needed more information about it

I mean, the evo 3d just came out..

and if you look at history...
it was
EVO
then EVO Shift (pretty much a EVO with a keyboard)

Now its an EVO 3d
so im thinking.... maybe an EVO 3d shift.....?
Idk. that be nice. I dont care about 3d capabilities but I dont wana go buy the shift and see a 3d shift the next day


As far as the Iphony goes.. I have a buddy who is an iOS guru. He knows the ins and outs and can pretty much do whatever he wants with it.
He was one of the first guys to jailbrake 4.2
Hes made alot of themes and skins and apps for the iphone
hes just not an artist so he had me do all the graphics lol

So I know I could get a great head start there IF i decide to go with that

what is the latest samsung droid with a physical keyboard?
is it the epic touch?

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

actually the gb update for the shift didn't appear to break anything as far as I can see. best feature is the hibernate feature which allows you to power down and power up in under 15 seconds. like I said not a bad device, just doesnt feel as quick as my Evo but that could be because I'm rooted with custom roms. I think for modders like us its a solid device.

btw, moving this to phone comparison so others can chime in with their take.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Alright thanks. I didnt know this area existed.
But ya there are lots of people that said it bugged out.

I assume it would be the same as a bad rom flash where something random glitches for different people at different times.

But since its an update I sapouse noone can really do anything about it lol


But ive read different things from gps to lockscreen to texting. It was allover the place for different people, there were actually less people saying that the update made the phone better rather then being better then prior

But in any case, On alot of the things ive read and seen say that the shift should, for all intent and pourpose be faster then the EVO.

But then again thats from a stock rom either way.
Im sure your custom rom your running took away ALOT of heavy apps and misc files that might have help the EVO back.

Im sure that a good custom rom for the shift will do the same

I just might have to figure android out and make that rom myself lol

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

fa sho
first thing id do is make a dusk keyboard for droid.
I worked hard on that sh*t for my tp2 and I hate the plain look of the droid board

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

I think it is fine that people move to other platforms if that's what works for them. You really have to define what it is that you're using the phone for.

Yes, if you like to have all of the eye candy, customizable, stare at the home screen and marvel how pretty it looks, go Android or iOS.

WP7 is designed for the communication & information power user which I happen to be. I don't spend much time on the home screen so it doesn't need to be pretty. It gives me the info I need via live tiles and allows me to use it as a quick launchpad into the next communication task if the built in integration doesn't already support the numerous ways to communicate.

Sure, there's games and other things I could do with my phone but choose not to. Why? Because I'm too busy using the phone for it's primary intended purposes coupled with the sweet PIM functionalities!

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Hmm..if you want more detailed opinions, I think you should provide what exactly you use the phone for on a daily bases. Then we can assist by telling you what it is and isn't capable of and how well it does it. Each of our uses varies.

For example, I spend a lot of time tethering and on my Epic 4g I tethered 24/7 for over 30 days at one point without being disconnected or shutting it off once. On my TP2 I get disconnected around once or twice a day so even that alone makes me much more happier.

Personally though, I am not a fan of sense ui..I didn't mind the interface of it on my TP2 but on both Android and Winmo its very bloated. So even if you get an HTC device, I would suggest getting rid of sense and try a custom UI or stock UI.

Speaking of UIs, if you want another UI that you might be very familiar with on winmo..there is SPB Mobile shell for Android.

SPB Shell 3D Brings Next Generation UI to Android Users » Press Releases » SPB Software

And to to your question, Epic 4g is latest kb phone atm..(there are leaks of newer ones but we haven't seen them land just yet and no telling if sprint will get them) The Epic Touch 4G is a touchscreen only phone but is 4.5" in size so it gives you extra real estate.

As for your brother, I am guessing he has a Moment? if so that phone is a low end phone..you can't compare low end phones with high end ones...

Also, how much of a hurry are you to swap? I mean by when do you feel you need to make the decision and get a new phone by?

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

what? considering an iPhony over wp7? seriously?

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Thats what I dont like about the wp7 though.
I spent SSOOOO much time learning how to custimize 6.5 to exactly how I like it, I made all sorts of skins for keyboards and taskbars and such and it was alot of work for sure, but def worth it

I love 6.5
But its pretty dead.. and the tp2 is just.. well dying. Mine is lagging up alot latly and its frustrating.


The iOS has always kinda bothered me.. My friend that I mensioned ealier has customized pretty much everything, but all he was really able to do was simple things.

He would never, to my understanding, be able to have a keyboard like the one I made on his iphone.

And from what he has been telling me, the newer versions of the ios only get harder and harder to custimize and jailbreak... so idk

Android has only been getting better.. thats for sure.
But I cant seem to find anyone with the time to help me figure out how to custimize skins like i did for winmo.
everyone has a god complex it seems and dont want to be bothered by noobs..

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

no offence to windows phone 7, but I have just been thouroly unimpressed by them
I just dont like its simplicity..
If I could find a compleatly rewriten home ui for it that made it more... senselike I sapouse, and find a way to make new taskbars and keyboards and everything pretty much.. It might be more worth while in my opinion


as far as the iphony, its in the back of my mind as a possibility.
As ive said, I know someone who knows them in and out and I would be a a great running start with one from the information I can get from him.

I personally never really liked the iPhones. But then again I never owned one, I just always saw my buddy with it. (As well as practicly the rest of the world)

But with it comming to sprint its worth me at least looking into it a bit to see wether or not I might like it after using it a bit.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Im not so much in a drastic hurry to get a new phone. Im not thrilled about having to pay an extra 20 bucks a month for any phone I might get

as far as the size of the screen goes, im pretty comfertable with the size of the screen I have now. Not saying that getting a larger screen would bother me

As far as what I do..
I tether ALOT.
I text nonstop, go online, make phone calls, email.

Im not so much into playing games on my phone

But mostly aside from texting I listen to a lot of music. I have pandora open all day pretty much

I tried using a few roms with maxsense and I hated it at first but I got used to it and ended up liking it.

But the phone just ended up getting toooooo slooooow to handle it.
So idk.


As for my brothers phone, he has an Intercept.
Wich from the looks of it after I rooted and flashed his phone is very similar to the moment.

It might be low end now but he got it like the day it came out and spent like 350 for it

Ive never spent that much on a phone lol

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

There is an android phone which has no $10 fee and a keyboard(blackberry style)...its a low end phone but definitely better then an intercept by a HUGE margin.

hmmm...if this is whats important to you..then maybe get an Epic 4g..it has a keyboard, and it has a Wolfson audio DAC...which is like a dedicated sound card for cellphones.

But you will need to load up a custom rom cause:

1) If your a fast typer to prevent the key skipping

2) To take full advantage of the audio DAC

but as you said you like customization so that shouldn't be a problem...And as Darren mentioned its reaching its end of life already..but it should definitely be a huge upgrade over a TP2..and it seems to fit your "usage"..

Thats prob #1 thing that killed winmo..if only they would have had better hardware and proper drivers it would still be alive today.

lol..yes intercept is a moment with a different screen..same for transform...yes its junk..its below low end even...the processor inside is equivalent to a TP2 processor overclocked to 800mhz..and its based on same old ARM11 that the TP2 processor is based on...even the low end 600mhz Cortex A8 phones run circles around that ARM11 800mhz processor.

oh and Intercept got 2.2 update FYI...not that it does you any good because ARM11 processors don't have Hardware Acceleration support...

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Ya I know, But my brother has a Virgin mobile so they didnt get the update till a the begining of the summer just a few months ago.
I ended up rooting and flashing a custom rom on his phone and its ALOT better.. but i still think its pretty trashy of a device.

As far as the typing goes, I type WAY to fast for my tp2 to keep up with. I'll be like 10 words ahead of it at any givin time...

And its not just a 10 dollar fee, its 2 10 dollar fees.
Im on SERO 500.
I need to go SERO premium to get any android device.
And then SERO premium plus data for any win 7 or 4g phone

Each of wich is an added 10 bucks hence the 20 dollar raise.


Now with the epic 4g, is that a newer device?
I mean comparitivly to whats around now, Im sure its newer then what im lugging around at the moment

Wirelessly posted (WP7 Beta Tester: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows Phone OS 7.0; Trident/3.1; IEMobile/7.0; HTC; HD7))

I've been reading this from afar, and I am really impressed with this conversation.

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Feel free to chim in what ever you got. I welcome ANY information on this topic.

When I got the tp2 I pretty much just boned up on this one device itself.

When my brother got his intercept I did just enough reading on it to set his phone up like my winmo cause hes 12 and cried that my phone was cooler lol
So I rooted his phone and flashed Ubuntodroid on it and it bricked.
After AAAALLLLLL the reading I did it never once mensioned that I had to flash Insaines Kernal with the Insaine Recovery inorder to get Ubunto to work,

Once flashed it all ran fine for 5 mins.
Then It started getting force close from HELL. Every error message ever recieved by anyone on android showed up in that short minute i was just franticly hitting close

Then i said this is bs and turned the screen off and then it bricked into a bootloop.

I spent the next week undoing all the changes the ubunto rom messed up, flashed probably 10 more revoceries and kernals and managed to get back to compleat stock virgin mobile 2.1 and then flash 2.2

and then finally BasicRom, wich from everything Ive read states that its a 2.2 structured rom, but from what little I played the phone when "upgrading" it for him, still pretty much seems like a slightly snappier and more colorfull 2.1 rom.
It even tells him at least once a week that official 2.2 update is available but always fails to launch. That leads me to believe that it might still just be a 2.1 kernal

He loves it now. Then again he is 12 and just wanted live wallpaper wich I figured out how to add to stock only after getting the custom rom to work.

Other then that I dont know anything about any other android device because going through all that trouble really put me off them till now.

WinMobile was just soooo much friendlier to me

So let me know what your thoughts are

Wirelessly posted (WP7 Beta Tester: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows Phone OS 7.0; Trident/3.1; IEMobile/7.0; HTC; HD7))

I really don't have any...I think you should try them all, and then decide :). What works for some may not work with others, I'm just really impressed that this is a conversation and not a flamewar :).

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Thats true, but the thing is, I live in a relitivly small area outside of austin and the sprint stores around here dont offer half the things sprint carries.

So i cant really try them all. And I dont want to go get a phone and change my contract only to decide I hate the device.

I mean I know that I have 30 days to decide if I want to keep the phone and I am able to return it or exchange it what ever the case may be, But it still changed my contract.

Since I was grandfathered into SERO from my old nextel account, I dont want to loose this plane because Im sure they are more then willing to take it from me since I cant really get any new phone with out changing it.
They couldnt stress that enough >.>

In any case, I would like to get as much information as possible befor going in blindly and grabbing phones I know nothing about
I would much rather go in with a good idea and know what to look for.


As far as it being a convesation rather then a war, Ive NEVER been in a thread that was just garbage and mudslinging lol

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

I choose the HD7 because I decided to ride the WP7 train from scratch, after long thought ( I still cheat and use my HD2 via WiFi..I'm telling you, it's the best winmo phone..ever :D*), if you're into tweaking and hacking, go Android. If you like it simple, iPhone or WP7 or BB is for you..but try it 1st!

*The Dr. is just stating an opinion :)

Wirelessly posted (htc Pocket PC: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows CE; IEMobile 8.12; MSIEMobile6.0) Sprint T7380)

I'd say go with a WP7 device. Either the Arrive or one of the Mango devices that will be coming.
I really think it's the wave of the future. You could go with Android now because you say you want to mod and tinker but I can see you ending up with a WP device. Who's to say that you couldn't end up being a developer for WP and make some cool keyboards and taskbars. ;)

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

you can preconfigure the speed in the custom roms so that it keeps up.

oh in that case..as far as raw hardware kyracera echo has the best hardware for a none 4g android phone..

its not..new new..its 1 year old...but its new enough to have 4g hence 4g fee...

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Well to be honest, im surprised that the WP7 hasnt been cracked yet.
I havnt seen anything yet like ive seen for the other windows 6.5 and such.

Now I know its conciderably newer but id expect SOMETHING lol
at the very least a keyboard skin.

But I just havnt seen anything personally. Have you found anything?
If somethings out there then that means I just might jump on and try and make the first keyboard skin for that damn phone lol

I dont mind working had so long as there a way to get this done

is there a app like total comander or somthing to be able rip files out of the \windows directory?

cause if so then I might have to take a seriouse look into it

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

Black Berrys are not for me AT ALL lol
the keyboards are way too small for me lol

Iphone I know can eventually be hacked to end up however I want.
Im not too worried about that.

But I dont like simple at all lol

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

I'll answer your question with another question...

What windows directory? >.>

It took like 2 years for people to hack the Zune's CE kernel to get into the filesystem...not saying it will take WP7 that long but atm the development isn't there..at least yet...

The creators of Total commander do have an app for android though lol

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

So in other words no, there is no way to pull files yet

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

There is..its just in alpha stage and full access is not there yet...

[XAP] WP7 Root Tools 0.7 for MANGO - xda-developers

Re: Thinking about moving on...
 

so then theres hope after all

But its only for mango then