Over the last couple months I’ve been trying to find a new phone to replace my old and busted Sanyo VI2300 (read no-cam, flip-out brick). The rest of this blog is to help others who are looking to get into some new hotness that is available. Since I am a .Net develop and the time I have spent with any Apple product has been annoying at best, I was looking to upgrade to a Windows Mobile device.
The first go round I picked up a Samsung ACE (SPH-i325). This was a nice, sleek phone running Windows Mobile 6. Thinner than a pack of playing cards and had an easy-to-use thumbboard. The response on this phone was fast. It had a microSD slot for additional storage. The phone also sported two features that I instantly fell in love with Automatic Speech Recognition and Automatic Profiling. The phone also supported international calling via GSM networks using either the provided or a pre-paid SIM card (something I didn’t use). A pretty good phone for about $100. But the phone did have shortcomings. After playing around with Live Search and Google Maps, the lack of an integrated GPS radio really stood out as a deal breaker, especially after finding no upgrade path to Windows Mobile 6.1.
Round two went to an HTC Mogul (PPC6800). This phone was a brick. But it had a HUGE touch screen and a slide out QWERTY keyboard. It also had the much desired GPS and upgrade possibility to Windows Mobile 6.1. The phone also had a microSD slot. But it was lacking my new loves ASR and Automatic Profiling. Additionally, the ROM seemed a little sluggish. There are plenty of 3rd party ROMS and tools to get an ALMOST automatically switch to vibrate mode during meetings. For nearly $300, I’d want to be ecstatic about my phone. Not permanently searching to find ways to add the functionality that the ACE had.
At this point, you might ask “What’s the big deal with ASR and Auto Profiling?” ASR should be on EVERY phone, PERIOD. ASR is more than the voice recognition on many phones where you have to record a dumb tag (Call Joe Smith Mobile, for example). You then assign the tag to the action you want the voice tag to perform. ASR is so much better. ASR has some built-in actions (Call, Open, Play, etc). So you can put in a new contact (Joe Smith) and then instantly have the ability to speak “Call Joe Smith Mobile” and it just works. No pre-recording; you just speak. Additionally, the Ringer Profiles with Automatic Profiling should be on ANY phone that has calendaring applications. Automatic Profiling puts your phone into vibrate during scheduled meetings. This is especially important if your team has a rule of “your phone rings during meetings; you buy donuts”.
Finally, we come to my current hotness. The HTC Touch Diamond (MP6950) is a true iPhone killer. It’s a thin phone with a big, beautiful touch screen. It has a built-in GPS radio. Comes with Windows Mobile 6.1 pre-loaded and has both ASR and Automatic Profiling. Also the TouchFlo3Dtm UI is frickin sweet. The different touch keyboards available make input easy with stylus or by touch via Compact QWERTY. Additionally, there are accelerometers to determine if the phone is in portrait or landscape orientation. The phone comes with 4GB of internal storage. It is the greatest combination of features I’ve seen in a phone and it is the best phone Sprint has available. So much awesome is packed into this tiny form factor I don’t think I put it down for the first week.
I know that HTC is about to release the Touch Pro with all the goodness of the Touch Diamond with a slide out keyboard headphone jack (the diamond has a dongle for this) and a microSDHC slot for something like 32GB of additional storage. I think I’m good with the Diamond and have had enough of the headaches associated with returning phones for exchange. I don’t think the HTC models can be beat. The Touch Pro is great for those that like the slide out keyboard. The Touch HD is to have a camera to beat anything on the market. But if you can’t wait, you can’t go wrong with the Diamond.
