My first 3 weeks with a Windows Mobile 5.0 device

Yes 3 weeks already that I received my new toy, sort of pre Christmas gift to myself.

So now time for a short review.

Pros:

– Less crashes. WM 2003 is well known for crashing your Pocket PC too often. With the Imate yes I have a couple of nasty crash but not so much.

– Compatibility with the previous version is good. Few programs don’t really work, but it was something I expect. One surprise was the excellent Pocket Informant, which is still in Beta for WM5.

– The keyboard is really why I bought this device in first place. Awesome and the response on every key is so fast. I like the menus shortcuts, represented by two specific keys on top of the keyboard.

– The pivoting screen is the jaw dropper to everybody when I show my Imate. The automatic portrait and landscape mode is really a plus. Even if I use my PDA mostly in clamshell mode.

– The speakers quality (stereo!) is very good, and the fact I can hear my caller directly from the unit is great.

– The camera is good too, and I don’t really use the video one, useful only for 3G calls.

Cons:

– The Connection setup is a serious mess! A lot of things have been promised by Microsoft to simplify the connection setup, but it’s a serious flaw. One or two tweaks in the settings don’t make really a difference with the previous WM 2003. Yes I am a techie but a business user will have certainly a lot of issues juggling between Wifi, Bluetooth, and GMS phone settings. It’s very hard to get the proper settings, and thankfully I had my previous unit to retrieve the settings details. Microsoft you can do better! Come on this should be addressed quickly.

– The Wifi connection is unreliable and even with a strong signal, the Wifi Finder stop the connection, and search again for a network, then connect again. Annoying in the middle of Email retrieval. Well on this one the blame is not obvious, Microsoft and Imate I don’t really know.

– Be aware the Imate is SLOW, even with a 520 Mhz processor. Thankfully because the crashes are almost a thing of the past, not anymore an issue.

– Windows Mobile 5.0 is not fast. I put this separately from my previous note, because there it seems that the overall comparison with WM 2003 (on a Fujitsu PocketLoox 720) show WM 2003 as a clear winner.

– Not the most important for me, but 64 Mb of RAM is really short. Thankfully again the SD card slot on the left of the Imate was already used with one 512 Mb card.

Few things I have still to setup is the Bluetooth headset (you know the stuff which make you looking like a Borg).

Other than that mostly happy with my new toy. I just hope that Microsoft will improve quickly with some patch the Connection settings.

You can buy the Imate here on Expansys