Windows Mobile 6.5 review: Saving steam for seven
Gsmarena have posted a review of Windows Mobile 6.5. Here is their final impression.
You may've noticed that this review only focused on very few parts of the WinMo OS. This is simply because all the rest is a perfect copy of what we're used to seeing in Windows Mobile 6.1, which in turn wasn't that much different from Windows Mobile 6.0. And we are not even going to mention that 5.0 wasn't that much worse either.
So, the next iteration of the MS mobile OS took some good four years to cook and what you get is basically the same OS. Even if it was perfect right from the very start, it still would have been dated by now. And you have our word - it wasn't that perfect at all.
It may not be Microsoft's fault but the buildup was bigger than the actual thing they delivered. The 6.5 is honestly a petty excuse of a new OS but maybe we were not supposed to expect a new OS in the first place. Microsoft may have a point in the end in their claims that 6.5 was not really part of their plan - just making up for Windows Mobile 7 taking to long. In a way, the WinMo 6.5 ending up a flop could be a good thing for users. That way Microsoft have no other options but get WinMo 7 right.
So, WinMo 6.5 does almost nothing more than what phone manufacturers have been doing for quite some time now with their customized plug-ins. But there are still some things to probably save the day for Microsoft. The first one is actually in no small part credited to the company itself and its longstanding traditions. It is the vast amount of software available for the WinMo OS, which is still unmatched by any other platform (and mind you, we are speaking quality - not mere quantity - here).
The other important circumstance in favor of Windows Mobile 6.5 is the hardware improvements that we've witnessed recently. The platform has long been criticized for its poor laggy performance but the 800MHz and 1GHz CPUs that makers are keen to use lately are handling it pretty nicely.
Responsiveness and fluidity used to be a huge bonus for competing platforms but now that WinMo performs so well, this argument is getting thinner and thinner and it's all about user-friendliness and usability.
Finally, the amount of the devices running WinMo available on the market is increasing as we speak and they are getting nicer and sharper. It is no longer unthinkable for such handsets to have a nice camera or cool design or even come with multimedia on their minds.
Now that others seem to be doing their job and buying them some time, let's hope Microsoft developers will try their best to be on par and produce an OS that's as good as some of those recent handsets. Windows Mobile 7 won't be around for at least another year and we don't think users will be able to swallow another failure. And with the competition certainly not standing still, it will be without a doubt a make-or-break release.
You may've noticed that this review only focused on very few parts of the WinMo OS. This is simply because all the rest is a perfect copy of what we're used to seeing in Windows Mobile 6.1, which in turn wasn't that much different from Windows Mobile 6.0. And we are not even going to mention that 5.0 wasn't that much worse either.
So, the next iteration of the MS mobile OS took some good four years to cook and what you get is basically the same OS. Even if it was perfect right from the very start, it still would have been dated by now. And you have our word - it wasn't that perfect at all.
It may not be Microsoft's fault but the buildup was bigger than the actual thing they delivered. The 6.5 is honestly a petty excuse of a new OS but maybe we were not supposed to expect a new OS in the first place. Microsoft may have a point in the end in their claims that 6.5 was not really part of their plan - just making up for Windows Mobile 7 taking to long. In a way, the WinMo 6.5 ending up a flop could be a good thing for users. That way Microsoft have no other options but get WinMo 7 right.
So, WinMo 6.5 does almost nothing more than what phone manufacturers have been doing for quite some time now with their customized plug-ins. But there are still some things to probably save the day for Microsoft. The first one is actually in no small part credited to the company itself and its longstanding traditions. It is the vast amount of software available for the WinMo OS, which is still unmatched by any other platform (and mind you, we are speaking quality - not mere quantity - here).
The other important circumstance in favor of Windows Mobile 6.5 is the hardware improvements that we've witnessed recently. The platform has long been criticized for its poor laggy performance but the 800MHz and 1GHz CPUs that makers are keen to use lately are handling it pretty nicely.
Responsiveness and fluidity used to be a huge bonus for competing platforms but now that WinMo performs so well, this argument is getting thinner and thinner and it's all about user-friendliness and usability.
Finally, the amount of the devices running WinMo available on the market is increasing as we speak and they are getting nicer and sharper. It is no longer unthinkable for such handsets to have a nice camera or cool design or even come with multimedia on their minds.
Now that others seem to be doing their job and buying them some time, let's hope Microsoft developers will try their best to be on par and produce an OS that's as good as some of those recent handsets. Windows Mobile 7 won't be around for at least another year and we don't think users will be able to swallow another failure. And with the competition certainly not standing still, it will be without a doubt a make-or-break release.
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