Help Coming from WM6.5/Touch Pro. What should I expect?

[TurboFool]

I've currently got a Touch Pro flashed to WM6.5. Unlike many I genuinely like Windows Mobile and have used it for years. My previous phone was a Mogul (mostly fine after custom ROMs), and I've had Pocket PCs before that. That said, I'm envious of some of the slick things I'm seeing done with Android lately, and I make heavy use of Google (I use Gmail and host multiple domain e-mail accounts through Gmail's hosted services, use Google Voice, etc.) in general and they're lacking in key areas on WM. And right now I qualify for an upgrade and my wife's phone's dead, so I'm thinking about going to the Moment and giving her my TP.

So this question is angled at anyone who made a similar move, and particularly power users. I use my phone to the max. I flash custom ROMs, I learn the details intimately and beyond what most people know it can do, my battery's dead by 1PM if I don't keep it constantly charging. So that will hopefully give you a rough idea of my level.

So what pains can I expect to go through in the switch besides the obviously completely different interface? What obvious things can I expect to lose? And what major things can I expect to gain? What's simply different versus what's going to require me to change the way I think/work? What applications am I going to need to download and/or buy to make up for lost functionality?

To give you a rough idea of what I need here are some of the apps I use commonly:

Opera Mobile 10
Google Maps (and Sprint Navigation sometimes)
Tasks (for the purpose of reminding me in snoozable ways of things I need to get done)
Internet Sharing (I tether occasionally)
Adobe Reader (rarely, but occasionally need PDFs)
E-mail (Exchange, one Gmail, and several other accounts hosted through Gmail)
Remote Desktop Mobile (I remote into my home PC or client servers frequently)
WorldCard Mobile (for photographing business cards and shifting them into contacts)
PockeTwit (really nice free Twitter client)
Facebook
Live Mesh
TagReader (doubt this is available, but a QR-code reader is a must)
Voice Command (I currently use voice dialing in addition to having the phone announce incoming calls and read text messages/e-mail subjects to me as they come in)

I text message heavily and rely on threaded messaging. I'm a heavy touch typist, so the keyboard's a big deal. I know there's some things to get used to on this one. Anything about it that's still bugging some users? Special characters that are hard to access or anything along those lines?

What do you wish someone had warned you about before you made the switch? What do you think now that you have one that you couldn't live without?

Odds are I'm making this plunge, but I don't want any nasty surprises when I do. If I'm going to have a problem I'd love to know up-front so I'm prepared for whatever downtime or adjustment it may cause. I also know a LOT will change when they go to 2.1 next year, but since they're only committing to H1, I'll likely have to deal with 1.5 and its quirks for quite some time.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

[fildrigar]

I've currently got a Touch Pro flashed to WM6.5. Unlike many I genuinely like Windows Mobile and have used it for years. My previous phone was a Mogul (mostly fine after custom ROMs), and I've had Pocket PCs before that. That said, I'm envious of some of the slick things I'm seeing done with Android lately, and I make heavy use of Google (I use Gmail and host multiple domain e-mail accounts through Gmail's hosted services, use Google Voice, etc.) in general and they're lacking in key areas on WM. And right now I qualify for an upgrade and my wife's phone's dead, so I'm thinking about going to the Moment and giving her my TP.

So this question is angled at anyone who made a similar move, and particularly power users. I use my phone to the max. I flash custom ROMs, I learn the details intimately and beyond what most people know it can do, my battery's dead by 1PM if I don't keep it constantly charging. So that will hopefully give you a rough idea of my level.

So what pains can I expect to go through in the switch besides the obviously completely different interface? What obvious things can I expect to lose? And what major things can I expect to gain? What's simply different versus what's going to require me to change the way I think/work? What applications am I going to need to download and/or buy to make up for lost functionality?

What you can expect, is pure, unmitigated AWESOME! I, too, came to Android by way of the Touch Pro, and a Mogul before that. I use the heck out of my phone, much like you describe. A couple of things for you to ponder. First, with WM, you kinda needed to flash roms to get the most out of your phone. When I first got my Mogul, the first thing I did was flash a new rom, to enable GPS functionality. ( Which Sprint and HTC had left out, for some strange reason. ) Then, I started flashing roms to get a bit more speed out of the thing. When I got the TP, I was initially impressed with it's speed, ( I know, I know ) but it began to seem more and more laggy as time went on. I started flashing roms, found one that I liked, that speeded the phone up a bit.

With the Moment, it's zippy enough that I don't feel the need for a custom rom at this point in time. I know that eventually custom roms will start coming out, and will in all likelyhood experiment a bit with them, but it won't be because I feel the need to have my phone go faster. ( That said, I do have a bit of 2.x envy, hopefully Sprint and Samsung get the lead out and get our update sooner rather than later. )

To give you a rough idea of what I need here are some of the apps I use commonly:

Opera Mobile 10
Google Maps (and Sprint Navigation sometimes)
Tasks (for the purpose of reminding me in snoozable ways of things I need to get done)
Internet Sharing (I tether occasionally)
Adobe Reader (rarely, but occasionally need PDFs)
E-mail (Exchange, one Gmail, and several other accounts hosted through Gmail)
Remote Desktop Mobile (I remote into my home PC or client servers frequently)
WorldCard Mobile (for photographing business cards and shifting them into contacts)
PockeTwit (really nice free Twitter client)
Facebook
Live Mesh
TagReader (doubt this is available, but a QR-code reader is a must)
Voice Command (I currently use voice dialing in addition to having the phone announce incoming calls and read text messages/e-mail subjects to me as they come in)

Most of these apps are available and work quite well. The browser is pretty speedy, I'd love to have a bit more variety myself, and hope Fennec and Opera come out soon. I probably need to do more searching and experimenting with apps, I've been a little to busy to at the moment.

I text message heavily and rely on threaded messaging. I'm a heavy touch typist, so the keyboard's a big deal. I know there's some things to get used to on this one. Anything about it that's still bugging some users? Special characters that are hard to access or anything along those lines?

What do you wish someone had warned you about before you made the switch? What do you think now that you have one that you couldn't live without?

Odds are I'm making this plunge, but I don't want any nasty surprises when I do. If I'm going to have a problem I'd love to know up-front so I'm prepared for whatever downtime or adjustment it may cause. I also know a LOT will change when they go to 2.1 next year, but since they're only committing to H1, I'll likely have to deal with 1.5 and its quirks for quite some time.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

The keyboard is pretty functional. I'm used to the spacebar issue, I still occasionally get the bottom row wrong when trying to type very quickly. I appreciate that the rows are spaced off center, unlike the Droid. I do wish the @ was in a more accessible location, thats the symbol that I tend to use most often other than the . and ,

I actually went for a Hero for nearly a month before switching to the Moment. I found that I just couldn't live without the physical keyboard. I do like HTC phones, I wish they had one with a physical keyboard on Sprint, but am overall pretty happy with my Moment. The Hero has a really good virtual keyboard, and I found out that you can ( I'd say should ) install it on the Moment. The home, menu, and back buttons took some getting used to, as they are touchscreen buttons, not real buttons. I really like the little touchpad thing, I did like the trackball on the Hero, but it had started collecting dirt in the 30 days I had it. Did I answer enough questions for you? Let me know if you have any further ones.

 

[pastafarian]

As one who hated the TP experience, I think you can expect little pain. The Moment is far more stable, smooth and reliable than that WM junk.

Opera Mobile 10 - Dolphin Browser
Google Maps (and Sprint Navigation sometimes) - Same
Tasks - Astrid
Internet Sharing - PDAnet
Adobe Reader - Documents to Go
E-mail = Moxier Mail for exchange (came with phone) K9 is a nice general email app
Remote Desktop Mobile - Don't use , so I can't help here
WorldCard Mobile - this I should find out too
PockeTwit - TwitDroid
Facebook _ Facebook (the one you d/l from market, not the link on the phone)
Live Mesh -Didn't use, Don't know
TagReader - Barcode Scanner
Voice Command - can't help here either

Enjoy!

 

[TurboFool]

When I first got my Mogul, the first thing I did was flash a new rom, to enable GPS functionality. ( Which Sprint and HTC had left out, for some strange reason. ) Then, I started flashing roms to get a bit more speed out of the thing. When I got the TP, I was initially impressed with it's speed, ( I know, I know ) but it began to seem more and more laggy as time went on. I started flashing roms, found one that I liked, that speeded the phone up a bit.

Very similar backgrounds there then, yes. My first custom ROM on the Mogul was to enable GPS and EVDO Rev A. After that it was all about WM6.1 since Sprint hadn't released it yet, and after that I never bothered to go back to official even after they did go 6.1. The customs were just too good.

hese apps are available and work quite well. The browser is pretty speedy, I'd love to have a bit more variety myself, and hope Fennec and Opera come out soon. I probably need to do more searching and experimenting with apps, I've been a little to busy to at the moment.

Yeah, I'm very hopeful for Fennec. I've used the alphas on my Touch Pro and they show a strong future. Plus with Weave I don't have to worry about where my data is.

The keyboard is pretty functional. I'm used to the spacebar issue, I still occasionally get the bottom row wrong when trying to type very quickly. I appreciate that the rows are spaced off center, unlike the Droid. I do wish the @ was in a more accessible location, thats the symbol that I tend to use most often other than the . and ,

Where is the @ on it? Also I noticed comma is a Fn option, which does seem mildly annoying as I would arguably use that more than a period. What about other special characters? Slashes (forward and back), etc.? I'm in IT, so I use a lot of computer characters.

I actually went for a Hero for nearly a month before switching to the Moment. I found that I just couldn't live without the physical keyboard. I do like HTC phones, I wish they had one with a physical keyboard on Sprint, but am overall pretty happy with my Moment. The Hero has a really good virtual keyboard, and I found out that you can ( I'd say should ) install it on the Moment. The home, menu, and back buttons took some getting used to, as they are touchscreen buttons, not real buttons. I really like the little touchpad thing, I did like the trackball on the Hero, but it had started collecting dirt in the 30 days I had it. Did I answer enough questions for you? Let me know if you have any further ones.

I would just get the Hero, despite the slower processor, if it wasn't for the lack of a keyboard. HTC's a great company and I know their support will be better. I'm really concerned about this phone's one-off nature meaning much worse third-party support. Still, it's the better phone right now. Plus I'm Sprint Premier, so at worst I'm locked into it for only a year. Thanks for the help, though, as your scenario most closely mimics mine.

As one who hated the TP experience, I think you can expect little pain. The Moment is far more stable, smooth and reliable than that WM junk.

See, this puts you in a different angle for advice, making it harder to compare our experiences. The only thing I hate about my TP is the battery/charging issues. Otherwise I love it, and with the exception of the random performance problems I'm very happy with WM. So this would color your opinion of Android a touch. Doesn't invalidate it by any means, but as a comparison you're more likely to be happier with something that's not WM while I might find more things that bug me. Loving the name and icon, though, btw.

Opera Mobile 10 - Dolphin Browser
Google Maps (and Sprint Navigation sometimes) - Same
Tasks - Astrid
Internet Sharing - PDAnet
Adobe Reader - Documents to Go
E-mail = Moxier Mail for exchange (came with phone) K9 is a nice general email app
Remote Desktop Mobile - Don't use , so I can't help here
WorldCard Mobile - this I should find out too
PockeTwit - TwitDroid
Facebook _ Facebook (the one you d/l from market, not the link on the phone)
Live Mesh -Didn't use, Don't know
TagReader - Barcode Scanner
Voice Command - can't help here either

Is Dolphin webkit-based, I would assume? Anything peculiar or lacking in it (besides Flash) that I should be aware of? And last I heard PDAnet was rather slow. Still an issue? Does Barcode Scanner do QR codes, too? Also, which of these apps that you mentioned are pay apps? I tend NOT to buy apps for my phone, although that may change now.

One thing I forgot to mention was Excel/Word documents, although I hear those can be handled well enough with Google Docs. Any other suggestions there?

Thanks again guys. I'm probably going to take the plunge this weekend, although I still have some concerns, especially about third-party support. Anything else you can pass along would be helpful.

 

[pastafarian]

Of course there are things that bug me about this phone. I'm not going to help you there, you'll have to find your own flaws. No device is perfect (except the iPhone in the hands of a Apple fanboi).

Is Dolphin webkit-based, I would assume? Correct!
Anything peculiar or lacking in it (besides Flash) that I should be aware of? No multitouch in Android 1.5? It clearly blows anything in the WM browser world out of the water!
And last I heard PDAnet was rather slow? Seems fast enough for me, but I don't tether much.
Does Barcode Scanner do QR codes, too? Yes. There are several other barcode apps out there, try them out and see for yourself.
Also, which of these apps that you mentioned are pay apps? Some have pay versions, all function fine for free.
One thing I forgot to mention was Excel/Word documents, Documents to go (pay to edit/create)

While most of the apps in the market are free, the pay ones usually aren't too dear @ $1-$5. With WM pre online store, apps sold at relatively low numbers and were priced high @ $20+. This led to the rampant WM warez scene. Selling (hopefully like the iphone) large quantities at a reasonable price makes the pay apps more approachable, Another really nice thing about the Android (and iPhone) app approach is the easy install. No pc, no tethering, no reboots. As long as you have a good data signal and a little time, you can try out a ton of apps and see which fits you best.