Had WinM and Symbian...

Guess what ... I still have symbian... WinMo... well It had to take of... Long trip and slow speed so I let it go...

If you love them they will come back (not)

personally i prefer linux powered phones like the motorolas smartphones, neo freerunner or with the new google Android (also linux based)

i would never buy a windows mobile phone, having it in a pc is too much of a headache already.

The advantage of having Windows Mobile is that if you don't like the built-in applications, there are thousands of 3rd party ones you can use instead.

Sure the default WM user interface is pretty clunky, but the whole point is that you can install replacements or additions to suit you needs. For example, if you prefer a cleaner, touch/finger oriented UI, there are an increasing number of (free and paid for) apps which work like this. Alternatively, if you are happy with the stylus, and want more information and options on-screen, there are many choices available for this style too, or you can use a mixture of the two in different applications. 

That's the 'beauty' of WM...you can customise it to be more-or-less whatever you want it to be, so you're not limited to one company's vision of how it thinks you should work.

Sure, there are definitely some improvements and optimisations to WM that could be made 'under the bonnet', but currently it's the most flexible, customisable and powerful mobile phone OS available. 

I've been banging on about the way Windows turned my phones and PDAs into retards by making the simplest tasks - starting up, dialling numbers, checking messages - take several decades longer than I was prepared to wait.

The interface on both WM devices I've owned was slower than two overweight dinosaurs going uphill in a milk float, to the point where incoming calls actually used to make the ringtone stutter if I happened to be trudging through the contacts list at the same time. Windows 95, anyone?

To cut a long rant short, absolutely none of this is surprising given that these 'mobile devices' have all the undulating flabby bits of Windows but the processing power of a hamster with which to make it all move. You've got to (a) really really want the familiarity or (b) not know any better to put up with it. Screw the features if it's borderline unusable!

As much as I enjoy reading the articles on this website, you could try being objective when it comes to Microsoft for a change. 

Symbian's UI is poorly laid out and confusing. At least with Windows I can use it out of the box without having to read a poorly written user manual. Further, Windows Mobile provides many functions which aren't supported by any Symbian phone I've owned.

Hi,
also if you dislike Windows Mobile, i like it, because of the Programs you get for Windows Mobile. There are quite a lot of Programs for WM i really would miss.

So, if this MobilePhone would be delivered with Symbion, i would never buy it.

symbian and windows mobile are incomprable, symbian is young and missing important application developement features, is buggy and largly undocumented windows mobile is an open platform and has all the features you'd expect from a develpoment enviroment and is well documented.

this is from a development perspecive of course and the author was talking about user perspective.

Actually Windows Mobile provides far better development tool chains and debugging tool than Symbian OS, and that's the reason why they stick with M$ route. If you have experience to developing BSP Drivers on Symbian platform and this is surely a headache, in most time you have to printf everything to debugging BSP drivers and everything on Symbian platform.