Mobile Task Manager

2 years ago, I was handed a Dopod M700 running the latest Windows Mobile operating system then, 5.0. My experience was beyond terrible that I had to stop using that phone after a week as it could barely keep up with my usage style, brought over from my previous phone, a Sony Ericsson K610i. As a brief background about this smartphone, it is a huge touchscreen with a scrollwheel and a few utility buttons.

The first problem which I attribute to the fault of the OS is that I spent most of my time launching task manager, killing software that should not be running when they are not the foreground process.

Secondly, I spent and unwieldy amount of time attempting to launch software via its “Start” menu.

Thirdly, my contacts were in such a messed up state that I wasn’t able to contact anyone. As it only supports ActiveSync, Mac support is totally out of the window (pardon the pun). Having seen how Outlook behaves, I don’t exactly want to fathom what it’ll mean to my contacts.

Fourthly, pressure-based touchscreen is a pain to type with its tiny virtual keyboard. You’ll need to keep fingernails just to accurately touch something.

Fifthly, the ringer settings are beyond primitive that it doesn’t feel like a phone.

Sixthly, I can’t switch the usability feature on as I can’t find it!

In all, the device software feels more like a PDA with the phone functionality added as an after-thought. Really, if there’s anyone who claims WM OS is usable, I think he doesn’t understand what usability is. Many would also claim that the new version of the OS is better but I’ll beg to differ. Unless Microsoft redesigns the OS from scratch, it’ll still be a desktop metaphor crammed into a tiny screen.