Data centres to off-centre opinion

Orange recently released an update to the TyTN II which upgrades the device to WM6.1 – I installed it last Monday and love the enhancements, the most significant being;

• Battery life definitely seems better
• audio quality and volume is improved
• it includes the HTC Home Screen add-in which I really like and
• the thread-based SMS reader is nearly as good as the iPhones

Sadly no significant update to Pocket IE, and I’ve not yet bothered to install Opera Mobile 9 beta – I’ll get round to it.

Seeing as all settings for my phone are stored on Exchange Server, the upgrade was no issue even though it flashes the firmware which deletes all preferences/config. Setting up a new sync partnership with my Vista PC resulted in all my contacts, web favorites, email and calendar automatically syncing with the phone. The only hastle was re-installing the apps, but that only took 30 mins or so. Oh, and I always turn off the Orange Home Screen app – I prefer standard Windows Mobile (and now the HTC Home Screen add-in).

Well worth the upgrade in my opinion – a good phone made even better.

I’m being objective by posting my experiences with the Windows SmartPhone I’ve had since December. This is the 4th Windows Smartphone I’ve had. The first one (the original Orange SPV) was an absolute nightmare, definitely a v1 device. However, we’re talking late 2001 here – and the device had an SD card slot, the ability to browse the web, a full media player capable of MP3, WAV, WMA and WMV (yes, it played video, quite well).

I like PDA-style phones far more than the candy-bar style – in fact the last two phones (Orange M1000 and HTC Tytn) I’ve bought myself and used the company SIM because they weren’t on the list of approved devices.

The TyTN II is a Windows Mobile 6 device with a full slide out QWERY keyboard which is really useful if you do as much email on it as I do. The screen is a bit too small, and performance is not brilliant, but on the whole its a good device. Battery life is good (2-3 days with push email enabled), the 3G signal is pretty reliable (more so than I’ve experienced with the iPhone – but thats on O2 and the TyTN II is on Orange so its unfair to compare them).

The touch-screen interface really does show its age compared to the iPhone (see my blog entry here and here). In fact, the interface is quite frustrating on occasion – having to page through menu after menu to find a function. The keys are all programmable; I’ve set mine up as shortcuts to the apps/features I use most. The Camera is surprisingly good quality (3 Megapixel) with better colour accuracy compared to the Tytn.

The most annoying thing about the device is the browser: Internet Explorer mobile is absolutely rubbish. I’ver installed Opera 9 beta which is far superior, but still nothing compared to Safari on the iPhone.

Compared to the iPhone, the TyTN II is has more features, is more reliable but nowehere near as user friendly or as nice to use.