i get it

Yes, I get all the hostility against all things labeled Windows. It's popular and easy to pile sxit on it. Hell I do it too sometimes, it's so easy..

In my deepest humble opinion the best mobile interface was the Palm. I do no hold the Windows Mobile way of doing things, with its myriad drop-down lists and fiddly controls in high regard. Quite the contrary. Palm had it for a while, then they .. you know.

I am an unwilling (and still kicking) convert to WM due to a lack of alternatives (this is quite personal): I like the ability to fiddle and tweak, add to and change default apps. I like the ease of personalization. I am not like most people, just one of the crowd referred to as "power user" slash "geek", or just labelled "socially not adept just because he knows the 'puter stuff".

That said and hopefully out of way, the WM 6.x works just as advertised. It works. It is not pretty (but can be prettified to some extent). But it does work, and strangely enough is quite robust and reliable. It handles all the contacts / calendar / tasks / notes thing without hiccup (I am also a shameless fan of Pocket Informant). It multitasks gracefully in my palm. I can be downloading stuff of internet while uploading files to some shared folder on the network, while reading some e-book to pass some asocial time. I can even take some voice calls if required, and if I am wearing the earbuds, I can take notes about it while speaking (I am quite absentminded, so taking notes on business calls is a Good Thing).

Anyway, the myriad apps exist for WM and though there isn't an Official Draconian (ND)Appstore for it, it is elementary for any non-idiot to find them through google or somesuch. They are there for the evaluation and the taking. Fsxck the MS, you can just install them.

I got carried away. WM works better than you might think. And I've tried them all after Palm, excepting Android (and yes, including the jesus phone). I am currently using the HTC Diamond and not ashamed to admit it. It's not an iphone, but at least I can watch xvid videos on it without converting, and read iSilo and palmDb and (crxp)Lit documents, and draw a diagram with a freeware app (or basic notes) and send it via MMS. It is not only an ipod with a phone + a good browser and very good advertising. I can do stuff on the teensy black slab besides accessing my facebook account.

Just to underline: I like BeOS most of all, and Windows the least. IMHO the current most open and prolific handheld OS sadly happens to be WinMob. The others, while meaning well, don't quite cut it. I would love a Linux or PalmOS or Amiga or whatever device that could. It's just that there is nothing besides WM that half can at the moment.

Whats the problem here

You guys dont like WM devices, why? ive used different WM PDAs from WM2002 to WM 6.1, Currently i have an Orbit running 6.1, ive never had an issue with any of the, they have got progressively faster over the years and my Orbit flys, ive played with the Diamond and find it eve faster, ive never been limited to any network, ive never had problems running software, I can buy software if i choose or use free open source software, i can change and upgrade batteries and buy dozens of add-ons for it, if i drop it i can have it repaired in a few days.

Battery life does last the rated amount, if you read the talk time and standby times you will notice the difference, if you use the wifi, bluetooth and or GPRS/3G it will use more power but they generally last about a day with heavy usage including propper GPS usage. so please tell me why ive not had any issues after using WM devices for years with heavy usage of all there features?

and let me get this straight, you would rather use an unreleasd OS that may not be any good than WM? get real people