Pros & Cons
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- Better home screen.
- More stable than previous versions.
- Available on a wide range of devices.
- Excellent integration with Microsoft media, PCs, and servers.
- Lots of third-party software.
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- Still feels slow on anything lower than 312-MHz devices.
- Not as user-friendly as Apple or BlackBerry OSs.
Windows Mobile 6.1, the latest upgrade to Microsoft's main operating system for handhelds, has a few important invisible patches and a bunch of minor interface tweaks. It leaves all of
No mobile OS integrates more tightly with Windows PCs, Windows Media Player, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Exchange. Syncing ability with Windows Mobile is built into every copy of Windows on the desktop, every copy of Windows Media Player, every Exchange server later than version 2003, and every WMA-format-compatible music store. That makes Windows Mobile an unusually easy solution for connecting your Microsoft universe.
On the negative side, Windows Mobile has a fussy interface with a lot of tiny, confusing elements, and it often feels slow. That hasn't changed with 6.1. And with Apple, BlackBerry, and Google's Android all moving in on Microsoft's turf with faster or more usable systems, Windows Mobile needs a much more extensive interface overhaul to keep its lead into the future.
We tested Windows Mobile 6.1 on a
A New Home for Windows Mobile
One of the most obvious changes in Windows Mobile 6.1 is the "sliding panel" home screen, which puts a big, bold digital clock at the top of the display. Below it, you have stacked categories with a big icon for each. Within each category, you can scroll through horizontally to view the subcategories within. For instance, one category is Messaging. By scrolling sideways, you can check your missed calls, voice mail, text messages, or e-mail messages. The Music category lets you play tunes from the home screen.
As part of the new home screen, there's a new Getting Started app, which helps you personalize your device. Essentially, it's a set of help files on how to set the date and time, set up e-mail, connect a Bluetooth headset, and set wallpapers, ringtones, and music choices. It is good to put those instructions front and center, but it would be better not to need them.
When you click through to the list of applications, you're presented with a menu of your most recent apps rather than scrolling through all the apps on your device. This is meant to make the few apps that you use most frequently easily accessible. Ironically, it makes the interface slightly more complicated for power users, who have to click a menu option to see all of their apps.
This is definitely a more flexible and user-friendly home screen than in the Windows Mobile 6.0 standard build, but it's very similar to what HTC has already done on the
Cutting, Copying, Pasting, and Internet Exploring
Speaking of cutting and pasting, Windows Mobile 6.1 brings a much-needed copy-and-paste function to some but not all Windows Mobile Standard apps. You can cut, copy, and paste in Pocket Internet Explorer and in the mail application, but not in Pocket Office or Notes. The option is also buried two menu levels deep, requiring three key presses to activate.
In the messaging clients, you can now select and delete multiple messages or contacts at a time. SMS conversations are now threaded by sender--a feature that frequent texters will love. E-mail setup is easier and more automatic, especially for those with custom domains through providers like Google. (The auto-setup system actually understands the concept of custom domains.) If you're on a work network, you can enroll in a Microsoft domain to access network resources.
Pocket Internet Explorer (PIE) gets a boost too. A new Zoom Out button shrinks a page down so that you can navigate across a thumbnail and zoom in on the part you want, like in Nokia's Symbian Series 60 browser. And Microsoft claims that it has sped up PIE's rendering. Oddly, I found that the new version loaded entire pages much more quickly, but the old version started to render first. This means that with the new version, there's a longer delay before you begin to see a page, but all of the banner ads and such fill in more swiftly at the end.
But just as with the UI, the changes in PIE aren't enough. The browser still mangles table layouts, especially on pages that rely heavily on cascading style sheets--for instance, the home pages of Apple and Expedia both look awful.
Changes Under the Hood
Windows Mobile 6.1 has a few performance improvements that corporate clients will notice. Microsoft has retuned the Direct Push connectivity to Exchange servers to improve battery life by up to 33 percent for over-the-air syncing, according to the company.
According to Microsoft, Version 6.1 also fixes the memory leak that's plagued some Windows Mobile devices since version 5.0, which means that some devices need to be rebooted every day or two. It doesn't apply to all Windows Mobile gadgets, but you'll know it if you have the problem. All we can say is that our BlackJack II didn't crash at all during testing.
The OS still doesn't quit programs when you're done with them, which means you may run out of memory. To help manage your programs, there's a new task manager, which conveniently shows how much memory each process is eating up. Oddly, it doesn't show you how much system memory is still available–that number is hidden down in a settings menu.
The interface is ever-so-slightly faster; changing menu screens and launching programs takes a fraction of a second less in the new version. Boot time stays the same, and performance on our CorePlayer video benchmark tests was unchanged. Testing with a range of Microsoft Office documents was a wash; the older version opened large Microsoft Word documents faster, but the newer model switches between PowerPoint slides more quickly.
There's also a tiny shift in Windows Mobile's memory footprint. Comparing two freshly factory-reset Samsung BlackJack IIs, the Windows Mobile 6.1 model had 138.38MB of storage and 85.11MB of program memory free; the old model had 139.55MB of storage and 86.37mb of program memory free.—
The Best of a Bad Bunch
Windows Mobile is still too slow on devices with anything lower than 312-MHz processors, with an irksome user interface that requires too much searching for tiny buttons to select. Windows Mobile 6.1 doesn't change any of that, though it should crash less often than 6.0. And yet we still recommend Windows Mobile products highly. Why?
To some extent, Windows Mobile continues to reign supreme among mobile operating systems, because nobody else is really trying. It's the only handheld OS that appears on every carrier, in a range of form factors, with a variety of third-party applications that take full advantage of smartphone hardware. That should be the starting point for mobile OSs, but alas, no one else even makes it to the game.
The number one smartphone OS in terms of market share, the BlackBerry OS, is still missing key features like video streaming, a decent Web browser, and a good way to edit Microsoft Office documents. Some of that will change soon, but we haven't seen the new BlackBerry OS 4.5 in action yet, so we can't judge its quality. The once well-loved Palm OS is dying; even Palm says it's giving up on the system. And we can't recommend an OS that's been declared dead by its own manufacturer.
Two other choices lose out because they simply don't offer enough options. Apple's OS has only one device, on only one carrier. Sure, the iPhone is lovely, but we still can't get past that AT&T lock-in. Even if the iPhone were perfect, there should be more than one carrier choice. And Symbian may dominate overseas, but it offers no options for the 60 percent of Americans on CDMA networks such as Sprint and Verizon.
There's a real threat on the horizon though: Google's Android OS. Google is planning a Microsoft-like approach to the mobile marketplace, with its Linux-based OS popping up on phones all over the place. When we saw Android in action at the Mobile World Congress trade show, it seemed much faster and more responsive than Windows Mobile running on the same chipset.
Ultimately, Windows Mobile keeps our Editors' Choice because, right now, it's the only truly open OS that embraces the entire marketplace. With Windows Mobile, if you don't like your browser, you can download a different one. If you don't like your carrier, you can switch. If you have a dream for an application, you can program it. That openness, flexibility, and range of choices is what keeps Windows Mobile 6.1 our top candidate for mobile operating systems—for now.
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Final Thoughts
Windows Mobile 6.1
It's still the most flexible smartphone OS, and it's a bit more stable and easier to use than it was before. But Windows Mobile needs an interface overhaul to stay in the lead in the future.