[JASJAR, XDA Exec, MDA Pro General] daveb1976:
First, my hypocrisy: I have an XDA Exec, I've let the opportunity go by to return it and I'm probably going to persevere.

Next, the rant...

I think it is a complete disgrace for this product to have been released as it currently is. It shouldn't be necessary to spend a weekend getting a consumer device up and running. The bugs in the software are not "kinks", they are key pieces of functionality that simply do not work. Microsoft, O2, Vodaphone would have picked up these within 1 day of normal operation without installing ANY other software and yet they release the product and charge you for it.

Here are some of my most obvious examples:

* The phone pad T9 entry method does not work. On a clean O2 active install, this works until the first soft reset and then no more. Using the corporate mode, it works for a while and then stops.

* Microsoft Voice command, which has a link for purchase displayed directly on the Windows Mobile 2005 MS website does not display contact information when dialing a contact.

* About the first thing you have to install is an app to properly close applications because the memory management is so poor that you're constantly having to soft reset, or go into settings and close all programs. Ok, perhaps not a bug, but surely within a day of using a beta of the device ANY MS employee could go "oh, well, I guess our backgrounding method of memory management doesn't work".

I have hard-reset my device many times and yes, it's possible to make it work provided you put enough attention into it, but it's supposed to be a productivity tool and yet it's taken many more hours to use than it's saved.

This is the kind of experience the world had to put up with when Windows 95 was launched and I thought Microsoft had finally reached a point where they were able to release decent software (like Windows XP), but clearly they're still happy to release rediculously low quality products.

What I do plan to do is to harrass O2 as much as possible regarding this. Make them wish they'd never sold the product because of what it's costing them to support. As MS now have OEM resellers carefully positioned between the end user and themselves perhaps doing this will eventually put pressure on MS to stop insulting us.

What's sad, is that they're doing it again - Palm have just decided to start running Windows Mobile, so it's only a matter of time until the Microsoft monopoly has been extended to PDAs as well. And the crazy thing is that this isn't because of it even being a nice product to use (bugs aside). How can MS (who have been developing software for such a long time) be so completely clueless when it comes to software design. Reading this site confirms that I'm by no means the only one complaining:

* Nice, expensive crystal clear screen, brand spanking new OS and web browser. Oh, you can't browse in 640 X 480. Never mind...

* No full screen terminal services. Never mind...

* Let's not bother with a task switcher. It's much easier to go through the menu every time.

* Why provide a decent file explorer, people will never use it.

Every time, the support community comes up with nice freeware apps that fill all the holes and on the next release of the OS, all the same holes are there. It's like MS lock all the app designers and developers in a room and don't let them near an end user.

Believe it or not, this post not from an old Microsoft hater, but I'm surely becoming a new one.

There, I'm done...

Dave