[Touch HD General] asbestos:
WARNING!!! I say nice things about the iPhone and some bad things about windows mobile below. If you will respond with flames or some other crap, don't waste your time reading below...... Now back to my really long reply!

Leochan,

I think you hit it right on the head. I too have been a long time window mobile user and there are things I love about windows mobile. Hell, I still have tons of windows mobile phones sitting around here:

2 ppc6700's (Working)

1 Treo 700wx (Working)

1 Treo 750 (Working)

1 8525 (Working)

1 Blue Angel (Not working)

On top of that I still have my old Ipaq Hx2495 sitting in a box somewhere around here.

I have extensive knowledge flashing devices, using various kitchens out there so I am not a "normal" user by any means.

I fell in love with PDA's using windows mobile in 2001 and have been using them for years. In fact, they have become such an integral part of my job that I am not sure I could do my job without a PDA. I manage 10 satellite locations with about 200 people that work for me.

Having said that, I too have an iPhone 3G.

My managers bought me an iPod Touch for Christmas and I fell in love the first time I started it up. To me, it is everything the windows mobile devices aren't. I loved it so much that with my managers permission I traded it in for an iPhone.

I used my old PDA for doing on site inspections, tons of email (about 50-80 a day) some texting, documenting things with pictures and as a flash drive to carry around docs and such. I was not using the latest or greatest windows mobile phone either. Just my old trusty 8525. Before I bought the iPhone I tried to buy a windows mobile device that at least came close to the smoothness that the iPhone has but nothing came close. I checked out the Fuse on At&t secretly hoping that it worked even remotely close to the iPhone. I felt dirty for even having it. What really threw me off was the sales reps bashing the Fuse saying how crappy a device it was. Yes, I checked the forums here but it just seemed like more of the same old same old. Flashing it to get just a normal level of functionality that should have been there from the start.

Ya know what though? For what it does, the iPhone does it almost flawlessly.

Are there things I miss? Sure there are!

Cut and paste? Sometimes yes.

MMS? Honestly, I have never sent one. I always emailed anyways.

The ability to forward an SMS? Don't think I ever have done that either.

Using our custom auditing software? Yes. I just carry an old PDA to do them. I use it twice a week for an hour and I have not charged the PDA in a month. It just goes and goes without having the WIFI or the phone on.

The ability to work on a spreadsheet? Sort of. I used to do quite a bit of this while on the road but honestly, it jacked up the formatting to bad it was next to worthless. I use my EEE PC to do any excel editing I need anyways. Don't even mention word docs. It screws them up even worse than excel spreadsheets.

What I miss the most though is the tasking system and the exchange integration for tasks along with 3rd party notifications (Meaning tasks alerts and such).

At least for me, the iPhone is a "fun" tool that does 90% of what I need it to do, with style and its pleasurable.

We do not have an Exchange 2007 server so emails look like crap on windows mobile but on the iPhone at least I get a mostly normal looking email.

On windows mobile you can not open a 80,000 cell spreadsheet at all, at least I never got it to work on any version I had.

On the iPhone I can check my daily reports in transit without having to stop, load up my laptop and read it on there.

Now, to be honest, there are some downfalls of the iPhone. Some are listed above but in reality, it's a rock solid device. I considered getting an HD but I guess I am tired of getting my tool to do exactly what I want when it should just work out of the box.

Now, some people will say but windows mobile plays flash!

Paaaleeeeaaase!

Yes there are ways to do it but it's laggy and sub par at best.

The interface blows. Period. Doing anything with one hand is a challenge.

The dialer on many phones lag,

text entry on a physical keypad is cool, but on screen is a joke, even on newer devices.

Yes of course each one does things differently, some things better, some worse but at the end of the day if you want a tool that just works, get an iPhone. You won't be sorry.

If you want to spend endless hours tweaking, changing, installing, hard resetting, re-installing etc etc for the sake of "getting it just right" get a windows mobile device.

Of course both platforms will get better over time and I would love to see a solid windows mobile device that just works come out. Trust me, I would wait in line for that.

Until then, the iPhone, to me, it just a more solid user friendly device.

I get tired of people trying to justify the hard work that we put into windows mobile as an advantage. Get over it already! Yes it is customizable, and that's cool, but its also a fault. Plain and simple.

YMMV, IMO.