so, winmo 6.5’s new features are nice. but to me it’s simplifying the remote services where they need to execute flawlessly. users will try something once. if they don’t ‘get it’ they’ll move on and forget about them. typically it’s v3.0 when ms get it right. but for the market today, v1.0 has got to get it right.

I am finding the honeycomb infinitely useless however. I like that the drop down start bar is gone, but i’m not sure if the honeycomb is the best utilization of space & i’m not even sure if with optimization & better scrolling it will be better. The move to top method of moving icons to the top of the comb, needs to be revamped, it would be much easier if you can physically move buttons to where you want them located, or if we have to go the way of menu’s to give the functionality to order your buttons that way.

The finger friendly menu’s etc are a welcome addition. The Today screen i am hoping that they’ll refine a little more, though you can click on object on the list to select them, its more that the list scrolls through the magnifier than you dragging the magnifying glass through the list. It sounds irrelevant, but in actual use, it feels wonky.

I pray desperately that Windows Media Player will be involved in the facelift that Windows Mobile is undergoing, and hope there is better support for selecting multiple files and for being able to paste files into folders that don’t have extra space at the bottom to allow the right click functionality to select the option to paste. (This has been somewhat remedied w/ the finger friendly context menu, but its much easier/takes less time to tap & hold & select paste than it is to press down in the context menu till you get to edit to paste)

The click scroll sound that is present when scrolling throughout the OS is a nice feedback mechanism w/in File Explorer and Contacts.

Overall i’m impressed with WM 6.5 and my friends and i have come to the consensus that so far its been a much larger update than we ever expected from MS for a .4 update.

On newer hardware the OS on a whole seems much snappier and seems to freeze less. I definitely agree w/ Microsoft on putting strict system requirements on the devices that will run a particular OS. (In the same breadth, unless there is the intention for resource heavy changes to WM 6.5 before it is released, if it can run on the Touch Pro 2, then it can run on older devices like the Touch HD, Touch Pro & Diamond, and i hope that upgrade support will be included for those devices. IF not MS is forcing its users to go the route of xda.)

I’m not feeling the SPBShell 3 AT ALL. It feels old & dated, single solid coloured gui’s are out. I find tf3d & tf3d2 monotonous, though i like the additions HTC made in tf3d2. The Calendar & tf3d landscape are welcome additions, but background behaviour in landscape needs to be addressed.

Its also a good thing that xda has offered more functionality from the GUI perspective to TF3D, makes it less monotonous. (background able to run throughout all the tabs & not just home, there are also a variety of tf3d themes.) The black seems sleek initially, but then it gets boring.

I find tf3d and alot of these gui replacements are better for users that don’t need to delve too deep into the OS for the functionality that they want. If you do need deeper functionality the disconnect between the 3rd party gui and the OS can be disorienting.

I really like the vibrant colours and textures in WM 6.5 and the disappearance (transparency) of the start bars etc, almost wish it was OS wide, but i’m not sure how well that would actually work. But the disappearance of the bars on the today screen, make much better utilization of space, and is just more visually appealing especially from the perspective of the wvga devices.