Palm and Android have both surprised me. I thought that these guys together with Apple had the greatest challenge to Symbian. It seems that Windows OS has the popular vote here.

CC

p.s. The Samsung i900 Omnia does look nice in both appearance and features. Though I notice the screen uses resistive technology rather than the iPhones choice of a capacitive screen. Does that mean it is made of plastic rather than glass I can't tell from the spec sheet.

The Omnia is a nice 'phone, even though a lot of magazine reviews have slated it for being too slow, and having a stylus attached with a bit of string. What do they know anyway?

It's a plastic screen by the way.

I'm a registered developer, there's no real speed improvement. I have found all new betas for iPhone have all been jittery. Although this time it's quite stable, then again it's in beta3 on a 3Gs so speed is alot better.

Do you remember all that fuss about the screens of iPods getting scratches on them when they were put in your pocket? Apple have used glass since then. I wonder why other manufactures don't get that kind of grief?

My htc has a glass screen and it has some scratches and pits after 1 year of use.

My iPod Touch on the other hand looked dreadful after 2-3 days! The bad of that thing is a practical design nightmare. It might look cute in the box, but leave it laying on a sheet of paper all day and it is scratched to b*****y! The iPhone's back doesn't seem so bad.

My screen would probably be scrathed to heck by now if I hadn't bought some cheap generic screen protectors when I got the 'phone. I think they cost about £5 for 6 if I recall, and I have used two so far, in the... erm... however long I've had the mobile.

The Palm Pre is the first Palm OS and it isn't released in the UK yet

I'm waiting for android phones to be more powerful (suffer from bad patches of slowdown currently) before I would get one over WM

Fin. Gimme your vibe please. Is WinMo where it's at then, if Android's not there yet?

Everybody knows iPhone has the best interface, but I don't want one. So it seems the rest of us are stuck with not as good stuff. Correct me if I'm wrong....

If you get the right phone I would say yes if you don't want an iPhone depending on the use of it, the amount you can customise it is pretty much endless, not to mention skinning and using different roms, as well as options on the phones themselves e.g. hardware keyboard or not

ATM I use a stock O2 rom (latest release) with SPB mobile shell 3.0 on and a few other free add ons such as Finger menu and finger notification (enlarges the notifications to make it easier to use without a stylus. I also can run some reasonably old PC games with a little tinkering (COD2, Warcraft, Duke Nukem 3d).

It's much more of a customisers OS over the iPhone, android I don't feel is very developed yet in terms of the hardware being powerful enough to run the systems (when you look at the HTC WM devices the HTC Android devices are pretty underpowered)

I would say the iPhone has a very good interface.... but not the best, I spent quite a while fiddling with SPB Mobile shell to get it just how I wanted it, because it might be best for most.... doesn't mean it's best for you (I found the icons on every page very cluttered)

Windows Mobile was where it was at, for the professional user, last year, if they wanted touch screen, otherwise it was RIM's CrackBerry line or Nokia.

The iPhone has closed the gap on Windows Mobile, in terms of functionality, combined with the slicker user interface, the iPhone is currently the no-brainer choice in terms of a complete package.

The Android platform certainly has potential and is more flexible than either WM or the iPhone, but it is young and still suffering some teething problems - although the new Hero seems to be a step forward. Also, Motorola are moving lock stock and barrel over to Android. The future will certainly be interesting. Google have announce 18 new 'phones this year, but that is actually only about half a dozen, when you take into account carrier branding and different regions...

The Pre and WebOS also look very interesting, but it isn't currently available outside of the USA, so how good it actually is, is debatable. The next version looks much more interesting - there are models lined up with are touch screen and CrackBerry/Nokia E7n like in design AFAIK.

Windows Mobile is in a poor position, currently. The current version was dated before it was released (finger touch is not part of the user interface for Windows Mobile currently, it is designed for a stylus or a keypad) and only won on features , but the competition have solved that problem, so it is falling behind. 6.5, due for imminent release in new handsets, is a stop-gap measure, according to Microsoft's own statements and 7 will appear by the end of 2010. The only thing that is keeping them at all in competition is the user interfaces that companies like htc and Samsung are providing.

WM isn't all bad, but it really shows its age. The other downside for WM is that Microsoft make their money from the software licences! With Apple and Android and to a lesser extent RIM, new software versions are rolled out to users (WebOS is still too young). This isn't something Microsoft can do.

They sell the licences to the manufacturers, who tailor it to their hardware and release the hardware. That menas that even security fixes have to filter down to the end user and upgrades to new versions will cost money (or the user will need to illegally download the ROM images from somewhere).

There isn't a lot that Microsoft can really do about that situation, becuase, unlike the others, they make the software and their partners make the hardware. The competition make both, so can roll out updates as they like or need. Unless Microsoft gets into some sort of profit-sharing with the manufacturers AND the service providers, Microsoft can't afford to roll out new versions of Windows Mobile to existing users - like Apple have done with the 2 and 3 series of the iPhone OS X software.

Have a play with an Android #phone, if you like it, go for it, otherwise go iPhone at the moment. If you really want Windows Mobile, I would wait for the next release or over next release before commiting. The current release was acceptable when it came to the touch smartphone market over a year ago, but it hasn't changed, whilst the competition has strided past it, and it won't improve on existing hardware without the user investing hard cash in a software upgrade (or the hardware manufacturer being generous on recently purchased devices).

As Fin says, the customisation (with keyboard, touchscreen, touchpad etc.) is the real advantage of WM, you can chose the device that suits you, the trouble is, the current software is just too dated.

BTW, yes, I tried the SPB shell and I didn't get on with it, the htc TouchFlo was generally better, but neither are a patch on the way the iPhone works - and that is down to the way the whole system is based around finger touch. Hopefully 6.5 and 7.0 of WM will address this.

Was that 2.0 or 3? I didn't get touchflo as my phone was a SE not htc

It's not that I'm an Apple hater, but I don't want iTunes, wouldn't use the music functionality that much and would prefer a passable camera. There are also a few little things about the proprietary nature of the device that bug me. Outside of that, it does seem to be the best option right now.

I'm just reluctant and my current Sony does most of the stuff I need and has a superb camera with xenon flash.

Don't go with htc then, the camera sucks compared to the 3GS one...

I'd probably stick with the Sony and see what comes next year...

The Xperia 2 and 3 look very tasty, and I think one or both come with android when they come out, they will be decent devices and powerful enough

I think it was 2.n of SPB, just looked at 3 and it is vary different, but suffers the Android and Samsung Omnia problem of clutter. That is what I like about the TouchFlo and the iPhone interfaces, the information is ordered and uncluttered. The SPB shell looks cluttered, in comparison.

Does the contacts have the option of showing the names, instead of photos? I have photos for maybe 1% of my contacts...