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Ease of Use
There's a very good reason why BlackBerry is a household name and Windows Mobile is not: Its overall design and usability are intuitive and rock solid, so we give it high marks in these areas. Setting up and using e-mail, surfing the Web, and making phone calls were simple tasks. The icon-based Home screen is a breeze to follow, and the menus are well integrated with the function keys. Blackberry’s keyboard shortcuts are also great time-saving tools. For example, pressing space twice inserts a full stop, "T" shifts the page view to the top or, vice versa, "B" for bottom. BlackBerry automatically adds an apostrophe to words that need it, such as "isn’t" and "you're," so you don't have to worry about using an Alt-key combo. Windows Mobile 6 offers a few tricks of its own but they don’t quite measure up the simplicity and convenience of Blackberry.
In the Inbox, pressing and holding down the H or 0 (zero) key (depending on your device) brings up a list of shortcuts. In an e-mail, for example, pressing the 2 key triggers the Reply function, and pressing the 7 key deletes the message. With WM6, Microsoft has made several cosmetic and usability improvements to its OS. The Home screen looks and feels like Windows on a desktop PC, with the Start menu and recently used applications across the top of the screen. One of our favourite mobile-centric tools is Live Search, which lets you conduct Web searches without the extra step of launching the browser.
If Microsoft Outlook is your Blackberry calendar and contacts tool, WM6 is the way to go because it gives you the familiar Outlook interface and is better integrated with this e-mail app. Also, WM6's calendar has a helpful bar across the top that gives you a quick look at your availability.
Unfortunately, like earlier versions of Windows Mobile, version 6 doesn't let you completely exit an application. You can close the window, but the app still runs in the background, straining a device's processor and memory resources.
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| Windows Mobile 6 is friendlier than its predecessor-and we love the new shortcuts-but BlackBerry still has the shortest learning curve. |
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