I joined JAMM earlier this year as a fanatic WM user. I tweaked my registry,  perused the popular software forums, and spent hours customizing my device with 3rd party software. Microsoft’s OS had been my mobile home for a good two and a half years, starting with my Axim x51v and, most recently, the HTC TyTN.

But earlier this month, influenced by JAMM user discussions and some crazy new bugs on my TyTN, I considered a change. I was thinking that maybe it was time to leave (or at least take a break from) Windows Mobile for greener, faster, and possibly less expensive pastures. I’d been feeling that my TyTN wasn’t quite cutting it as a main device, but another WM Professional unit would cost me upwards of $600 CAD at the very least. What could I do? What system would I run to?

Take a guess, then hit the jump and have me immediately spoil the surprise!

[Next in series posted: iPhone vs WM!]

I bought this old thing at the start of the month.

It’s a 16GB iPod Touch and it was a lot cheaper than any decent, new WM PDA I could have found. I would like an iPhone, but that’s just too expensive for me. But before I get into this black monolith, I want to take a paragraph or two (or more!) to talk about the change.

First of all, I was spooked, not stoked, about shifting devices. I bought the unit about two weeks ago and was pretty confused about the purchase on the first day (even with a 30-day return policy). So much so that other JAMM users got fed up with my scared whining on the forums and told me to man up and enjoy the device!

I see my devices as a tool, a toy, and an electronic pillow. No matter where I go, at least I’ve got my device with me for music, logging appointments, or sinking into myself until the world is just a far away place I happen to be in. So it was a strangely personal decision suddenly betraying my TyTN for an Apple Kool-Aid (I don’t know, Doug started it) Pod, but I really felt like the dream of my TyTN as an all-in-one device had been shattered.

What I wanted from my HTC handheld was a media player, a solid PIM suite, and some halfway decent Internet surfing capability. Until the start of this month I ran three main programs simultaneously: Pocket Player 3.6 as my mp3 player, Mobile Shell 2 to navigate the device, and Pocketbreeze to take care of my scheduling. I had given up the dream of being able to surf and listen to music at the same time, as RAM limits REALLY prohibited running anything more than Pocket Player and any other basic program at the same time. However, I was content with the 13 MB of RAM with the "main three" running. That is, until the bugs started cropping up again…

As a power (read: too much time) user, and especially as a reviewer, I’ve learned quickly that the programs on my machine aren’t always going to play nice. I had grown accustomed to spending entire evenings troubleshooting problems on my device, always with the goal of reaching that peak, stable setup. But this latest set of bugs, which I won’t even bother to describe, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I suppose I was just tired of working for my system, and not having it the other way around. Once I admitted that to myself, my ideal setup just didn’t feel so ideal anymore. Every time I played mp3’s my device would slow down when inputting data. Just using the system for a day or two would result in memory leaks, leaving me with a pitiful 8 MB RAM and in need of a soft reset. I used programs like Oxios Hibernate to recover memory, but there were literally megabytes of RAM that were lost to the abyss and could only be regained via resetting the device. On top of all of that — I did miss the Internet surfing capability more than I realized. The Netfront 3.5 beta nuked all of my programs while running and left me with 3 MB. If I ran anything more than calculator at that point my TyTN would turn into a sack of potatoes (but with a soft reset button instead of spuds). It was such a blow to realize that I would never be able to run anything like Opera Mobile 9.5 on the piddling non-upgradeable 64 MB of RAM my poor TyTN came with.

Anyhow, I suppose that brings me right back to this thing, doesn’t it?

Hardware drool aside now, I bought the thing for a few basic reasons:

• it’s cheaper than a similarly capable WM device in Canada
• Solid multimedia UI without slowing down
• Functional calendar program (no tasks )
• Fantastic Internet surfing coupled with YouTube (you don’t care about YouTube access until you have it)
• The possibilities of the SDK
• It looks AWESOME on my table

Of all the reasons here, the SDK is really the least of them. I did not buy this thing because I think the SDK will send it soaring to new heights, up to a great land of limitless potential (I just see it as something to look forward to). Rather, I bought this thing because of many hours of personal experience on my best friend’s 8GB iPhone. He got his last year and he still loves it. I played with it every chance I got (pretty much whenever we’ve met up) and loved how solid the music and surfing capabilities were. The video looked great, but I was wondering how great it really was — especially compared to my powerhouse drag-n-drop x51v with TCPMP.

It’s now been two weeks since I’ve bought the device, and I’m very happy with it. I’m not going to list all the features of a device everybody knows about, but I’d like to quickly mention a few things I’ve been enjoying in particular.

Music. With all the features in this black box, it’s almost easy to forget it’s a music player. This is really the feature I wanted most from this device. I wanted something that make music an enjoyable mobile experience, and it’s turned out to be even better than I thought! One feature I especially love is the lyrics feature. I just tap on the album art and out comes the lyrics (since I painstakingly tagged them in to my library). The system doesn’t slow down when music is playing, and this is such a big boon for me. Pocket Player used to lag in bits and pieces while a song was going, even with gapless playback turned off. Now I have gapless, my lyrics, and my album art with 16 GB. Huzzah!

Video. It was very, very easy to get videos onto my old x51v. The thing was a monster for video and it ate up almost all the VGA vids I threw at it (without conversion). The large screen made movies a pleasure to watch. My TyTN was not the same experience at all, and I was constantly fighting audio stuttering and bad screen redraws until I happened upon SPB Mobile DVD. But with all of that said and done, there’s nothing like using the iPod Touch for video! For one thing, the difference in colour clarity is startling! I’ve never understood why Windows Mobile devices have been stuck with 65k colour screens for so long! I don’t know the specs of the iPod Touch’s screen (tried googling, but didn’t find anything), but all it takes is a side-by-side comparison to show how much more eye-popping the visuals are. Granted, the device still needs a converter for video, but my TyTN usage got me used to that prospect a long time ago. The one major problem I’m having with video is a bug with video crashing to main menu. I’ll play any video (my own or a vid podcast) and sometimes it will lose sound, fast forward a bit, then crash to main menu. In ultra rare occasions (just once for me) it’ll reset the iPod. This bug infuriated me at first, but I’m hoping for a peaceful Apple solution in the form of a firmware fix.

Safari. This is a hard little bit to write. Not because I have nothing to say or that the words aren’t coming, but I am trying to suppress absolutely destroying PIE and all WM browsers in this paragraph. I’ll just leave it at this: it’s unbelievable how fast Safari is in comparison, and it’s even more unbelievable that I can play music while using it and stay at full speed.

The Keyboard. I’m a big fan of SIPs on Windows Mobile so the Touch’s keyboard wasn’t too big a change, especially coming from the very similar PCM Keyboard. I don’t miss my TyTN’s hardware keyboard one iota!

Most everything about the user interface is fantastic. It’s big, easy to read, and there are so many small touches that make the experience so much richer. The systems isn’t as pliable as Windows Mobile, but it feels a lot faster than my old device ever was. It’s also a fantastic feeling having so much memory and power on my device without sacrificing the battery life. For all of its power, the x51v had a pretty horrific battery life even with an extended battery, but the iPod’s got a pretty stellar battery life so far. The best surprise I got with this device was realizing it also works with my PPCTechs Mobile Power Pack — all I have to do is use the iPod’s cable and plug it right in.

One thing I’m sure you might have noticed by now is that I’ve stayed away from major negative aspects of the switch. I definitely love the iTouch so far, but I haven’t gone Apple-blind just yet. Especially with the video problem, I might still return the thing. In any case,  I’m saving my criticisms for a next article on what I miss in the switch from WM.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

Related posts:

1. Apple Pie outside my Windows #2: A little bit of iPhone vs Windows Mobile!
2. Impressions: Flipside music player on Windows Mobile
3. Apple 9/9/09 Event coverage: first impressions
4. I Jumped on the Apple “Bandwagon”
5. Beta Testers Wanted for New Windows Mobile ‘Wireless Music Player’