You know that nervous feeling you get just before you install Linux for the first time? Especially if you’re installing something like Gentoo – all that weird scrolling of funny commands scream “no more warranty for you“? It’s quite the same when you flash your first ROM – the equivalent of installing an OS on your phone.

I own a Windows Mobile phone. I would be lying to say that my general dislike of Windows extends to the Mobile version – it is a very capable operating system, and more importantly, very flexible. I would probably go so far to say that it’s better than all of the alternatives in that market (which is definitely more than 2). I would also like to spend an article discussing what I believe are the best/vital application for it, but I’ll save that for later.

If you buy any Windows Mobile powered phone nowadays, it’ll probably come preloaded with Windows Mobile 6. However two newer version do exist (for beta-testing): 6.1 and 6.5 – the latter being the latest, and apparently a huge improvement over 6.1. When 6.1 came out, I instantly looked for a way to upgrade, new features are always attractive. I found a lovely community by the name of XDA-Developers – basically a bunch of smartphone geeks. However most of them said that especially for my phone model, it would lag and probably be as stable as Vista.

6.5 has been out for a while, and that has allowed plenty of ROMs to mature and undergo vigorous testing by others. ROMs are basically the equivalent of Linux Distributions - they come with their own style, preloaded applications, system modifications, and so on. I picked a ROM that I thought looked good (mainly because it sticks to the defaults – I don’t like all the unwanted bulk) and flashed it (on a Windows computer – there is a way to flash it on Linux but I didn’t want to risk “bricking” the phone.)

Right, that was a long introduction, let’s get to the review!

The today, or home screen, has a brand-spanking new interface named Titanium. The home screen is one of the vital areas of the phone – allowing you quick access to pretty much anything you need. It now looks downright dashing and is themeable. It provides access to S(M)MSes, phone records, favourite contacts, weather, email, and has plugins to extend its functionality. It’s a definitely improvement and all this time when WM has been playing catch-up on Apple’s “home” screen, this is where its overtaken Apple.

It makes full use of both vertical scrolling (to choose between plugins) and horizontal scrolling (for more information within plugins). Shown in the example above are two plugins, the “clock”, which is where it is left at for most of the time, and the media plugin, which allows you to control your music playing (even choose other songs, pause, play) right from the home screen. Other examples (not pictured) are the calendar, which allows you to flick through your upcoming appointments within the next two days, and the pictures which allows you to browse your pictures. Etc. Wonderful stuff.

Even on my HTC Hermes, probably not known now for its processing power, it runs quite smoothly and only lags when I am running several programs on the side. This is acceptable I guess.

The lock screen has also been improved. It follows the same “sliding” action as the iPhone but the slider begins at the middle – nifty if you prefer to hold it with your left hand or your right. A definite plus is that it shows useful information on the lock screen. Shown here it is displaying an upcoming appointment, but it also shows SMSes, missed calls, etc.

The start menu has been replaced to a rather beehive-ish layout. Microsoft claims it improves usability - other than being bigger and more touch-friendly than the previous menu, I don’t personally see any difference to the classical grid layout – if anything, its more confusing. At least its aesthetic and overlays upon your background image (note I am using one of the defaults). It’s not very configurable at the moment and you’ll have to scroll a bit if you have a lot of applications, but this could be liable to change in the future.

Please also note that in the screenshot above the ROM I used modified it so that it shows 4 columns instead of the default 3. This is an improvement but keep in mind that other releases might not feature the same 4 column layout.

The next up is what I believe is the biggest improvement: every single menu or scrollable frame has been given thicker padding and a kinetic scroller. The scrollbars themselves have been made slightly bigger, but more importantly you can see that it’s well spaced, finger-friendly, and of course, you can flick through it easily. Shown in the picture is the “browse files” and a menu of the browse files. It does look a tad bit fat in the picture, but all-in-all I don’t see how I did without it in the past.

Finally I am going to highlight some of the in-house application upgrades. First is the messages application, which deals with SMSes, Emails, etc. Messages are now shown in a conversation view – true, this is an old feature with other smartphones, but a godsend for Windows Mobile users. Internet Explorer has also been revamped – and new design almost completely ripped off Opera Mobile. Buttons hide themselves automatically to give maximum screen estate when surfing, and a mini-page map shows when you scroll around the webpage – with of course kinetic scrolling. Tabs are also a huge plus. However my personal experience hasn’t been that great as it does seem to lag quite a bit – so I will be sticking to Opera Mobile for the moment.

I should also mention that around here and there several small usability tweaks have been made and though screenshots cannot capture these effectively they really add to the “polish” Windows seems to be doing on their beta in preparation for the upcoming Windows Mobile 7.

Finally, this is also version 6.5 – Windows seems to be hard at work and making lots of improvements – and already other reviews on later versions show an interesting new improvement on the softkeys at the bottom. I’m looking forward to where this is going, and definitely think Windows Mobile 7 will turn out to be a success – at least if their competitors don’t make them play catch up again.