Moore was speaking at the Connect! tech conference in London, where he also admitted that Microsoft is "still playing catch-up" with Apple. I guess that's true, in the way that Wile E. Coyote is still playing catch-up with the Road Runner. Windows Mobile 6.5 is a joke, and the punchline is that Windows Mobile 7 has just been pushed back until late next year.

It's one thing to be caught napping, Microsoft. It doesn't excuse falling asleep at the wheel. [9to5Mac via Cult of Mac]

Based on Flash, it looks like a simplified OS that almost makes us think of the Zune interface. A bit slow and buggy in places, we think it's got potential fo' sho', but what do you think? [MobiFrance]

The Omnia II is frustrating from the second you pick it up to the moment you lay it back on your desk, defeated and distraught. There was so much potential here, so much obvious potential. Through a series of bizarre decisions and grating software design, Samsung has managed to squander it. Every. Last. Ounce.

The Hardware Is Decent

This handset is categorically impressive, shipping with a 480x800 AMOLED screen, an 800MHz processor, a 5MP camera with 720x480px video capture, 8GB of internal storage with room for microSD expansion, and FM radio, complementing the standard smartphone trio of GPS/Wi-Fi/3G connectivity.

The screen is beautifully sharp, though the whites—as seems to be common in Samsung's AMOLED screens—often render as slightly blue. It's not that distracting as long as you don't have a whiter screen for reference, and the screen's brightness, sharpness and general color reproduction are satisfying. It's a resistive display, which is still kind of a necessary evil on Windows Mobile; as much as I enjoyed the capacitive panel on the Touch HD2, Windows Mobile 6.5—and specifically, some of its app selection—isn't quite ready to kick the stylus. The screen is no more squishy than any other 3.7-inch layered plastic display.

The design could be described as clean and conservative, if not for two features: the chrome buttons on the front, and the ill-advised secret red accents on the back. It's a bit too tuner-car chic for my tastes, but neither detail is all that offensive. The sides of the phone, which are fairly narrow (the handset is only about 13mm thick—about as thin as a HTC Hero, and slightly thinner than a closed Pre) are littered with buttons and ports, including the 3.5mm headphone jack, the volume rockers, an "OK" button, a microUSB port for charging, and lock and camera shutter buttons, which are a bit close for comfort.

(sample shot)

The 5MP camera benefits from extensive settings options, and the sensor itself is good enough to replace an entry-level point-and-shoot in daytime. The video, though it suffers from motion distortion more than your average pocket camcorder, will suffice in most situations.

The conclusion here is unsurprising: Though it's no HD2, the Omnia II is an impressive piece of hardware. This, sadly, doesn't really matter.

The Software Is Terrible

The Omnia's got a veritable arsenal of software tricks behind that spongy little screen, from the ability to broadcast video over DLNA, to the newest version of Opera Mobile, to the semi-lauded Swype keyboard, which lets you type without lifting your finger, and which takes fairly bold—but generally effective—guesses at what you're gesturing toward. And the crowning achievement, the reason that the Omnia II is worthy of a review over the rest of the same-y Windows Phones that are flooding the market right now, is TouchWiz 2.0, Samsung's take on total interface conversion, which reaches far deeper than the original TouchWiz did on the first Omnia.

And it is a disaster.

It's flawed in the most basic ways a phone interface can be, violently convulsing from one interface paradigm to another through a series of inconsistent, layered, and most importantly slow animations. Seriously, what's going on here? How did all these images come from one phone?:

The widget menu feels like its always about to freeze, and the widgeting system as a whole is laggy and disorganized, more of a free canvas for thoughtlessly-sized shortcuts than an actual, interactive dashboard. The Cube—oh, that horrible fucking cube—is just a six-sided spinning shortcut menu for multimedia apps, which feels like an obstacle, not an interface. Ugh.

And stuff like this is everywhere on the Omnia II—you can't avoid it. Windows Mobile's new Start Menu has been replaced with an iPhone-style set of icon panels, which would be fine if they didn't register half my swipes as taps, opening applications, sometimes more than one at a time, instead of just cycling between screens. The new dialpad crunches the inbuilt recent calls list into a two-item-tall sliver. The SMS interface has been replaced, but only in bits and pieces. Closing an app with one "x" button reveals a second "x" button of a different color and size, attached to that bright green start menu. The Wi-Fi selector is a floating orb of icons, in which you drag one bubble—representing a network—into a larger bubble—representing your phone. The task switcher alternates between a set of panels and a Cover Flow-esque turnstile. The media player app looks like it was hastily ripped from one of Samsung's older PMPs, and the remaining Windows Mobile native elements have been doomed to wear a black and blue neon color scheme that harks back to Windows 98's High Contrast Mode. Haptic feedback accompanies almost all animations, which makes the lagging transitions feel like they're literally grinding.

I won't go on too long about how this interface looks. Let's just say it's oppressively ugly, and leave it at that. But the way it functions is inexplicable, and inexcusable. It's as if Samsung assigned each tiny piece of this phone's software to a different team, and ordered them not to speak to one another under any circumstances. This isn't design by committee. This is worse than design by committee. And the effect on user experience is crippling: Fiddling with this thing for a few minutes is akin to being yelled at by a panel of six men, none of whom speak languages you've ever heard before, and all of whom take pleasure in your cranial pain. You could conceivably get used to this with enough time, but it's an order of magnitude less usable than the regular Windows Mobile 6.5 interface, which hey, isn't that good. Perhaps more importantly, everyone I handed this to was visibly frustrated within seconds. You can't turn it off, either: With a little effort you can kill the homescreen, but the rest of the modifications are there to stay.

The most alarming thing about this interface is that it's Samsung's entire design philosophy now. Matt said of the Android Behold's UI:

TouchWiz is the first custom Android interface that's worse than the standard one, and shows what kind of horrible things emerge when Samsung's interface designers are left unchecked.

It only got more scatological from there. The Omnia II's UI is essentially the same concept, adapted for Android and intended to penetrate a little deeper. There are even some striking similarities between the Omnia II's interface and that of the Omnia HD, a Symbian-based phone from a few months ago. In short, TouchWiz is an epidemic at Samsung. And for all intents and purposes, the pathogen is fatal.

What To Buy Instead

At the $200 price point, it's hard to recommend anything else but the Droid on Verizon's network—it's their clear flagship, and it's an extremely capable phone. But even if you're specifically set on buying a Windows Mobile phone, there are better options, like the HTC Imagio, which benefits from HTC's vastly better TouchFlo or "Sense" UI overhaul, or even the Touch Pro2, which despite having Windows Mobile 6.1 (which you can probably just upgrade yourself) offers a much more pleasant experience. Because unless you replace the software entirely, a pleasant experience is miles from what you'll be having with an Omnia II in your pocket.

It's another in what I expect to be a long line of impressively spec'd Windows Mobile handsets

The camera is better than average, though it still suffers in low light

It's a Windows Mobile phone, which will be a dealbreaker for some, and a feature for others.

It's almost always laggy, despite a fast processor

It gives you a headache to use, like reading tiny text in the dark, or reciting the alphabet backwards when drunk

Is it running Windows Mobile 6.5, Android, or another platform? Engadget is pointing at the lack of buttons as being a telltale sign it's running a "homegrown" OS, but we're rather interested in the addition of the ExtUSB port, considering HTC was meant to be pursuing the microUSB connection.

HTC, if this leaked Touch.B is running Android, we'll be very interested. WinMo 6.5? We'll give it a chance, sure. But we're slightly worried about these proprietary-platform stories we've been hearing. [MobiFrance via Engadget]

UPDATE: Word reaches us that it's running Qualcomm's BrewMP platform, and has a 2-megapixel camera (lame), 3G and Bluetooth, but no Wi-Fi.

The projector adds another 1.8 ounces, and as you can see, a bit of an ass to it. Besides the 1GHz goodness, the slider's running Windows Mobile 6.5, has a 3.2-inch touchscreen and a 5MP camera for $200 on contract. Specifically a "minimum $69.99 plan." The projector add-on's $180, though it'll follow the phone's Dec. 7 drop date by a few weeks.

AT&T AND LG MOBILE PHONES ANNOUNCE THE FIRST 1GHZ SMARTPHONE IN THE UNITED STATES, THE LG EXPO

7.2 HSPA-capable Smartphone from AT&T and LG Mobile Phones Packs a Powerful Punch, Features Optional Mobile Projector

DALLAS, November 30, 2009 - AT&T* and LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., Inc., today announced the LG eXpo will be available online beginning December 7. Featuring the first 1 GHz processor in the United States, the LG eXpo allows business professionals to meet their demanding data sharing needs while on the go. Available exclusively for AT&T customers, the handset will be compatible with AT&T's High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2 Mbps technology, which provides a considerable speed boost to the nation's fastest 3G network.

The LG eXpo is the first device in North America to support an optional integrated pico projector. The LG Mobile Projector snaps onto the back of the device and allows users to share presentations, slideshows and even online videos straight from their mobile phone. Weighing only 1.8 ounces and small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, the LG mobile projector provides users with powerful new technology in a compact design, featuring a projection distance as far as eight feet

"LG eXpo adds to our growing portfolio of smartphones that operate on the latest upgrade to our 3G network and offer customers a great choice," said Michael Woodward, vice president, Mobile Phone Portfolio, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "As we move to HSPA 7.2 technology, it is crucial to provide our customers innovative and future-proof smartphones."

With the upgrade to HSPA 7.2 technology, AT&T continues its investments to deliver the nation's fastest 3G network. AT&T plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 initially in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami by the end of the year. The company plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 in 25 of the nation's 30 largest markets by the end of 2010, and to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011.

LG eXpo also eliminates the need for pin codes and passwords with the exclusive "Smart Sensor" fingerprint recognition from AuthenTec, which delivers a new level of added smart and personal security unlike any other mobile phone in the market. AT&T is the first to offer U.S. subscribers a smartphone that leverages the features and functions of a smart sensor. The Smart Sensor complements the touchscreen user interface of the eXpo by also providing precise cursor control for text editing, 4-way menu navigation, and AuthenTec's unique turbo-scroll feature for rapid browsing of long emails, contact lists or websites.

The LG eXpo is loaded with Windows Mobile® 6.5 Professional to help power users stay more connected with email, calendar and Microsoft® Office Mobile. The phone's projection feature allows users to display Web pages, documents, photos and videos on the go.

"LG eXpo is the perfect balance of mobile innovation and design" said Ehtisham Rabbani, vice president of product strategy and marketing for LG Mobile Phones. "Enabling users to meet their professional and personal computing needs from the palm of their hands, LG eXpo makes on-the-go communication an effortless luxury."

Boasting a 3.2-inch external touchscreen with 16M color, LG eXpo features a sophisticated slider design with a full size QWERTY keypad. For the dynamic multi-tasker, LG eXpo provides users with powerful functionality that supports an RSS Viewer, Podcast and aGPS. In addition to a crystal clear 5.0 megapixel camera with built-in auto flash, LG eXpo can support up to a 16GB removable microSD memory card for premium music and photo storage.

Beginning December 7, LG eXpo will be available to enterprise customers and for purchase online at www.att.com/lgexpo for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. Pay $299.99 and after mail-in rebate receive a $100 AT&T Promotion Card. Two year agreement on a minimum $69.99 plan required. The LG Mobile Projector will be available in the coming weeks for $179.99.

For the complete array of AT&T offerings, visit www.att.com.

For more information and detailed disclaimer information, please review this announcement in the AT&T newsroom at http://www.att.com/newsroom.

Yes, the first thing you may notice is that Swype technically uses a QWERTY layout. But instead of pushing each key individually, you drag your finger from letter to letter.

It's tough to tell if the speed gains are legitimate, given this video has been created by the Swype camp. I will say, however, given that this demo is one hand vs. two, the technology certainly holds its own. What do you think? Would you be willing to part with traditional QWERTY to spell words through nonsensical doodles?

Swype will debut in Verizon's Samsung Omnia II arriving early next month before making its way to an unnamed Android phone next year. [Swype via TechCrunch via OhGizmo!]

From the outset, the HD2 is a tragic creature, built from the finest pieces imaginable and burdened with a categorically disappointing OS. HTC has done their best to hide the HD2's shame, but it's not quite enough.

Meeting the HD2: Hardware

HTC's got a funny way of designing hardware, where they settle on a basic set of components then pump out virtually every iteration of this basic spec set they possibly can. (See also: HTC as Taco Bell) It's a rare occasion, then, that we get something like the Touch HD2, a followup to the similarly impressive, never Americanized Touch HD.

Top to bottom, corner to corner—and it's a long trip—the HD2 is a perfect specimen of glass, plastic and aluminum. The massive screen-to-bezel ratio means the HD2 is essentially just a 4.3-inch piece of glass, its 800x480 multitouch display bordered by just a few millimeters of ink-black trim and a subtle row of satisfyingly pressable little buttons. The handset's minimalist hindside, interrupted only by a slightly protruding lens for the HD2's 5-megapixel camera and a ever-so-slightly grained aluminum battery door, is elegantly tapered, emphasizing just how thin this thing is—thinner than the iPhone, which is pretty good for a phone that I have to remind myself not to call a tablet.

It's got the same space-warping powers as a supermodel; it looks like a beautiful phone in pictures, but when you finally see it in person, it's twice as tall as you thought it would be and far too thin for its expanded proportions. It's almost not fair to other phones. And it will give them body image issues.

Behind this spectacularly huge screen is a 1GHz Snapdragon processor assisted by 448MB of RAM—specs that would have put a top-line desktop to shame less than ten years ago—and 512MB of ROM, aided by expandable microSD storage. The whole battery of expected high-end smartphone amenities are here, from GPS to a facial proximity sensor to an internal compass to Bluetooth 2.1. There's a 3.5-mm headphone jack, and charging comes by way of Micro USB, through to an adequate 1230 mAh battery (it'll get you through the workday, which is par for the course nowadays). Unless you absolutely need to have a hardware keyboard, there is nothing—nothing—the HD2 leaves you wanting for.

Moving In With the HD2

One of the benefits of Windows Mobile not having changed much in the last few years is that it's easy to compare new hardware to old, and let's be clear about the HD2: It's unbelievably fast. Applications open almost instantly and close without the slightest hesitation, and over Wi-Fi, web pages render in Opera Mobile as if you're browsing on a laptop, not a cellphone. (And hell, if you put your face close enough to this ridiculous screen, it's easy to forget you're not.)

This near-magical experience is spread throughout the HD2: Calls answer and end without the expected delay, the camera—a decent 5-megapixel number with a blinding flash and VGA video capabilities—wakes up as fast as you can point its lens, and tapping the home button, no matter how many apps you've got toiling in the background, always results in a satisfyingly clean and snappy return to HTC's ostentatious homescreen. Speaking of which!

This is one of the first Windows Mobile phones to have HTC Sense, which combines bits and pieces of their overhauled Android interface and kneads them together with years of TouchFLO 3D development. Practically, this means that using the HD2 is just like using any other HTC Windows phone from the last three years—a tabbed slider at the bottom of the screen moves you from homescreen panel to homescreen panel, where HTC has condensed a lot of the information you look to your phone for. It's faster and more complete that you've seen before, with added color, a Twitter client and visual browser bookmarks, but it's essentially the same HTC dashboard, just gussied up a little bit. And to the extent that such a thing—you know, a disguise—can work, it works.

Falling Out of Lust With the HD2

HTC's software ethos has always been to hide the unseemly parts of Windows Mobile. And it's got plenty! But with the HD2, they've taken this philosophy all the way to its logical conclusion: They've tried to replace Windows Mobile's UI entirely. The HD2 is HTC: Reductio ad Absurdum Edition.

And don't get me wrong, this whole Sense thing is surprisingly usable—it's a fairly rare occasion that you fall out of HTC's safe, smooth, grey-and-black arms, and into the Windows 3.1-esque hell that has been, and somehow still is, a Windows Mobile hallmark. With Sense HTC has made a sort of meta-OS, which uses Windows Mobile 6.5 as a behind-the-scenes stagehand, which only shows its face when it absolutely needs to. HTC has even added multitouch to the browser, maps and photo applications, which works well enough for what almost certainly qualifies as an after-the-fact hack.

In fact, that could describe the whole Sense experience just well. It's good, considering what it is. It's just that that's a huge qualification. As pretty as HTC's replacement apps are, they're not the same as having good core apps in the first place. Want to add music to HTC's fancy new media player? You've got to find Windows Mobile's old media player, add a directory and switch back. Want some new apps? Trundle on over to Windows Mobile's sorely lacking Marketplace, where most of the apps you download will look and behave differently than the ones in HTC's coddled ecosystem. Press Start, and you'll be greeted with Windows' unsortable mess of a Start Menu. Need to modify a setting that HTC didn't deem important enough to put in their own control panel? Good luck. And god forbid you don't like Sense, and want to stick with vanilla 6.5, you basically can't: It's not quite ready for stylus-free use, and the HD2's screen doesn't come with—or support—those forsaken almost-pens of yore. As much good work as HTC has done here, it's an uneven experience. Remember those flashy old Windows XP shell replacements like bbLean and Litestep? No? There's a good reason for that—they're patches and masks, and they can't fully replace an OS's UI.

Every time you notice the absurd lengths to which HTC has gone to deny this phone is running Windows—they've even replaced the calendar and text messaging apps, for god's sake—you find yourself asking the same question: Why even bother?

It's a question for consumers as much as it is for HTC. For HTC, why spend so much time and effort desperately—and only marginally effectively—hiding an OS when they know they can just replace it entirely? I understand they've got a legacy with Windows Mobile, but right now that legacy is starting to seem toxic, as HTC's insistence on distancing themselves from it in the form of passive-aggressive disguising operations shows. And for anyone thinking about buying this thing, why not wait a little while? We've seen how fantastic this hardware combo is, so why not wait until someone loads it up with software that HTC doesn't feel like they have to hide away like some kind of dark secret? Sony's about to outspec the HD2 with the Android-powered Xperia X10 anyway, and HTC would have to be stupid not to be working on something similar right now.

If you've got some undying loyalty to Windows Mobile, be it personal or work-enforced, life won't get any better than with the HD2—it's shipping sometime in early 2010, though I don't suspect it'll be cheap. If you don't, then just wait this one out. Trust me: for hardware like this, the payoff will be worth it.

UPDATE: Some people are saying I've been too dismissive of the phone simply due to its software, and they have a point: The HD2 is, without qualification, the best Windows Mobile phone on the market right now. And being a Windows Mobile phone isn't all bad: The browsers have Flash, Exchange support is perfect, and multitasking is seamless. On top of that, the Sense shell is an impressive piece of software, especially in terms of social networking and media playback. But the point remains: Even behind the very convincing disguise of a modern phone, Windows Mobile is lagging well behind its competitors in terms of new app development, fast OS development and general user experience, and by the time you get your hands on this phone—and just as importantly, by the time your contract is halfway through—Windows Mobile 6.5, Sense or no Sense, will feel like a complete dinosaur. Hence the "wait"—for a similar phone with better software, or for Windows Mobile 7. That said, if you're a Windows Mobile fan, or aware of its various quirks and still willing to take the dive, this is the finest Windows Phone in the world, bar none.

[HTC]

The 4.3-inch glass display is pure bliss

Actually, no, this whole handset is bliss. If they were sitting right here, right now, I would kiss the hardware designers on the mouth. With tongue.

Battery life isn't as atrocious as you'd expect it to be

HTC Sense does extensive damage control on Windows Mobile, making this the best WinMo experience out there right now.

Not to beat a dead horse, but it's still Windows Mobile. (What that means)

Watch it, share it, do what you like. And if you just want the short and sweet, here again are our five featured bits (shot and edited by Mike Short):

Steve Ballmer Exclusive Interview Series:
Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming
Part 2: Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: "It Doesn't Matter What the Critics Say"
Part 3: Ballmer on Zune: Sometimes You Get It Right The Third Time?
Part 4: Ballmer on Those Crazy Ballmer YouTube Videos
Part 5: Ballmer Optimistic About Win 7, But Says Vista Is "Very Popular"

As you can see in the video, Ballmer acknowledges that Windows Mobile 6.5 is receiving negative reviews, but I never get him to actually admit that the platform still needs work. He says, "reviews aside," he's happy with what Windows Phones (running 6.5) can do now.

And faced with competition of iPhone, BlackBerry and others, he contends it's currently "kind of a horse race." The only clear leader, market-share wise, is Nokia, and they're losing ground. When I said that Nokia was another developer currently lambasted by reviewers, Ballmer replied:

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what the critics say, it matters what the customers say.

Perhaps given the power of advertising (still mighty, even if it's on the decline), there may still be a way for a product to get positive sales despite negative reviews. But the internet has changed that landscape, and the lines between critic and customer blur more every day. We all share knowledge in order to make better choices. So who, in the end, is this customer, who is so different from the critic? Not anyone who reads Gizmodo, that's for sure.

Stay tuned for more exciting Ballmer moments (and facial expressions) over the next day, and then the full uncut interview video on Friday. Video by Mike Short

Steve Ballmer Exclusive Interview Series:
Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming
Part 2: Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: "It Doesn't Matter What the Critics Say"
Part 3: Ballmer on Zune: Sometimes You Get It Right The Third Time?

Some of the especially jarring UI elements, like the Windows 3.1-esque radio buttons and aging contacts app, have been given a bubbly, antialiased skin, which, like it or not, is at the bare minimum less retro than what was there before. The start menu has been pulled from the top tray to the bottom menu, and the formerly text-based contextual buttons, present since 5.x, have been awkwardly iconified. If 6.5 was elective plastic surgery, 6.5.1 is a new suit.

Microsoft's given no indication as to when 6.5.1 is due to ship, or what the final product will look like—a while back I posed the question to Robbie Bach directly a few weeks back, and it was immediately deflected. Even more to the point, there's no guarantee that it'll ever come out, and that these aren't just escaped beta-chunks, slotted into cooked ROMs by eager homebrewers. Even if 6.5.1 shipped tomorrow, though, to the WinMo fans who've stuck it out this long, it'd be a pittance. [IStartedSomething via Download Squad]

The Browsers: Even if the latest version of Mobile IE isn't spectacular, Window Mobile is still a great OS for browsing the web. Opera Mobile, now in 9.7 beta, renders pages about as well as the best WebKit browsers on the iPhone, Android, and the Pre, and promises compressed rendering for faster pageloads, as well as some Flash support. Skyfire can play back Flash videos without a hiccup. You don't have these kinds of options anywhere else, at least for now. Bolt and Opera Mini both optimize the hell out of your pages, helping them load amazingly quick.

The Hardware: I've seen my fair share of clunky Windows Mobile hardware. I've also seen the OS powering some of the most spectacular handsets in the world, like the Toshiba TG01. Even disregarding the really sexy stuff, the average customer has a lot to choose from, from touchscreen-only devices to sliding QWERTY phones to candybar-style messaging devices. And given some of the latest from HTC, there's plenty more to come.

: There aren't a whole lot of fans of the stock Window Mobile interface. It feels old, to put it gently. Handset manufacturers do all kinds of interesting stuff with alternative interfaces, skinning Windows Mobile until you can barely recognize it. This keeps things interesting, but so do the fantastic third-party shells like SBP Mobile Shell and PointUI Home 2, which anyone can install. These are total transformations you can apply in a matter of seconds, which is basically unique to WinMo.

Tethering: We've been grousing about the lack of tethering on other platforms for a long, long time. All the while, Windows Mobile has had a dedicated settings panel for enabling tethering built right in. [Pic via MakeTechEasier]

Infinite tweaking: Over the last few years, hobbyists have reached deeper into Windows Mobile's guts that it seems Microsoft has, and they've come up with some impressive stuff. Just about anything can be changed swapped out or customized. Want a new onscreen keyboard? A different system font? A entirely new homescreen layout? Deep changes to power management, processor control or memory allocation? Automatic orientation controls for all apps? Voice controls? It's all just a matter of installing a .CAB file or two.

Open apps: This is a double-edged sword. Windows Mobile's new Marketplace doesn't have a whole lot to offer yet, and without a good centralized source, it can be a pain to find apps, to find out if they're compatible, and to get a decent deal. That said, there is literally nobody between you and your apps. If someone wants to make a VoIP app that uses your carrier's network, they can do that. If they want to stream live video over the air, they can do that, too. You might face a reckoning with your carrier, but that's fine: at least it was you choice.

As you can see, the image doesn't mention the HD2 by name, but the image and specs sure match up: massive capacitive touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth.

E-Reader content? TV/Movies at your fingertips? Sounding pretty sweet. Of course, this one stays in the rumor basket until we hear more. We'll let you know when we do. [TmoNews via SlashGear]

Q3 financials are in, and they show nothing but pain:

Smartphone maker HTC Corp reported Tuesday an 18% drop in third-quarter net profit... The company, the world's largest maker of phones using Microsoft Corp.'s operating system by shipments, said its net profit for the three months ended Sept. 30 fell to NT$5.76 billion (US$179.0 million) from NT$6.99 billion a year earlier.

This is worse than predicted. So OK, let's think: What could it be? Look closely:

The company, the world's largest maker of phones using Microsoft Corp.'s operating system by shipments

Ah, right, this. As much publicity as HTC's Android phones get from the tech press, they're still a Windows Mobile company at their core, a fact which is becoming more ballast than fuel. That, combined with all the money they're spending on changing that, i.e. marketing their Android push, makes being HTC right now a pricey proposition. Pull through, guys! Then you can put Android on the Touch HD2 and we can all go home happy. If that's not your plan, somehow, then kindly sulk off and die. [WSJ]

The Samsung Intrepid is a full QWERTY phone with a 2.5-inch, 320x240 touchscreen, packing ho-hum features like a 3.2MP camera and Wi-Fi. It'll cost $150 with a 2-year contract on Sprint, which seems pretty pricey considering the Palm Pre retails for the same, but could be a decent businessphone if your business happens to be attached to WinMo. It'll be available October 11th. [Laptop Mag, Press Release]

Today, Motorola's Christy Wyatt said that Motorola would be waiting for a next generation version of Windows Mobile before developing a new product for the platform. Instead, the company is focusing on "two strategic platforms"—one of them confirmed to be Android.

But wow, WinMo getting turned down by Motorola is pretty much the equivalent of asking the school's most shunned female outcast to the dance, only to learn that she'd prefer to sit in misery at home rather than dance in public agony with you. [phone scoop via MobileCrunch]

The Gadget

Verizon's HTC Imagio is a touchscreen Windows Mobile 6.5 handset, or "Windows Phone," with a healthy, if expected, spec set, iiiiinnncluding!: a 3.6-inch WVGA screen, Wi-Fi, GPS, a 5-megapixel camera, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and microSD storage expansion (but sadly, no included card). It's also the first smartphone with V CAST Mobile TV, which is a Flo TV-based live streaming TV service that looks and feels a bit like digital cable, phone-ified. Accordingly, it has an adorable kickstand.

The Price

$200 on contract with Verizon, after a $100 rebate

The Hardware

HTC is the Taco Bell of the handset world—they've only got a few ingredients that they put into their long menu of products, but the results are consistently pretty good, if not spectacular. Of the bulging ranks of 528MHz-Qualcomm-based touchscreen handsets, this is one of my favorite permutations. For its size, the Imagio is respectably thin—about as thick as an iPhone, but with a noticeably larger screen—and pleasantly rounded in the rear, with a subdued two-tone backplate accented with a shiny camera bezel and a chrome kickstand.

The front of the device is framed by a perforated grille, which looks and feels pleasantly knobbly, giving the handset a little friction, and a secure feeling in your hand. The bottom row of buttons—call, V CAST, Windows Start Menu, back and end call—are placed a little low to be comfortable to press, but anyone who's used to HTC handset designs won't have any trouble getting around this piece.

Performance is adequate, but since this is the same Qualcomm processor we've been complaining about for months now, and the 256MB of RAM isn't overly generous, it's nothing better than what we've already seen in the likes of the HTC Touch Pro2. HTC's done plenty of work to make TouchFLO run nice'n'smooth, sure, but it really wouldn't hurt to not just make a handset with speedier hardware, but to actually release it in the US.

The Software

I was pretty hard on Windows Mobile 6.5 in my review, but guess what? HTC likes it even less. TouchFLO 3D reaches deeper into the operating system than ever before, to the point that during casual use you can't even tell you're using a Windows Mobile phone.

The Titanium homescreen? Replaced. The new, larger contextual menus? How about prettier HTC versions instead? Mobile Internet Explorer 6? Replaced with Opera Mobile. Virtually every other piece of software that HTC had time to revamp or cover up? Out of sight, out of mind. And for one final kick in the nuts, the new Start Menu, which Microsoft even went so far as to require 6.5 phones to have a dedicated button for? Replaced with a slightly better HTC variant. That, right there, is a better review of Windows Mobile 6.5 than anyone could ever write.

V CAST TV

Based on Flo TV, which probably doesn't mean much to most people, V CAST is a categorically impressive technology. The best way to describe it is that it's like having a digital cable box, complete with live broadcasts of familiar basic cable stations (Comedy Central, CNN, the like), and a familiar program guide interface. Video quality is fair, but definitely watchable, and the experience of flipping through live channels is pretty novel.

As interesting as the underlying technology is, there are a few serious problems. Watching TV is neat and all, but on a mobile device, video on demand would be infinitely more useful. And at $12 or $15 a month, I don't think people will be satisfied with the somewhat anemic channel selection (full listings here).

Moreover, I don't really understand how Verizon expects people to use this. You can't use it on a plane or a subway, so what, trains? During your lunch break at work? There center part in the Venn diagram of times where you might want to watch video content but don't have a computer or TV and times when you can realistically use V CAST is small, as far as I can tell. But if live, basic-cable-esque TV on your phone is something you can see yourself using, this implementation is actually pretty good.

The (Mild) Tragedy

This has been the story for a few years now, and it doesn't look like it's going to change with Windows Mobile 6.5: Handset manufacturers will continue to make the OS bearable to use, and carrier will occasionally grant handsets interesting—if not always useful—services to keep customers' attention. That's exactly what the Imagio does, bonding pleasant hardware design with a heroic salvaging of the phone's interface. At $200 after rebate, it's not a best value by a long shot, but in Verizon's sickly smartphone line, it's not a horrible choice.

I would've liked to end this review on that happy note, but while I was writing it Verizon sabotaged my plan, those scoundrels: Two Android phones will be announced for the network "within weeks," which means that unless you're bound to Windows Mobile either by software, your employer, or, er, extreme loyalty, you'd be best advised to wait a little while. [Verizon]

It's got an appealing design, large screen and minimal branding

Kickstand! Ha!

HTC's done a hell of a job sprucing up Windows Mobile, as always

V CAST TV is technologically interesting, but it's expensive and I'm not really sure how people will use it

Windows Mobile 6.5, y'all

Specs could use a bump; namely the aging 528MHz processor and included storage

$200 isn't a great bargain, and Verizon' got some Android handsets coming down the pike.

Update: It's coming to the US, later. [HTC]

We've been watching Windows Mobile 6.5—or Windows Phone, as Microsoft is sometimes calling it—for months, since Jesus first laid his thumbs on it back in February. We even taught you how to install developer builds! The final version I got for testing, though, was almost identical to the builds we saw so many months ago. This means two things: That we already know what it's going to look like and how it's going to work; and that no, it's nowhere near the upgrade that Windows Mobile needs to be even remotely interesting.

It's a superficial update, and not a very thorough one. It's an interim product, and a vain attempt to hold onto the thinning ranks people who still choose Windows Mobile despite not being somehow tethered to it until the tardy Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whenever that may be. And it won't work.

The Interface

The first thing you'll notice about Windows Mobile 6.5 is Titanium, the new, menu-style homescreen. It's large and typographical, and looks almost Zune-like. This is an auspicious start.
Each menu item provides a shortcut to an app, function or widget, and most have some kind of preview capability: you can flip through photo thumbnails, see missed calls, and thumb through emails, calendar appointments and Internet Explorer favorites without leaving the homescreen. Scrolling is smooth, and has an inertia that 6.1 so conspicuously lacked. Likewise, the new lock screen brings some information to the surface, but not much. (It'll let you know that you have a text, but not what the text says.) Too bad you probably won't see Titanium, ever, since handset manufacturers will almost certainly cover it up with their own custom homescreen.

The second most obvious change is the Start Menu, which Microsoft is so proud of that they've required all 6.5 phone to include a dedicated button for it on all "Windows Phones" a la the Windows Key on a PC. Again, it's striking, and again, it's smooth. This one, though, feels more like a design concept than a final product. For example! The only tool you're given to sort apps is a "Move to Top" command—no dragging, no alphabetical sorting, nothing except this bizarrely-chosen menu command that makes organizing apps feel like completing some kind of horrible puzzle game.

On top of that, there's no way to tell how many apps you have, to delete them, or to tell which "Page" of the start menu you're on. The offset icon spacing is awkward and occasionally ugly, and hey! That Windows button? It doesn't behave like you'd expect it to, opening the Start Menu but not closing it. This whole piece feels half-assed, to put it kindly.

Another well meaning, if not quite adequate change is to the contextual menus. Though they're ordered exactly as they were before, they're now huge and thumb-scrollable.

Things get worse when you move past the surface, revealing an OS that hasn't been fundamentally changed in years, and which bears a strong resemblance to Windows Mobile 6.1, and a startlingly not-weak resemblance to PocketPC 2002. The new homescreen Start Menu, lock screen and contextual menus are just veneers, and they're not very thick.

The remaining interface changes are subtle, and intended almost solely to make Windows Mobile 6.5 bearable to use without a stylus. (Though don't get me wrong—most WinMo 6.5 devices will, damningly, still come with styluses.) It doesn't really feel like a redesign—it feels like someone went through 6.1 and adjusted a few values. Add a few pixels of menu spacing here, some plasticky highlight graphics there, and BOOM. 6.5. Let's go to lunch.

The terrible Windows Media Player app looks the same, the photo albums are helped only by smoother scrolling and support of basic swipe gestures, and the text, email, notes and settings pages are jarringly old-looking, and seriously hostile to pointing devices any larger than a pen. Especially fleshy ones.

Come to think of it, after using 6.5 developer builds for a few months and then switching briefly back to a 6.1, the only thing I really missed was the system-wide inertial scrolling, which replaces 6.1's chunky faux-physics scrolling engine with something that at least behaves predictably.

Windows Marketplace for Mobile

Windows Mobile finally, finally has an app store—quick, look around, is there anyone left who doesn't? The interface is bit awkward, falling somewhere between the large-typeface aesthetic of Titanium and the barebones HERE'S A LIST sensibility of the rest of the OS, resulting in odd text overflow in menus (sort of like on the Zune HD, except less pretty.) You can find apps though a sensible system of categories, or by searching, and downloading and installing is as easy as pressing a button, though you'll occasionally be met with prompts from the app installer.

I can't really pass judgment on the Marketplace's offerings just yet—it's only been open for a few hours, and apps seem to be flooding in at a fairly steady rate—but the initial offerings are pretty bare, counting among themselves just a few free apps, nearly all from Microsoft, with cameos by some recognizable Windows Mobile app developers who are still obliviously charging upwards of $20 for apps that wouldn't break $5 in the iPhone App Store.

Don't get me wrong, the Marketplace is a good thing, in that it'll drive prices down and make finding apps much easier, but it remains to be seen if developers will take to it like they did on the iPhone App Store, or just kinda ignore it like they did with the BlackBerry App World. In any case, this isn't even a 6.5-exclusive service, and just about any app written for 6.5 will work on 6.1 and 6.0, and vise-versa. A victory for Windows Mobile, sure, but not one that 6.5 can claim as its own. A few more notes on the Marketplace:

• Users are entitled to a 24hr refund

• You can browse apps either on the phone or on a website

• Charges go to either your phone bill or CC bill, though nobody's signed on for carrier billing yet.

• 6.0 and 6.1 gets the Marketplace in December

• Marketplace will only show you apps that run on your specific phone

• Apps can only be installed on internal storage, despite the fact that you can manually install apps on an SD card with no problem.

• App purchases are tied to your Windows Live ID, and which can be used on up to five phones. Seems a little lenient, but hey, thanks!

My Phone

Another touted feature of 6.5 that will also happen to be available for every other Windows Mobile phone, My Phone is a decently capable backup service. We've seen most of it before, but today there are a few new features in top of the super-simple backup service that Jason went so far as to call "fancy:"

• Phone wipe will let you remotely purge your phone

• Locate your phone lets you put it on a map, in case you were wondering where it went/where you neighborhood petty thief eats lunch

• You can search text messages

And I kind of love this one:

• You can switch your phone from silent/vibrate to full volume remotely, in case you lost your phone in the couch and just need it to ring

Alas, these cool extras will be part of a premium version of My Phone, price TBD. UPDATE: It's free until November 30th, after which it's $4.99 for 7-day access (most of the premium services are for emergencies, so this makes sense). The free user experience will be a lot like the beta, which is to say basic, but useful for backing up contacts, photos, and other basics on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. The web interface is nice, too—more on that here.

The Browser

The confusingly-named Mobile Internet Explorer 6 is to Mobile IE 5 what IE 7 was to IE6 on the desktop. Get that? This is to say it's a massive upgrade, but like IE7, which added tabs and popup blocking about two years after everyone else had it, Mobile IE6 is at least a generation behind its competitors. For what it's worth, it adds smooth panning and scrolling, intelligent zooming and full(er) support for CSS and Javascript pages that MIE5 used to choke on spectacularly.

Rendering is good, but not WebKit good, and the browser has a tendency to reflow text in an odd way, formatting columns of text more narrowly than it should. And even though rendering is vastly improved—though inexplicably, not to the point of the Zune HD's browser—the experience is still glitchy. Page loading is slow even on a fast Wi-Fi connection, and there's often a pretty wide gap between when a page looks like it's done and when the browser actually becomes responsive enough to interact with. In short, you're going to want to install Opera or Skyfire, the former for faster rendering and easier navigation, and the latter for better Flash support (IE6 includes Flash Lite, which is better than nothing, but can't stack up to Skyfire's compressed full-Flash trickery.) And hell, one of the two will probably come with your phone anyway, because whoever sells it to you probably wants you to like it.

Of course, you won't be able to completely abandon IE, since Microsoft is planning on using it for a new Windows Mobile widget platform. This sounds like a bigger deal that it is—these are just web apps, not desktop widgets or anything like that, but they'll rendered using IE6's engine, and be available in the Marketplace, mixed in with the other apps.

Performance

Microsoft isn't really advertising the SUPER SPEED of Windows Mobile 6.5, which makes sense: 6.5 is based on the same underlying Windows CE version (5.2) as 6.1, and even 6.0. In other words, its guts are oooold. In practice, this means that cold app launches are quick enough, but not noticeably faster than 6.1, even on slightly more powerful hardware. (A Touch Diamond2 for 6.5, and a Touch Pro for 6.1)

For Windows mobile, the perception of slowness has always been more of a problem than actual slowness, since flashy animations are sparse, and the manner in which apps load, close and minimize can look a bit clunky. The smooth scrolling and easier navigation at least give the impression the 6.5 is a little leaner and less laggy, but there's not much new going on under the hood to back that feeling up.

That said, I don't see why not, since ROM cookers the world over have been squeezing impressive speed out of Windows Mobile for years now, and have even done some admirable work on 6.5 pre-release.

The Crux of the Problem

Last month I reviewed the HTC Touch Pro2. It was too expensive to recommend, but its software was a pleasant surprise. Contextual menus had been skinned with larger, finger-friendly buttons; there was a panel-based app launcher; the supplied browser was pretty good; certain version had a replacement for the start menu; and hey, there was even inertial scrolling across all apps. The catch, though, was that this was a Windows Mobile 6.1 handset. HTC had replicated almost every feature of 6.5 with their own software tweaks, and provided a much better homescreen than Titanium with TouchFLO 3D. All before 6.5 even came out. Install My Phone and Marketplace for Mobile on there, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a single reason to upgrade to 6.5.

To put it another way, handset manufacturers have done more in the last two years to improve Windows Mobile than Microsoft has, which borders on pathetic. In the time since Windows Mobile 6.0 came out in February of 2007, Apple has released the iPhone—three times. Palm has created the Pre, with its totally new webOS. Android has come into being, and grown into something wonderful. RIM has created a touch phone and a revamped BlackBerry OS. For these companies, the world has changed.

And Microsoft? They eked out some performance enhancements and a new homescreen in 6.1, and executed a gaudy facelift for 6.5. This is what they've done to Windows Mobile. What's amazing is that in the time it took Windows Mobile 6.1 to lazily morph into 6.5, Microsoft—Microsoft!— designed one of the most spectacular handsets I've seen in years, loaded it with brilliant, inspired software, a decent web browser and a fledgling app store. One problem! It's wasn't a handset. It was a Zune. I understand the the two platforms aren't directly comparable, and as is, Zune OS wouldn't work very well for a smartphone, but it's a taste of something great. And why on earth does the HD have a better browser than Microsoft's smartphone OS? It's almost like the Zune team was trying to embarrass the mobile guys or something. And to their credit, if they're looking for it, they did.

Just Not Enough

Judging from the first wave of 6.5 handsets, the change OS will barely be noticeable to most folks. Alternative interfaces like TouchFLO and TouchWiz will remain, and won't outwardly change, nor will included apps—they're all compatible. Customers will buy Windows Mobile phones based on the quality of their 3rd party interfaces; carriers will continue to carry them because certain people, chained by their employers or a specific piece of software, will need them; and app makers will be slow to take to the Marketplace, since hey, how much longer do these Windows CE 5-based OSes even have left? It'll be a sad, long slog until April (or god forbid, December) when Windows Mobile 7, whatever it is, finally hits phones.

I'd like to think that 6.5's stunning failure to innovate is a symptom of a neglected project—maybe Microsoft just needed something, anything to hold people over until the mythical Windows Mobile 7 comes out, whatever it is. But as Steve Ballmer himself has plainly admitted, it's worse: Microsoft has simply lumbered in the wrong direction for two years, letting everyone, save maybe Nokia, fly right past them. [Microsoft]

The new start menu, homescreen and lock screen at least look like they're from 2009

The default browser is acceptable, whereas it used to be horrible

MyPhone and Marketplace are welcome additions and both show plenty of potential, but both will be available on pre-6.5 phones

The core of the OS is almost exactly the same as 6.1, and 6.0 for that matter

It never takes more than a few finger taps to get from the pretty, new 6.5 interface, to the blocky, old, finger-hostile one

Seriously, it reminds me of Windows for Workgroups

After carriers and handsets manufacturers have their way with it, it will be literally indistinguishable from 6.1.

Both phones use an enhanced TouchFLO 3D interface on top of WinMo 6.5, and here's how each breaks down:

The Tilt 2 is a QWERTY slider with "tilting" 3.6-inch WVGA touchscreen, dual speakers/microphones (with noise cancellation), and 3.2-megapixel camera. AT&T says it will be available in the coming weeks for $300 (after $50 rebate, with 2 year contract).

The Pure updates the Diamond2's look, and has a 3.2-inch WVGA touch screen, 5-megapixel autofocus camera, expandable memory, accelerometer, and ambient light sensor. It's available now for $150 (after $50 rebate, with 2 year contract).

Four New Opera-Powered Browser Phones

Samsung Mythic: A 3.3-inch touchscreen-only handset with Samsung's TouchWiz interface and access to AT&T Mobile TV, AT&T Navigator, AT&T Social Net, and att.net. Available in black come November for $200 (after $50 rebate; with 2 year contract). Pictured far-left.

Samsung Flight: A Vertical QWERTY slider with touchscreen geared for one-handed instant messaging. Available in red or silver in November: $100 (after $50 rebate; with 2 year contract). Pictured center.

Pantech Reveal: Arrives on October 18, and has a candy-bar style slide-down QWERTY keypad underneath a dedicated number pad. The Reveal is also 3G and GPS-equipped (with AT&T Navigator). No pricing/availability yet. Pictured far-right.

Pantech Impact: OLED touchscreen with haptic controls (you'll feel a soft, tactile buzz). Flipping the phone sideways reveals a QWERTY keyboard and second display. Will have tri-band 3G and be available in pink or blue. Again, stay tuned for pricing/availability. (Not pictured).