After two months of often heroic battle against the Samsung, which delighted with Samsung’s own UI but then unceremoniously dumped you into the Windows 3.1-era interface of the underlying CE, I’m back on the Moto. The Omnia II has just brilliant hardware, rendered absolutely useless by the main software. Don’t, and I mean, DO NOT attempt to use the Web browser on any site requiring more than HTML 3.2 (circa 1997). Calling the SMS interface ‘pathetic’ would be praising it far beyond its due: while I have no idea what substances the V9 writers were consuming when the ITAP word completion feature was written, the end result is less painful than on the Omnia – which would sometimes use Samsung’s own (decent) SMS software, but too often fall through the cracks unpredictably into WinMo-land.

I was at Redmond when some early versions of Windows CE were being shoved out the door. I’m not surprised they changed the name to Windows Mobile; WinCE is all too accurate a description of the user experience, then and now. However, truth-in-advertising laws should require the products rechristening as “Windows, Immobile.”