T-Mobile’s Wing is first with new OS

Posted: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 1:39 PM

Every cell manufacturer will be extolling the virtues of their new and improved designs in a slew of new smartphone devices to be announced in the next few weeks.

They'll all be trying to convince you that their phone is better than the soon-to-be-unleashed iPhone. And every new design will be measured against Apple’s highly anticipated cell phone.

So, add to the list the just-announced T-Mobile Wing.  It's the latest entry into the fray – and a pretty darned good one to boot.

The Wing is a Windows Mobile Pocket PC phone – which is different from a Windows Mobile smartphone.  A PocketPC phone has an active touch-screen and a stylus to navigate through the menus. But with a smartphone design you navigate by using the buttons and controls. A smartphone's screen is just for viewing.

All new Pocket PC/Windows smartphones will now come loaded with the latest and greatest version of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 operating system. Among the improvements: your e-mail can now handle HTML, there’s improved support for images, tables and bullets and new live Web site links. Overall, text and images are now displayed as they would be on a PC, whether from an Outlook/Exchange mail Server account or from a Web-based service.  Overall, the upgrade from version 5 is worthwhile but seems to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.

(MSNBC.com is a Microsoft-NBC Universal joint venture.)

Microsoft has even rearranged some of the most-used operational keys to make certain tasks (deleting e-mail for instance) a one keystroke rather than a two keystroke operation. It’s a very nice touch. The new Wing phone is the first new U.S.-marketed device to ship with Windows Mobile 6.

The Wing measures just over 2 inches by 4 inches and is less than an inch thick. It weighs 6 ounces – not a lightweight but a lot lighter than it looks. It’s a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE world phone (850/900/1800/1900 MHz) with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The built-in speakerphone helps handle voice dialing, voice commands and voice recording functions. The handset is made for T Mobile by HTC – the makers of the terrific T-Mobile Dash smartphone (my current smartphone favorite).

When you slide open the Wing to reveal the keyboard the screen changes from the vertical to horizontal presentation mode.

The device itself comes in a beautiful royal blue color with that nice fuzzy-to-the-touch coating.  It includes a new QWERTY keyboard design (large, well-space keys slide out from underneath the screen), a large (2.8-inch diagonal) color screen, improved battery life and a 2.0 megapixel camera. There’s a microSD card slot (2GB cards are available now, 4GB later this year) to allow you room to save extra programs, music and videos.

The Wing is a terrific Pocket PC phone. Incoming phone calls sound great – and people I call tell me my voice sounds good to them too. (Isn't that why we buy cell phones?) My torture test for receiving a cellular signal (conducted at our Eastern Long Island testing center) proved the Wing is above average at locking into a signal. 

The lithium-ion polymer battery included is said to be good for 4 hours of talk and 6 days of standby under the best conditions. It lasted nearly two days per charge with normal use.

T-Mobile is marketing the Wing for $299.99 (after discounts and rebates) when you also sign a service plan contract. Data plans – and the ultra-cool MyFaves service (unlimited access to any five phone numbers of your choosing) are extra. Overall, the Wing is one cool device.

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